Chimney Sweeping…not just for boys

Men and women have been practicing the chimney sweep trade for hundreds of years. The job was dirty, but necessary, and anything but glamorous.



Photograph by Horace Nicholls of a woman chimney sweep in wartime Kent, undated.

Horace Nicholls was one of two professional photographers who were commissioned in 1917 by the Women’s Work Committee of the newly founded Imperial War Museum to take photographs of women at work during the First World War. This photograph shows a woman chimney sweep in Kent, ‘carrying on the business of her husband who was a sweep before the war’ – one of the many examples of women stepping into previously male-dominated professions during the period between 1914 and 1918.

Chimneynews.net

Mrs. Rosanna Forster from Kent is a chimney sweep, carrying on her husband’s business while he serves abroad.

Photo property of Imperial War Museum

 Sweeping is a perfectly legitimate profession for women in today’s world.  Go get em girls…sky’s the limit;)