Shock revelations about London's poor ......the state of the capital in 1889 ..... on the wireless

Now, the story of the poor in London in the late 19th century is well known.

And that is in part due to the work of Charles Booth, who is the subject of another in the series on In Our Time, on Radio 4.

"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Charles Booth's survey, The Life and Labour of the People in London, published in 17 volumes from 1889 to 1903. Booth (1840-1916), a Liverpudlian shipping line owner, surveyed every household in London to see if it was true, as claimed, that as many as a quarter lived in poverty. 

He found that it was closer to a third, and that many of these were either children with no means of support or older people no longer well enough to work. 

He went on to campaign for an old age pension, and broadened the impact of his findings by publishing enhanced Ordnance Survey maps with the streets coloured according to the wealth of those who lived there.

With, Emma Griffin, Professor of Modern British History at the University of East Anglia, Sarah Wise, Adjunct Professor at the University of California, and, Lawrence Goldman, Emeritus Fellow in History at St Peter’s College, University of Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson"

Location; London

Pictures; from an earlier work on London's poor ...... the Kitchen Fox Court Gray’s-Inn- Lane and the London Costermonger, from London Labour & the London Poor 1851

Booth's Life and Labour Survey, In Our Time, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wsxf