Changing Attitudes Towards
Poverty:
Gustave Dore, Houndsditch (1872)
Wentworth Street, Whitechapel (1872)
Investigators
• Booth: founder of
Salvation army
• Andrew Mearns:
‘The bitter Cry of
Outcast London
•
http://www.attackingthedevil.co.u
k/related/outcast.php
• GR Sims: report on
the poor in London
Charles Booth
• Wealthy Liverpool ship
owner
• Began investigation to
disprove the claim
that a quarter of
Londoners lived in
poverty
• Over 1 million families
investigated
'Map Showing Degrees of Poverty in
London for 1889-1890',
Booth’s classification of the people he interviewed:
A (0.9% in
poverty)
The Lowest class-occasional labourers,loafers
and semi-criminals
B
(7.5% in
poverty)
C and D
(22.3%
In poverty)
E and F
(51.5%
In comfort)
The very poor-casual labour, hand to mouth
existence, chronic want
The poor-including those who have small
earnings because of irregular employment or
poor pay
The regularly employed and fair paid working
class
Charles Booth
• Shocked to
discover that
figures were
actually
underestimated
• 30% living below
‘poverty line’
• But only 10% been
helped by Poor law
Bluegate Fields (1872)
Seebohm Rowntree
• Wealthy York
manufacturing
family
• Aim: to see if the
level of poverty in
York was different
to london
• 1901 published
Poverty, A study of
Town Life
Nestle Rowntree
Key findings
• Identified two types
of poverty:
• Primary poverty, those
people whose earnings
were so low they could
not survive on them
alone
• Secondary Poverty:
those who had enough
to live on but spent
money
Key findings
• Determined poverty
line at 21s 8d (£1.08)
• Found York had 27.8%
of its population living
in poverty
• Poverty was not always
the fault of the
person e.g. low wages,
sick, elderly
Significance
• Both investigators
used new methods
to study poverty
• Charity was not
enough, the
government would
have to provide
help
• Greater awareness
of poverty
Pressures
• Employers e.g
Rowntree, Lever,
Brunner believed
there was a need for
action
• Politicians: increasing
number ready to
support state action
• Extension of the
franchise to working
class men (1867 and
1884)
Pressures
• Growth of the
labour and socialist
societies
• E.g. Fabian society:
Sidney and
Beatrice webb
First Boer War
(1880–1881)
Boer war:
the Second
Boer War
(1899–1902)
• The British
consolidated their
power over most of
the colonies of South
Africa in 1879 after
the Anglo-Zulu War.
• The Boers protested
and in December 1880
they revolted.
• Boer: is the Dutch
word for farmer
Boer women and children in a concentration camp
Boer war:
• many men unfit to fight
• In Manchester 8,000 volunteered but only
1200 were accepted
• up to 40% of recruits were unfit for military
service, suffering from medical problems such
as rickets and other poverty-related illnesses.
Overall
• For all these
reasons there was
a gradual shift
from self help and
hard work attitude
towards a
‘collectivist’ belief
in social reform
• Activity
• What were the main causes of
Poverty in the late nineteenth
century
• Describe the work of Charles Booth
and Seebohm Rowntree in changing
attitudes to poverty in the early
twentieth century