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Railways and the Western European Capitals pp 29–45Cite as

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London: Wedges into the Slums

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Abstract

Where are they all gone, sir? Why, some’s gone down Whitechapel way; some’s gone in the Dials; some’s gone to Kentish Town; and some’s gone to the Workus. It’s awful; and everywhere the rents is run up so, that where we used to pay two-and-six a week we now has to pay four shillings and four-and-six. It’s about time now as the world come to an end.1

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Notes

  1. Jack Simmons, The Victorian Railway (London: Thames and Hudson, 1991), 20, 80, 155.

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  2. Kellett, Impact of Railways, 2, 11.

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  3. On the map of the Metropolitan Railway Commission, this central zone was bordered by Edgeware Road, Park Lane, Grosvenor Place, Vauxhall Road and Bridge, Kennington Lane, Walcot Lane, Lambeth Road, Blacksmith Street, Borough High Street, Wellington Street, London Bridge, Bishopsgate, Sun Street, Crown Street, Finsbury Square, City Road, Euston Road, and Marylebone Road. HC, 1846 (719) XVII. All existing terminals were outside of these limits in 1846.

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  4. H. J. Dyos, “The Slums of Victorian London,” Victorian Studies 11 (September 1967): 37–38; see also H. J. Dyos and D. A. Reeder, “Slums and Suburbs,” in Dyos and Wolff, Victorian City, 1:366; Kellett, Impact of Railways, 8–9, 331.

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  5. Royal Commission on Housing of the Working Classes, Q. 10771 (Clerk of the Public Bills, Lords); Q. 10687 (Denton); 3 Hansard, CLXI (1861), 67.

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  9. For example, Henry D. Davies, “The Way Out,” A letter addressed (by permission) to the Earl of Derby, K. G., in which the evils of the overcrowded Town Hovel, and the advantages of the Suburban Cottage, are contrasted (London: Longman, Green, Longman & Roberts, 1861); J. Stevenson, New Railways in London: How and where they should be constructed so as to avoid the destruction of house property. … (Hounslow, UK: J. Gotelee, 1866).

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  13. Dyos, “Attila,” 16.

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  19. Editorials, Times (London), 12 and 23 March 1861; quoted in Dyos, “Rustic Townsmen,” 97.

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  20. See note 42.

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  21. As illustrated by Thomas Wright in The Great Unwashed, 125–50.

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  23. John Hollingshead, Ragged London in 1861 (London: Smith, Elder, 1861); HC, 1884–85, xxx, 22–23.

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  27. Denton, Observations, 23; brought to my attention by Dyos, “Attila,” 14.

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  28. Wohl, “Housing of the Working Classes,” 18. Farringdon Street, Southwark Street, New Cannon Street, New Oxford Street, Commercial Street, Bethnal Green Road, Wapping High Street, Clerkenwell Road, Holborn, and Queen Victoria Street were built through slum areas.

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  29. Malcolmson, “Slums of Victorian Kensington,” 31.

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  30. The Metropolitan Board of Works (MBW) started work in 1857 and did not begin to rehouse until 1870. It rehoused only 10,340 out of the people displaced to create 3,000 new streets (Wohl, “Housing of the Working Classes,” 19).

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  37. Dyos, “Social Costs,” 23–24.

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  39. The London, Chatham & Dover and South Eastern (Kennington, Clapham, and Brixton) Railway Bill of 1866, if approved, would have displaced 3,743 persons; noted in Dyos, “Attila,” 18–20.

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  42. Dyos, “Attila,” 18 refers to PP, 1884–85, xxx, Q. 8838–39, 8386–88, 9984, 9987, 10,412; Q. 10,676 (Denton); Q. 9,940 (Surveyor to MBW); Q. 10,777–78 (Clerk of Public Bills).

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  46. PP, 1905, vii, Rep. vii; quoted in Dyos, “Rustic Townsmen,” 93.

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  48. Author of Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain (Edinburgh: University Press, 1842).

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© 2008 Micheline Nilsen

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Nilsen, M. (2008). London: Wedges into the Slums. In: Railways and the Western European Capitals. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230615779_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230615779_3

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-37446-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-230-61577-9

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