Charles Booth’s Spitalfields
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In the East London volume of Charles Booth’s notebooks of research for his Survey into Life & Labour of the People of London (1886-1903), I came upon an account of a visit to Spitalfields in spring 1898, when he walked through many of the streets and locations around the same time Horace Warner took his Spitalfields Nippers photographs. So I thought I would select descriptions from Booth’s notebooks and place Warner’s pictures alongside, comparing their views of the same subject.
March 18th Friday 1898 – Walk with Sergeant French
Walked round a district bounded to the North by Quaker St, on the East by Brick Lane and on the West by Commercial St, being part of the parish of Christ Church, Spitalfields.
Back of big house, Quaker St
Starting at the Police Station in Commercial St, East past St Stephen’s Church into Quaker St. Rough, Irish. Brothels on the south side of the street past the Court called New Square. Also a Salvation Army ‘Lighthouse’ which encourages the disreputable to come this way. The railway has now absorbed all the houses on the North side as far as opposite Pool Square. Wheler St also Rough Irish, does not look bad, shops underneath.
Courts South of Quaker St – Pope’s Head Court, lately done up and repaired, and a new class in them since the repairs, poor not rough. One or two old houses remaining with long weavers’ windows in the higher storeys.
New Square, Rough, one one storey house, dogs chained in back garden…
Pool Sq
Pool Square, three storeyed houses, rough women about, Irish. One house with a wooden top storey, windows broken. This is the last of an Irish colony, the Jews begin to predominate when Grey Eagle St is reached. These courts belong to small owners who generally themselves occupy one of the houses in the courts themselves.
Isaac Levy
Grey Eagle St Jews on East side, poor. Gentiles, rough on West side, mixture of criminal men in street. Looks very poor, even the Jewish side but children booted, fairly clean, well clothed and well fed. Truman’s Brewery to the East side. To Corbet’s Court, storeyed rough Irish, brothels on either side of North end.
Washing Day
Children booted but with some very bad boots, by no means respectable….
Pearl St
Great Pearl St Common lodging houses with double beds – thieves and prostitutes.
South into Little Pearl St and Vine Court, old houses with long small-paned weavers windows to top storeys, some boarded up in the middle. On the West side, lives T Grainger ‘Barrows to Let’
Parsley Season in Crown Court
Crown Court, two strong men packing up sacks of parsley…
Carriage Folk of Crown Court – Tommy Nail & Willie Dellow
The Great Pearl St District remains as black as it was ten years ago, common lodging houses for men, women and doubles which are little better than brothels. Thieves, bullies and prostitutes are their inhabitants. A thoroughly vicious quarter – the presence of the Cambridge Music Hall in Commercial St makes it a focussing point for prostitutes
Detail of Charles Booth’s Descriptive Map of London Poverty 1889
It’s interesting to know the kids had expectations to help out and do jobs and run errands .
Kids left school at 14 too .
Marvelous pictures.. Doesn’t seem that long ago..I’ve been very lucky. After the war in Poplar we had a happy childhood. Not wanting for anything
It’s of its time but his descriptions of the people he encountered is appalling by today’s standards. Totally lacking in any kind of empathy.
Interesting how often Booth uses the word ‘rough’. it is employed almost as a sociological descriptive term.
The word was used in my childhood. I grew up in a two-up -two-down terrace in Bolton in the 196Os and 70s. It was a working class community but considered ‘decent’ not ‘rough’. As children we were clean and tidy. Those we deemed rough sometimes had matted hair, wore old clothes, looked unwashed and swore without a care. They mostly lived in different streets. As kids, we avoided them – were scared of them even. The children would fight us if we strayed into their territory and we usually lost.
We understood, without really comprehending, that we were growing up in a world of hierarchy even amongst the working class. ‘Rough’ was a slur, which is why I am surprised to see a sociological pioneer like Booth using the word so freely but I suppose bias was common amongst researchers in Victorian times.
I have revisited the beautiful book by SPITALFIELDS NIPPERS, which GA already dedicated to me in 2014. The texts he has now found are an excellent addition to the history.
It is also touching that class differences are expressed in barefoot walkers and shoe wearers: Jewish children were also poor, but at least they wore boots…
Love & Peace
ACHIM
I read Charles Booth’s work in the late 80s, it was one of many things that prompted me to leave my job and read for a degree in history at Queen Mary College, Mile End in the early 90s. I’d started off by reading for a Social Science degree with the Open University but felt I wasn’t being stretched enough and wanted to study full time.
Harsh words in the write-up, especially with the word ‘rough’ constantly repeated, but certainly hard times to be living in at the time.