Charles Booth

The social history of 19th century London can only be deduced through the remaining surveys and various documents left from that time period. Charles Booth was an innovative surveyor and social investigator in the late 1800s and formed surveys of the life and labor of the 19th century London population. Charles Booth took initiative to look into the various areas of poverty, but also examined the possible reasons for poverty. Past surveyors did not use accurate methods to create statistics or charts. Most social investigators used observation for their respective purpose. Booth used scientific methods and created better detailed censuses and surveys of London. Booth was the first to make connections and implications of poverty from the areas in which the people lived, living conditions, religious life, and occupation. His methodologies were complex and his conclusions were based upon empirical data. Charles Booth used innovated research methods such as: detailed questionnaires, personal interviews, and visual observations to investigate the cause of poverty. Certain areas in London, for example the East End, were infamously known for its poverty and unfortunate crimes. Many knew only of the conditions in the East End because of authors such as Charles Dickens and George Moore that “often set their works in poorer parts of town.” The conditions were overly exaggerated and were only representative of a small section of the East End. Inwood describes the situation accurately with his statement, “how many people lived in squalor and malnutrition was not known, although some writers tried to quantify London poverty, on the basis of inadequate evidence. Mayhew produced many pages of statistics, but most of them referred to the ‘street folk’, beggars, hawkers, scavengers, and entertainers, a tiny proportion of the London poor.” There were other social surveys conducted before Charles Booth started his social investigation, however none were as detailed and

Bibliography: "Charles Booth and the survey into life and labour in London (1886-1903)." Charles Booth Online Archive. London School of Economics & Political Science. 5 Dec. 2008 . Clout, Hugh. Times History of London. New York: HarperCollins Limited, 2004. Inwood, Stephen. A History of London. New York: Macmillan Children 's Books, 2000. Porter, Roy. LONDON: A Social History. London: Penguin Group, 1994. Weightman, Gavin, and Steve Humphries. Making of Modern London. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1983.