Comments on: In Search of the Spitalfields Nippers

By: marc hopla

marc hopla — Tue, 26 Feb 2019 13:22:42 +0000

I’ve just come across these photos. I often wonder what become of these young boys and girls. Amazingly, they may very well have been alive in the 1960s, or even into the 1970s. Their grandchildren may very well be still with us. I just hope their lives became better.

By: KarlKwiatkowski

KarlKwiatkowski — Fri, 02 Dec 2016 08:16:52 +0000

I never had a better life. I lived and I was an orphan on the streets up to 13 years. I had no clothes, I wore a few years. I patch them. I had no shoes, walked barefoot. Throughout that period, to 13 years, I never washed. I have four sisters and three brothers. One working on the people to take our bread. Wash windows, swept, was cleaning the animals. I remember not being invited to someone in a bathroom. I was barefoot and unwashed. I slept on the streets, park bench, next to a block. After I found these pictures, I brought remember how it was when I was a kid. Now I am 37 years old.
(Sorry for possible grammatical errors because I’m not English.)

By: anon

anon — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 12:54:19 +0000

quoted comment:

“This is the time of Downton Abbey, before the NHS, the time before universal education, the time of our great grandparents.

It’s the time when taxation did not exist, instead it was philanthropic donation in the form of great town halls, made of marble to honour the very people who paid slave wages, who had us working for soup. Workfare as the Tories call it.

We have had just 50 short years of a different society, and make no mistake, the Tories would take us back to 1913 in a heartbeat, and remove the welfare safety net.”

By: marianne isaacs

marianne isaacs — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 02:08:22 +0000

Oh my goodness how very special. I wonder what happened to them , It would be wonderful to know . I hope that life wasnt as hard as these pictures predict . Brings tears to my eyes .Gentle Author you have a real gift for evoking empathy with the people past and present of the East End and probably with people in general just by what you write about and how you portray them .

By: Phyllis

Phyllis — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 00:01:30 +0000

Their clothes also tell a story as each child is wearing adult garments that have been cut down and re-fashioned for them, this was a common practice well into the 20th century in poor communities.

By: Elizabeth Varadan

Elizabeth Varadan — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 14:06:36 +0000

These are marvelous pictures. They capture the whole life. Wonderful!

By: Sally Baldwin

Sally Baldwin — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 13:28:24 +0000

Thank you once again, Gentle Author, for your discernment and caring and diligence. You are indeed one of my historian heroes.

By: Phil Maxwell

Phil Maxwell — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 13:14:23 +0000

These photographs are amazing! Thanks for reviving them – can’t wait for the publication of the London album!

By: Carolyn Badcock - nee Hooper

Carolyn Badcock - nee Hooper — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 08:43:23 +0000

These photos are simply wonderful. I am particularly spellbound by the one of Lizzie Flynn and Dolly Green whose lives must have been extremely hard. Makes me want to treat them in some way………… perhaps a day off from the drudgery?

Thanks for all the work tracking these pictures down, gentle author!

By: Greg Tingey

Greg Tingey — Mon, 19 Aug 2013 06:46:25 +0000

Note the bare feet!