Victorian children didn’t have computers or television so they played lots of games. Board games such as Snakes and Ladders, Ludo and Draughts were popular indoor games. Outdoors, Victorian children played with toys like hoops, marbles and skipping ropes, with friends in the street, or in the school playground. They played chasing games such as Tag, Blind Man’s Bluff, and played catch with balls. If they didn’t have a proper ball, they made them from old rags, and made bats from pieces of wood.
Some of the games that were popular in Victorian times are still played in playgrounds today.
The toys children played with in Victorian times often depended on how wealthy their family was. Children from rich families played with rocking horses, train sets, doll’s houses and toy soldiers, whereas children from poor families tended to play with home-made toys such as peg dolls, spinning tops and skipping ropes.
Here below is a set of lovely photos from Mitch Young that shows portraits of children with their toys from the mid-19th century.
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