Abstract

A Map for Mayhew's London: The Geography of Poverty in the Mid-Nineteenth Century DAVID R. GREEN NTHE COURSE of the nineteenth century geographical disparities in wealth within London sharpened and were clarified in the minds of the metropolitan middle class. Conditions in the impoverished and pestilential districts to the east of the City and along the Thames contrasted sharply with those in the more salubrious West End and suburban parishes. Although this distinction wasI not new, and indeed had formed a deep rooted division within London for some considerable time, disparities in wealth between districts took on more concrete dimensions and posed greater problems as the century progressed. Contemporary awareness of the problem deepened in the second quarter of the century, prompted by economic decline and the threat of working-class radicalism. As conditions deteriorated in the 1840s concern mounted, of which Henry Mayhew's investigations into the lives of the London poor was but one example. Thereafter the divergent experiences of the inhabitants in eastern and western districts occupied a central role in contemporary thought, and continued to do so through to Charles Booth's survey later in the century. This paper therefore seeks to clarify the situation at mid-century and