Charles Booth's London Poverty Maps - Genealogists' Forum

Kit · #1 21-10-21, 11:43

I just read about these on the WDYTYA digital magazine. It's quite interesting to look at the London maps and work out how well off, or otherwise, my ancestors were.

Charles Booth

No surprise my Bridges weren't in the affluent area of London and I'll check some of my other families tomorrow but I don't suspect any better for them.

Jill · #2 21-10-21, 13:11

I went to the London School of Economics in a temperature/humidity controlled research room to see the original notes on of my grocer relative's interview for the survey.

Phoenix · #3 21-10-21, 13:16

They are amazing: not so much the maps as the accompanying notebooks.

Merry · #4 21-10-21, 15:37

Some of the notebooks are digitized here:

https://booth.lse.ac.uk/notebooks

Ann from Sussex · #5 29-10-21, 18:37

I used them a lot when I was researching my London family roots and I bought a set of copies some years ago. The thing that most struck me was how the wealthy and the poor lived in close proximity to each other in parts of London like Mayfair and Belgravia that nowadays are regarded as very upmarket and only affordable by multi millionaires.

Phoenix · #6 29-10-21, 19:16

A few years back, Best Mate and I visited a house on Open House weekend in a street where her ancestor had lived. Very trendy today, and the owner proudly said the street had been a gated community in the Victorian period. You could see why. It had been a mews and the occupants had all lived above the stables. No concern for the residents - except the equine ones, and the carriages they pulled!

Ann from Sussex · #7 30-10-21, 12:57

Lol! Did he not realise that it was the servants and working class that lived in the mews and in very cramped, poor conditions at that? In 1851 my 3xgt grandparents plus their 7 children were living at 30 Grosvenor Mews, St George Hanover Square, Westminster which, nowadays sounds a *very* posh address. However then there were 50 people living at the same address with notes like "over wheelwright's shop", "1st tenement in yard" "2nd tenement in yard", "tailor's workshop" (my family!). I think it was probably a rookery and certainly not an upmarket bijou address!