Comments on: Charles Booth In Spitalfields

By: ade

ade — Sat, 08 May 2021 09:42:30 +0000

Terrific photos if tinged with sadness at the poor children. That is when benefits were needed.
Nowadays you get a car, house etc for some minor ailment !

By: Peter J Washington

Peter J Washington — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 07:56:58 +0000

This was reality of one of the richest countries in the world, and this can be echoed in that time in Glasgow, Manchester, Leeds, et al throughout Britain, children’s deaths due to abject poverty, education was ignorance, but due to many heroes and heroines society changed

By: Scott Denny

Scott Denny — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 19:14:34 +0000

For those of you who would like to read a little more about Charles Booth this is a good source.
https://booth.lse.ac.uk/
Here’s something on the subject by the Gentle Author:
https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/the-cries-of-london

By: Cherub

Cherub — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 18:29:34 +0000

I borrowed a copy of Charles Booth’s London from my local public library back in the late 1980s. The lives of a lot of the poor children he wrote about really distressed me and he often recorded that the father was a drinker so there was no money. It was really tragic and made me very grateful that post war Britain had a welfare state. My parents grew up in the depression and remembered the humiliation of the means test. My father told me his mother would pawn his father’s best suit on a Monday so they could eat, then she’d redeem the pledge on Saturday so his father would be dressed for church on Sunday. It was a terrible hand to mouth existence for many, but people got on with it, didn’t complain and there was a huge sense of community – sadly something that has been so lost today. Parents who grew up like that instilled a good work ethic and strength of character in their children.

By: Richard Smith

Richard Smith — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 11:35:28 +0000

To look at the pictures is to speculate what sort of lives these folk had. One can only marvel at their resilience and their capacity to carry on. Bless ’em all.

By: Adele Lester

Adele Lester — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 11:10:22 +0000

I’ve often wondered about Booth’s descriptions of the poor of the East End. A reflection of the way people looked at the immigrants at that time, and unfortunately still the sentiment in so many of the present day ‘richest countries’ of the world. The more things change…. etc. etc.

By: paul loften

paul loften — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 11:03:05 +0000

The mention of the roughness of the area is so true. Both my mother and father would tell me tales of their childhood and youth in Spitalfields the 1920s and 30’s that would make me realise just how good I had it as a child . Now I tell my children about my rough childhood in East London the fifties and they think life can only get better. I wish.

By: Achim

Achim — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 09:58:44 +0000

A very special and fine Book — I love it so much!

Love & Peace
ACHIM

By: David Cantor

David Cantor — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 08:44:23 +0000

Spitalfields Nippers, a sublime book and probably one of the best that I have. Don’t dither, get a copy

By: Terry Basson

Terry Basson — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 08:43:03 +0000

The have nots ! In times when we were the most powerful country in the world with our Empire
and riches in tact.

Mans in humanity to man – such godless behavior !