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Authors: Michael Paterson
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twenty-four hours, at work or in the streets. In homes where no one possessed cooking skills, and where there were in any case few facilities, there would be no incentive even for the womenfolk to stay indoors.
The homes of the poor often occupied the centre of cities, while the better off moved to the edges or to the burgeoning suburbs. In central London the great rookeries – as slum districts were then known – around Drury Lane, Seven Dials and Westminster Abbey were so complex, and so dangerous tooutsiders, that even in daytime the police did not venture into them except in numbers. When large building projects, such as the creation of Victoria Street in Westminster or Holborn Viaduct, were undertaken, scores of homes were demolished – without any attempt at rehousing their occupants – and thousands left to crowd into tenements elsewhere. Proud attempts at civic improvement could exacerbate the problem.
The Streets and the Workhouse
It would be a mistake to imagine that the Victorians were complacent about conditions like these. For a host of reasons there was considerable anxiety regarding the rookeries. There were innumerable visits, numerous reports, frequent meetings of committees and commissions, and several schemes for alleviation of overcrowding. One motive was the danger from illness, for there were outbreaks of cholera in the forties and fifties – a disease previously not known in Britain, and therefore a symptom of a worsening situation. Another reason was fear, on the part of the property-owning classes, of social unrest. The thirties and forties were decades of serious depression and disturbance. In neighbouring countries there were outbreaks of revolution (France experienced these in 1830 and 1848). The broad mass of the poor was regarded as a potential threat to order, and it was in the interests of the state to see that they were not driven to extremism. More significantly, there was a realization that industrialization had created intolerable conditions and that these must be improved. One of the many attractive qualities of comfortably-off Victorians was their sincere concern for the unfortunate. There was a genuine desire, in an age that saw itself as enlightened and progressive, to better the lot of the destitute. Prominent among those concerned with the problem of housing the poor was PrinceAlbert, who designed a set of ‘model dwellings’ that were exhibited at the Great Exhibition (an example of this is preserved). Another was George Peabody, an American philanthropist who in 1862 donated a sum of money large enough to build eight entire housing estates during the following two decades. Though these may strike modern observers as having a barrack-like austerity, they were a very considerable step forward in urban planning, and the original buildings – estates can be seen near Covent Garden and Westminster Abbey, among other places – are still doing duty today. His efforts were, of course, welcomed by the Government (both official and public opinion favoured private enterprise as a means of solving social ills); the Queen offered him a knighthood, though he was unable to accept it without giving up his United States citizenship, something he was unwilling to do.
For those who were destitute, and who lacked the means even to rent bed space on a floor, there were the streets. Today we are used to seeing people sleeping rough in the streets of cities, but there are comparatively few of them. In the nineteenth century there were thousands, just as – in an age when poverty was greater than we can comprehend – there were thousands, not dozens, of beggars. At dusk in London the benches on the Embankment began to fill with rough-sleepers, while Hyde Park, Green Park and St James’ Park housed swarms of them. Naturally it was easier to live in the open during summer, and each autumn numbers of homeless – most commonly the elderly – committed suicide to avoid the rigours of winter.
The homes of the poor often occupied the centre of cities, while the better off moved to the edges or to the burgeoning suburbs. In central London the great rookeries – as slum districts were then known – around Drury Lane, Seven Dials and Westminster Abbey were so complex, and so dangerous tooutsiders, that even in daytime the police did not venture into them except in numbers. When large building projects, such as the creation of Victoria Street in Westminster or Holborn Viaduct, were undertaken, scores of homes were demolished – without any attempt at rehousing their occupants – and thousands left to crowd into tenements elsewhere. Proud attempts at civic improvement could exacerbate the problem.
The Streets and the Workhouse
It would be a mistake to imagine that the Victorians were complacent about conditions like these. For a host of reasons there was considerable anxiety regarding the rookeries. There were innumerable visits, numerous reports, frequent meetings of committees and commissions, and several schemes for alleviation of overcrowding. One motive was the danger from illness, for there were outbreaks of cholera in the forties and fifties – a disease previously not known in Britain, and therefore a symptom of a worsening situation. Another reason was fear, on the part of the property-owning classes, of social unrest. The thirties and forties were decades of serious depression and disturbance. In neighbouring countries there were outbreaks of revolution (France experienced these in 1830 and 1848). The broad mass of the poor was regarded as a potential threat to order, and it was in the interests of the state to see that they were not driven to extremism. More significantly, there was a realization that industrialization had created intolerable conditions and that these must be improved. One of the many attractive qualities of comfortably-off Victorians was their sincere concern for the unfortunate. There was a genuine desire, in an age that saw itself as enlightened and progressive, to better the lot of the destitute. Prominent among those concerned with the problem of housing the poor was PrinceAlbert, who designed a set of ‘model dwellings’ that were exhibited at the Great Exhibition (an example of this is preserved). Another was George Peabody, an American philanthropist who in 1862 donated a sum of money large enough to build eight entire housing estates during the following two decades. Though these may strike modern observers as having a barrack-like austerity, they were a very considerable step forward in urban planning, and the original buildings – estates can be seen near Covent Garden and Westminster Abbey, among other places – are still doing duty today. His efforts were, of course, welcomed by the Government (both official and public opinion favoured private enterprise as a means of solving social ills); the Queen offered him a knighthood, though he was unable to accept it without giving up his United States citizenship, something he was unwilling to do.
For those who were destitute, and who lacked the means even to rent bed space on a floor, there were the streets. Today we are used to seeing people sleeping rough in the streets of cities, but there are comparatively few of them. In the nineteenth century there were thousands, just as – in an age when poverty was greater than we can comprehend – there were thousands, not dozens, of beggars. At dusk in London the benches on the Embankment began to fill with rough-sleepers, while Hyde Park, Green Park and St James’ Park housed swarms of them. Naturally it was easier to live in the open during summer, and each autumn numbers of homeless – most commonly the elderly – committed suicide to avoid the rigours of winter.
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