Week 6 suggested essay topic:

Compare the importance of child labour in the industrialisation of Britain and France.Possible titles could be along the following lines:

"Was child labour necessary for the success of the industrial revolution?"
"Did France's path of development spare children the misery of Britain's industrial revolution?"
"Why was child labour eventually restricted in Britain and France?"

Useful readings

Bensimon, Fabrice, "Women and Children in the Machine-Made Lace Industry in Britain and France (1810-60)," Textile, vol. 18, no. 1 (2020), pp. 69-91. I haven't read this recent publication, which looks very interesting.

Cunningham, Hugh, "The Employment and Unemployment of Children in England c. 1680-1851," Past and Present, no. 126 (Feb. 1990), pp. 115-50.

---, "The Decline of Child Labour: Labour Markets and Family Economies in Europe and North America since 1830," EHR (2000).

Horrell, Sara and Jane Humphries, "Children's work and Wages, 1270-1860," Oxford Discussion Papers in Economic and Social History, no. 163 (March 2018).

Humphries, Jane, "Childhood and child labour in the British Industrial Revolution," EHR, vol. 66, no. 2 (2013), pp. 395-418. Start with this overview and introduction. The bibliography will be a useful guide to further reading.

Heywood, Colin, Childhood in nineteenth-century France: work, health and education among the 'classes populaires', Cambridge: CUP, 1988. Heywood, author of the short overview of French economic history listed among the general readings for the course, has written a number of things on childhood and child labour in France, including some journal articles.

--- , "The Market for Child Labour in Nineteenth-Century France," History, vol. 66, no. 216 (1981), pp. 34-49.

Honeyman, Katrina. Child Workers in England, 1780-1820: Parish Apprenticeships and the Making of the Early Industrial Labour Force, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007.

Kirby, Peter, Child Labour in Britain, 1750-1870. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

--- , "How Many Children Were 'Unemployed' in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century England?" Past & Present, no. 187 (May 2005), pp. 187-202.

Maynes, M.J., Taking the Hard Road: Life Course in French and German Worker's Autobiographies in the Era of Industrialization, Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press, 1995. This book, as the title suggests, uses the sort of evidence on which Humphries also relies and may be useful.

Rahikainen, M., Centuries of Child Labour: European Experiences from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century. Hampshire, UK: Ashgate, 2004.

Wallis, Patrick, This author has several studies of apprenticeship in London which may be useful. One recent published paper is:Leunig, Tim, Chris Minns, and Patrick Wallis, "Networks in the Premodern Economy: The Market for London Apprenticeships, 1600-1749," JEH, vol. 71 no. 2 (2011), pp. 413-43.