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Bethnal Green slums

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  • Bethnal Green slums

    While doing my tree have noticed more and more people dying in and around 1865 so decided to google why ,this is part of an article I found on the area, cannot believe so many people living in one house ?


    "With few exceptions, each room contains a separate family; some consisting of mother, father, and eight children. The first two adjoining houses that we looked into, of six rooms each, contained forty-eight persons. To supply these with water, a stream runs for ten or twelve minutes each day, except Sunday, from a small tap at the back of one of the houses... The houses are, of course, ill-ventilated. The front room in the basement, wholly below the ground, dark and damp, is occupied, at a cost of 2s. a week for rent."[10]

    if anyone is interested in the rest of the article which is fascinating


    Last edited by Guest; 11-11-13, 19:36.

  • #2
    Seeing your link to the wikipedia page for Old Nichol, reminded me of a book called The Blackest Streets: Life and Death of a Victorian Slum


    It seems to be available on google books - the first chapter describe the streets of the Old Nichol.
    'An excellent and intelligent investigation of the realities of urban living that respond to no design or directive... This is a book about the nature of London itself' Peter Ackroyd, The TimesA powerful exploration of the seedy side of Victorian London by one of our most promising young historians.In 1887 government inspectors were sent to investigate the Old Nichol, a notorious slum on the boundary of Bethnal Green parish, where almost 6,000 inhabitants were crammed into thirty or so streets of rotting dwellings and where the mortality rate ran at nearly twice that of the rest of Bethnal Green. Among much else they discovered that the decaying 100-year-old houses were some of the most lucrative properties in the capital for their absent slumlords, who included peers of the realm, local politicians and churchmen. The Blackest Streets is set in a turbulent period of London's history when revolution was in the air. Award-winning historian Sarah Wise skilfully evokes the texture of life at that time, not just for the tenants but for those campaigning for change and others seeking to protect their financial interests. She recovers Old Nichol from the ruins of history and lays bare the social and political conditions that created and sustained this black hole which lay at the very heart of the Empire.A revelatory and prescient read about cities, class and inequality, the message at the heart of The Blackest Streets still resonates today.
    Elaine







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    • #3
      thanks Elaine think I will treat myself as lots of my lot came from around there.

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      • #4
        The Blackest Streets is a really interesting book and easy to read to, too.

        Most of my ancestors come from the Bethnal Green/Shoreditch area. My Great Grandmother starved to death in Old Nichol St 1863 (she fed her children first) and many others can be found in the Workhouse records for that area.

        This website is fascinating with lots contemporary articles about all aspects of life in Victorian London http://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm including many very graphic descriptions of Bethnal Green.
        Sue

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        • #5
          its awful when you see how they lived, it was a lot worse than we imagine.

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          • #6
            There was a major cholera outbreak in east London in 1865

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            • #7
              yes I did know about that Jill as I sent for two death certs of siblings both in that period, terribly sad, thanks for that link.

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              • #8
                In Google books there is one called The Cholera Gazette its very interesting and does have names in it, it about Cholera in 1832 in London, found it when doing a search for Bulls Head Court Newington (it was just of Kent St.)

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