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Distinguished Favorite of the 2017 Independent Press Awards for Historical Fiction "The Coachman" Victorian Era London Lauren Birkacre may have been praised for being a well-behaved inmate of Bethnal Green Workhouse, but stepping into life beyond those walls became a rude awakening. She strives to overcome the obstacles of poverty and a substandard education at the workhouse's ragged school. Several strokes of good luck come her way, none of which she takes for granted, one of them securing employment at London's Home Office. She is soon chosen to conduct a census of working children to help implement the Elementary Education Act of 1870, which established England's compulsory elementary public school system. In view of England's industrial might, the numbers of illegally working children had long been omitted from previous censuses.



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