How a society treats the underprivileged may be indicative of social class divides, the distribution of power, and the opportunities available to different social groups. In 19th century London, poverty was often viewed as a state that was entered into through an individual's moral ineptitude or laziness. Very little consideration was given to other factors such as illness, disability, or lack of opportunities that could impact economic status. As a result, the poor and underprivileged were often viewed and treated with scorn, and authorities struggled to decide which classes of the poor deserved charity, and who was responsible for bearing the cost of helping them.
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0317-05 - A hunting piece on a new construction, March 8th 1798.
This satirical print by Issac Cruikshank depicts eight 'types' of English society hunting for various things. In the far left two bailiff's men with bludgeons pursue a debtor. They are followed by a solitary poor man who complains that he has been fruitlessly "hunting after money the whole day, and can't get a farthing."
Legislation to manage and provide support for the poor in England can be traced back as far as 1536, however the Poor Laws of 1601 were the first comprehensive attempts at addressing relief for the underprivileged. The Old Poor Law was passed during the reign of Elizabeth I and was a collection of laws that established the parish as the administrative unit responsible for the collection and distribution of aid for the poor. Under the Poor Law system, the "impotent poor" (those who were unable to work) were to be cared for in a poorhouse, while the "able-bodied poor" were to be put to work in a house of industry, and the "idle poor" (those who refused to work) were sent off to houses of correction or prison.
Left: Image of Newgate prison. Established in 1188 and demolished in 1902, Newgate Prison consisted of three wards: The Master's Side for those who could afford to pay for food and better accommodations, the Press Yard for special prisoners such as heretics and traitors, and the Commons for holding the poor and debtors. DA678.L64 1891 - London city : its history--streets--traffic--buildings--people by W.J. Loftie ; illustrated by W. Luker, Jr., from original drawings
Poorhouse facilities were spartan places designed to make poverty especially unattractive; the lack of comfort was designed to drive people to find more permanent work and housing solutions for themselves. The food provided was cheap and barely palatable, and living spaces were crowded and unsanitary. Residents often complained of rats and other vermin, and the work provided involved long hours and backbreaking tasks like crushing rocks and spinning cloth.
Left: Image of an asylum for the homeless poor at Cripplegate. HV4088.L8.M39 1862 - London Labour and the London Poor. Vol. 3 p. 49
English society drew a sharp division between those who could not work, such as the elderly and the seriously ill, and the able-bodied, who were expected to support themselves regardless of life circumstances that might affect their ability to do so. Aside from poorhouses there were very few social supports available to London's poor. While poorhouses provided free shelter and food to their charges, they usually fell short of providing a safe and wholesome environment and were not aimed at helping people rise out of poverty.
For much of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the parish system allowed municipalities to keep track of the poor, sick, and vagrant in their districts and distribute small amounts of aid. However, starting in the eighteenth century, strains on the system started to appear, particularly in larger parish districts. London and other urban centres experienced a major population boom as the Industrial Revolution caused people to migrate from rural areas to find employment. The parish system was not equipped to handle this major shift in population as the system required individuals to seek aid in the parish of their birth. This resulted in a new large body of poor people in London who were unable to access the little parish support available. Eighteenth century record keeping on the poor population and their living conditions is sparse, however, the wider London metropolitan area had 80 poorhouses by 1776. Returns filed as a result of the 1803 Act for Procuring Returns Relative to the Expense and Maintenance of the Poor in England estimated that 57% of the permanent poor were housed in poorhouses, and that 23% of those residents were from other parishes. In general, poor relief in London was characterized by a high level of institutionalization and large numbers of new migrants to the city. Those receiving aid were also generally old, female, and suffering from poor physical health.
The Able-Bodied Poor
The Able-Bodied Poor
Smithfield market
Smithfield market
Billingsgate Market
Billingsgate Market
Images illustrating the hustle and bustle of some popular London markets. Many markets specialized in selling particular type of goods such as the clothing market at Middlesex, the fish market at Billingsgate, or the Smithfield meat market. DA678.L64 1891 - London city
Middlesex street market
Middlesex street market
The journalist and social reform advocate Henry Mayhew wrote a series of investigatory articles about the varied lives of London's working classes in the mid-nineteenth century. His articles were originally published as a series for the Morning Chronicle newspaper, but they were later collected and reprinted as a four volume set titled London Labour and the London Poor: The Condition and Earnings of those that Will Work, Cannot Work, and Will Not Work. Mayhew documented the occupations, working conditions, living arrangements, religion, customs, and daily lives of a wide variety of London's poor and working classes. Mayhew's articles were notable for his reliance on firsthand observations, personal interviews, and his attempts to augment anecdotal information with census and police statistics. Mayhew personally interviewed all manner of workers including street vendors, dock labourers, workhouse employees, prostitutes, and child chimney sweeps. His descriptions starkly illustrated how precarious life was for London's poor. Illness, disease, and injury were a constant threat to those living on the edge of poverty, as even a temporary loss of employment could throw an able-bodied worker into an inescapable state of destitution.
A child mudlark. Mudlarks made their living by wading into the polluted mud of the Thames river during low tide to search for discarded or lost items that could be resold. Through his interviews with a group of children mudlarks, Mayhew found that they were usually either orphans or the children of the very poor. Several of the children stated that they were forced to work because their remaining parents were unable to find employment because of illness or grievous injuries. Mayhew describes the mudlarks as "...certainly about the most deplorable in their appearance of any I have met with ...they may be seen of all ages, from mere childhood to positive decrepitude...it cannot be said that they are clad in rags, for they are scarcely half covered by the tattered indescribable things that serve them for clothing; their bodies are grimed with the foul soil of the river, and their torn garments stiffened up like boards with dirt of every possible description." HV4088.L8.M39 1862 -London Labour and the London Poor. Vol. 2 p. 173
Mayhew identified six distinct types of London street folk:
Street-sellers: Those who sold a wide variety of goods such as fish, vegetables, fruit, seeds, trees, eatables/drinkables, stationary, literature, fine arts, manufactured goods, and live animals.
Street-buyers: Those who purchase old clothes, glass, bottles, broken metal etc.
Street-finders: Those who scavenge garbage such as dog-dung, cigar-ends, coal flecks, and bones
Street-performers, artists, and showmen: Performers, musicians, dancers, artists, and 'extraordinary' people and animals of all types
Street-artisans, or working peddlers: Those who either make or mend things for sale
Street-labourers: Those who provide a service on the street such as lamplighters and street sweepers.
Apple coster girl, aged eighteen. "I always liked the street-life very well... I have mostly kept a stall myself, but I've known gals as walk about with apples...the weight of the baskets is sich that the neck cricks...The gals begins working very early at our work; the parents makes them go out when a'most babies...by sitting in the stall from nine in the morning till... ten o'clock at night I can earn about 1s. 6d. a day. HV4088.L8.M39 1862 -London Labour and the London Poor. Vol. 1 pp. 17 and 47
Street acrobats. "When father first trained me, it hurt my back awfully. He used to take my legs and stretch them, and work them round in their sockets, and put them up straight by my side. That is what they called being 'cricked'...O, yes, I can remember being cricked, and it hurt me terrible." The acrobat claims that injuries are rare, but when a performer is injured they are supported by the circus or other members of the troop until they are able to return to work. HV4088.L8.M39 1862 -London Labour and the London Poor. Vol. 3 p. 103 and Vol. 2 p. 417.
Lumpers discharging beams from a timer ship at the commercial docks. "The lumpers make... during six months in the year, as much as 24s. [24 shillings]; and during the other six months they have nothing to do... the lumpers are the most drunken, debased, and poverty-stricken of all the classes of labouring men..." HV4088.L8.M39 1862 -London Labour and the London Poor. Vol. 2 p. 499 and Vol. 3 p. 298.
Image of Old Sarah the blind hurdy-gurdy player with her guide Liza. Old Sarah is described as a musician who was a well known and much appreciated London street performer for over fifty years. One day "in crossing Seymour-street, she and her guide Liza were knocked down by a cab, as it suddenly turned a corner..." her guide was killed and Sarah was forced to give up "...playing on the hurdy-gurdy [as] her hand [was now] needed for the crutch..." Mayhew claims that Sarah died as a result of losing both her trusted guide and her only means of employment in a single tragic accident. HV4088.L8.M39 1862 -London Labour and the London Poor. Vol. 2 p. 387 and Vol. 3 p. 169-170
A sewer rat catcher. Mayhew interviewed a distinguished street labourer, named Jack Black, who identified himself as "Her Majesty's own rat catcher". Black described the many horrific injuries that he received in the course of his job, including times that he was near death from infections received from rat bites: "I should think I've been ratting a'most for five-and-thirty year; indeed, I may say from childhood...I've been near dead near three times from bites. I once had the teeth of a rat break in my finger, which was dreadful bad, and swole, and putrified...When a bite is a bad one, it festers and forms a hard core ulcer which is very painful... I generally cuts the bite out clean with a lancel, and squeege the humour well from it..." Black described treating many of his injuries himself and when he did consult a doctor he expressed doubt as to whether the doctor's ministrations were helping or hindering his recovery: "After all, I think I cured myself by cheating the doctor...for I began to pick up as soon as I left off [the] doctor's stuff." HV4088.L8.M39 1862 -London Labour and the London Poor. Vol. 3 p. 15
A wallflower girl. Mayhew interviewed two sisters who worked as flower girls, aged 11 and 15. The girls claimed that their mother passed away seven years ago, and they have since supported themselves with their brother's income as a costermonger and by selling flowers on the street. The girls prided themselves on being able to read and write, and that they were able to support themselves without having to trouble the parish. Mayhew claims that many flower girls were girls "...of an immoral character, and some [were] sent out by their parents to make out a livelihood by prostitution." Another flower girl, who was sent into the streets and encouraged to engage in prostitution by her father at the age of nine ended her interview with Mayhew by stating that "she was sick and tired...of her life." HV4088.L8.M39 1862 -London Labour and the London Poor. Vol. 1 p. 113 and Vol. 2 p. 142
The Idle Poor and Those Who Refuse to Work
The Idle Poor and Those Who Refuse to Work
The 'idle poor' - those who refused to work - were a subsection of London's underprivileged that were regarded with a high level of social contempt. Beggars, vagrants, thieves, prostitutes, and swindlers were some of the most visible examples of those considered idle or unemployed. Mayhew, however, recognized that many of the people considered 'idle' were not in that state because of an unwillingness to work, but rather were simply unable to work because of injuries, disabilities, or severe illness. While Mayhew expressed more sympathy for the idle poor than was typical, he still reserved the majority of his compassion for those who attempted to provide a trade or product, as opposed to those who exclusively begged for alms. The below images are individuals that Mayhew identified as 'noble examples' of 'worthy' disabled tradesmen. Mayhew identified these men as worthy of charity and compassion because, while they were often forced to beg in order to survive, they attempted to 'redeem' themselves by also offering a trade or service.
Blind bootlace seller. HV4088.L8.M39 1862 -London Labour and the London Poor. Vol. 2 p. 353
"Those who have not lost their sight by the small-pox, have gone blind from accidents, such as substances thrown or thrust in the eyes, or inflammation induced from cold and other ailments" Vol. 1 p. 442
Crippled street bird-seller. HV4088.L8.M39 1862 -London Labour and the London Poor. Vol. 1 p. 463
"I was forced to go into the workhouse, and I was there between four and five months. O, I hated it...I've never been near the parish since, though I've often had nothing to eat many a day." Vol. 2 p. 78
One-legged street sweeper. HV4088.L8.M39 1862 -London Labour and the London Poor. Vol. 2 p. 193
"The scrofulous disease it was that lamed me - it come with a swelling on the knee... and a piece of bone come from it...I didn't go to the hospital then... for the doctor said a close confined place wouldn't do me no good" Vol. 2 p. 554
Street seller of nutmeg graters. HV4088.L8.M39 1862 -London Labour and the London Poor. Vol. 2 p. 241
"I was in a workhouse with a fever all the summer. I was destitute afterwards, and obliged to start selling in the streets...I suffer a great deal of pains in my back and knees..." Vol. 1 p. 364
The Poor Laws and parish charity system fell short of providing enough support for London's growing population of poor. From the firsthand accounts gathered by Mayhew it is obvious that many were struggling to access basic necessities such as nutritious food, warm clothing, footwear, and shelter. It is also evident that many suffered from illnesses and injuries as a result of their employment or poor living conditions. Effective, safe, and affordable medical treatment was out of reach for many of London's poor because of the relatively high cost of a physician's care. When a doctor was consulted, patients would complain that the medicines prescribed were at best disgusting or ineffective and, at worst, caused further harm. Medical mistrust and the prohibitive cost of medical care left a sizable portion of London's population in need of affordable and safe medical information they could access and implement on their own.
Published February 2025 by Sade Dunn, Public Service Archives and Special Collections Assistant.
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