London: The Autobiography: 200 Years of the Capitals Life by Those Who Saw It

Author:Lewis, Jon E. [Lewis, Jon E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Constable Robinson
Published: 2012-04-30T21:00:00+00:00

This description enables us to appreciate the conditions inside these dwellings. We may add also some evidence given by public officials, who sometimes have occasion to enter the homes of the workers.

On November 16th, 1843, Mr. Carter, the coroner for Surrey, held an inquest on the body of a certain Ann Galway, who died at the age of 45. We take the following account of her home from press reports. She lived in no. 3, White Lion Court, Bermondsey Street, London, with her husband and nineteen-year-old son. The family occupied a single small room in which there were neither beds, bedding nor other furniture. She lay dead by the side of her son on a heap of feathers which practically covered her naked body, for she had neither sheet nor blanket. The feathers had stuck so fast to her that the doctor was unable to examine the body until it had been washed. The doctor found that the body was emaciated and verminous. Part of the floor in the room had been torn up and the hole used by the family as a privy.

On Monday, January 15th, 1844, two boys appeared before the magistrate at Worship Street police court, London, charged with stealing a half-cooked cow-heel from a shop. They immediately devoured their spoils as they were ravenous. The magistrate felt it necessary to enquire further into the circumstances and was given the following information by the police. The boys were brothers and their mother was a widow. Their father had served in the Army and had later been a policeman. After the death of her husband, the widow was left to struggle along as best she could with nine children. The family lived in dire poverty at no. 2, Pool’s Place, Quaker Court, Spitalfields. When visited by a policeman she was found with six of her children. They were all huddled together and the only furniture consisted of two rush-bottomed chairs with seats gone, a little table with two legs broken, one broken cup and one small dish. Hardly a spark of fire came from the hearth and in one corner lay as many rags as would fill a woman’s apron. It was on these rags that the whole family slept at night. As they had no blankets they slept in the miserable tatters worn during the daytime. The wretched woman told the policeman that she had to sell her bed during the previous year in order to buy food. She had pawned her bedding with the grocer for food. Indeed everything had been sold to get bread. The magistrate made her a generous grant from the poor-box.

In February 1844 an application for assistance was made to the Marlborough Street magistrate on behalf of Theresa Bishop, a 60-year- old widow, and her 26-year-old daughter who was ill. She lived at no. 5, Brown Street, Grosvenor Square, in a little back room hardly bigger than a cupboard. The room contained no proper furniture. A chest was used both as table and chair, while a heap of rags in a corner served as a bed for both women.

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