1785 CHIMNEY SWEEPS AND EDUCATION OF THE CHILDREN OF THE POOR 062. HANWAY, Jonas. A sentimental history of Chimney Sweepers, in London and Westminster. Shewing the necessity of putting them under regulations to prevent the grossest inhumanity to the climbing boys with a letter to a London clergyman on Sunday Schools calculated for the preservation of the children of the Poor. London: Sold by Dodsley in Pall Mall and Sewell in Cornhill. 1785. Engraved frontispiece and plate. Early nineteenth century quarter calf, leading hinge weakening but an excellent, clean, wide-margined copy. GOLDSMITHS 13090. The plight of the Climbing Boys was one of the last social problems to which Hanway turned his attention. Hanway and David Porter, a master sweep, who worked with him to improve the lot of young sweeps estimated that in London there were between 500 and 600 children doing this work. These dirty, stunted creatures, often deformed and burned from accidents at work, crying the streets of London in all weathers, were the most potent example of abused children. In 1773 Hanway set up a special committee of the Marine Society to campaign for better treatment and proper regulation. In Defects of Police, 1775, Hanway returned to this theme. The present work, one of Hanway's last productions, carried the campaign forward. Real reform came with scandalous slowness. Blake, Dickens and Kingsley all had occasion to paint vivid and depressing pictures of the plight of the climbing boys as it remained almost unchanged until well into the nineteenth century. Stephen Lushington and others continued the campaign and it was left to Lord Shaftesbury to restrict and at last abolish the use of children in this dirty and dangerous work.