Last Podcast on the Left

Episode 647: The Horrible History of Chimney Sweeps

Release Date: December 19, 2025
Hosts: Marcus Parks, Henry Zebrowski, The Last Podcast Network

Overview

This Christmas-themed episode delves into the gruesome and often tragically overlooked history of chimney sweeps, focusing particularly on Britain's notorious use of children for this dangerous and deadly job. The hosts unpack the evolution of chimney sweeping as a profession, its connection to shifting architectural styles and social reform, the horrifying daily realities faced by child sweeps, and the slow crawl toward legal protections and eventual abolition of this practice. The conversation is characteristically laced with the hosts' signature dark humor, banter, and irreverent cultural references.

Main Themes & Structure

• Iconic Significance of Chimneys at Christmas: The romanticized image of Santa Claus coming down the chimney versus the dark truth behind real chimneys.

• Origins and Evolution of Chimney Sweeping: From birds and brute force to small boys crawling through elaborate, soot-choked flues.

• Why Chimneys Became So Deadly in Britain: How fires, taxes, and the rise of coal made, in England especially, the job so uniquely perilous.

• The Child Chimney Sweep (“Climbing Boys”): How children became the tool of choice for cleaning chimneys, how they were acquired, and how they were trained (or brutalized) for the work.

• The Master Sweep: Exploration of the often cartoonishly evil, sometimes tragically broken men who ran child sweep “gangs.”

• Trauma and Hazards of the Job: Graphic details on burns, falls, suffocation, and scrotal cancer—the infamous “soot wart.”

• Attempts at Reform and Abolition: Early, largely ineffective laws, and the role of public outrage in changing the fate of child sweeps.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Dark Side of the Chimney: From Santa Claus to Soot (06:24–08:28)

• Chimneys are a mainstay of Christmas imagery, but in Britain, their history is suffused with child labor and death.
• The idea of chimneys as portals for magical beings dates back to medieval witch-hunting manuals (Malleus Maleficarum, 07:04).
• “Today, the only thing we’re gonna send through the chimney… is dead little boys.” – Marcus (07:58).

2. What Is Soot, and Why Clean It? (08:40–09:51)

• Soot, a byproduct of burning coal and wood, is highly flammable and dangerous.
• It was considered valuable and used for products like fertilizer and shoe polish, and bizarrely, some believed it whitened teeth.

3. Evolution of Chimney Architecture and the Rise of Child Labor (13:39–17:24)

• British (especially London) chimneys became small, tortuously winding structures due to rebuilding after the Great Fire of 1666 and tax evasion tricks (15:13).
• Coal replaced wood as the primary fuel, leaving dense soot that couldn’t be cleared by anything but the smallest, most dexterous bodies—i.e., children as young as four.

4. The Life and Death of Climbing Boys (23:06–29:17)

• Most sweeps used hands, feet, and shoulders, rarely brooms. "It really was the same principle as throwing a big bird down there with a rope tied around its neck… but this one's got a brain." – Marcus (23:33)
• Climbing boys were orphans, kidnapped urchins, or sold by poor families.
• Journey from child to journeyman to (rarely) master sweep, locked in by deformities or trauma.
• “Work long enough to leave or live long enough to become a master. That’s the dream.” (27:54)

5. The Master Sweep: Cartoons Come to Life (24:10–25:33)

• The archetype is one of Dickensian evil: deeply cruel yet lazy, overseeing gangs of children, sometimes forcibly reusing corpses for cleaning.

6. Extreme Hazards and Tortures of the Trade (44:29–52:37)

• Kids would be forced up burning chimneys (28:10) or suffocated, stuck, or even burned alive when master sweeps lit fires underneath them to “incentivize” movement (58:44–59:17, 61:09).
• Naked or near-naked, developing massive calluses from deliberate exposure to brine and repeated scrapes.
• Many deaths involved kids getting fatally wedged and requiring the chimney to be dismantled, their corpses fished out like dead animals in a wall.

“Many sweeps died while cleaning the decorative chimney pots… and create a sort of boy bomb that could also kill a passerby on the street.” – Marcus (44:29)

7. The Gruesome “Sweepers’ Cancer” (71:41–77:45)

• First discovered by Percival Pott; caused by soot irritating the skin, leading to cancerous warts mostly in the scrotum.
• Often misdiagnosed as syphilis; “the sweep’s mouth would fall into a state of foul ulceration… eventually resulting in the destruction of the entire jaw for no reason whatsoever.” – Marcus (74:55)

8. Reforms, Backlash, and the End of Child Chimney Sweeps (64:38–78:36)

• 1788: Parliament’s first (ineffectual) regulations (no kids under 8, but only the rule against noisy street calling survived).
• Chimney sweeps became symbols of lower-class suffering and the social reform movement.
• Valentine Gray’s murder (67:27–70:53) and subsequent outrage led to the Chimney Sweeps and Climbing Boys Act of 1834, but only by the late 19th century was child labor in this trade effectively ended.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“There’s so many ways to kill a boy … for every type of boy, there’s a way to kill them.” – Henry (02:21)

“Work long enough to leave or live long enough to become a master. That’s the dream.” – Marcus (27:54)

“It really was the same principle as throwing a big bird down there with a rope tied around its neck. But this one’s got a brain.” – Marcus (23:33)

“Now were they paid or were they just like—”
“They were paid. Usually the master sweep would kind of take care of the sweeps to the best of his ability. Usually he’s not very good at it.” – Henry and Marcus (35:47–36:08)

“A 35-year-old former chimney sweep claimed he’d been cutting his own soot warts off his scrotum continuously since he was 15 years old.” – Marcus (77:19)

“I just love eliminating boys. Because I was one. No, I didn’t like them then.” – Henry (54:23)

“This is why annoying people, people should not be in charge of anything. People with really great intentions, with no ability." – Henry (66:00), on the Society for Superseding the Necessity of Climbing Boys

Notable Segment Timestamps

• [06:14]: Introduction to the real history of chimney sweeps.
• [13:39]: Why chimneys in Britain were so dangerous.
• [23:06]: Explanation of sweep tools, or lack thereof.
• [27:07]: How master sweeps acquired child labor.
• [30:23]: The story of a real-life fatality in the trade.
• [35:47]: The fate of journeyman and master sweeps.
• [44:29]: Graphic details of climbing boy fatalities.
• [58:44]: Lighting fires underneath stuck boys and the origin of the phrase "light a fire under someone."
• [71:41]: Discovery and effects of sweeps' scrotal cancer.
• [77:49]: The last death, legislative reforms, and end of the climbing boy era.

Additional Memorable Anecdotes/Explanations

• Slang of the Children: “Wide hoes”, “notchy holes”, “bare nines” for chimneys; “tuggery” for clothes, “skafta” for police, and “stingo” for ale.
• Pied Piper Inspiration: Master sweeps so notorious in their child collecting, like Johan Kiesler, they perhaps became the origin of the Pied Piper legend (39:02).

Tone & Style

As is tradition with Last Podcast on the Left, the approach balances explicit, thoroughly researched history with an irreverent, often absurd sense of humor. The hosts oscillate between disgust, mockery of the past, and incredulous fascination—with interwoven jokes, bits of improv, and frequent asides referencing pop culture, modern labor practices, and their own childhood misadventures.

Closing Thoughts

The episode provides a deeply unsettling yet oddly engaging look at one of history’s grimmest occupations. The hosts repeatedly draw connections between the realities of the Industrial Revolution, the UK’s class system, and present-day labor abuses, all while lampooning the macabre absurdities of history. Though some moments border on the grotesque, the trio’s chemistry ensures that even the darkest chapters are delivered with a blend of skepticism, sadness, and satirical catharsis.

Further Listening/Calls to Action:

• The hosts plug their own Patreon, live shows, Spring Heel Jack coffee, and merchandise (80:16–82:05).
• Encouragement to check out their YouTube for additional content.

For Listeners:
If you want to understand the truth behind the soot-stained lore of the chimney sweep—and why your own family hearth is (hopefully) child-labor free—this episode’s a jaw-dropping, historically grounded, dark-comedy journey through Christmas coal dust and the moral grime of Victorian England.