Slums of London 1880's

So sorry, my bad, that was in another forum.

There were slums in East London well into the 1960s. If you want to avoid Whitechapel (and Limehouse, which is also over-exposed), try Bow, Bethnal Green, and Stepney. (Especially Stepney.) There should be plenty of information about those areas. You might also find something in the wonderful blog Spitalfields Life.

My great great grandparents were from the slums of London. The East End has always been the poor part of London, associated with poverty, slums, etc. Sorry I don't know more specifically what areas they were from (my granddad was a Bow Bells cockney - i.e. born within hearing distance of Bow Bells - that's one possible region - but I don't know specifically where my great great grandparents lived, but probably not far from where my granddad was born). I might be able to find out if you really need that info - I suspect you don't, though.

Never heard of Devil's Acre. I looked it up though. It's in Westminster. That's usually been a very posh area of London. If there were slums in Westminster, then you can probably have your slum anywhere. The demographics of London, in terms of which areas are rich and which are poor, changes massively in short periods of time. Nearly all of London nowadays is extremely expensive and ordinary Londoners are completely priced out of the market. Ordinary people have been pushed into smaller and smaller areas, like the few remaining council and housing association houses/towerblocks, like Grenfell Tower, which got covered in this cladding, the only purpose of which was to stop it looking ugly for the surrounding rich people, which was a fire risk and which caught fire, killing 80+ people. Poverty still exists in London and poor people still are stuck with shoddy, unsafe accommodation, just it's being squeezed into smaller and smaller pockets as rich people buy up all the housing.

Okay, back to Victorian London - Having read the wikipedia article on Devil's Acre, if your story's too late for it to be set in Devils Acre, there is a map on the Wikipedia article that shows which areas in Westminster were inhabited by people of which social class in 1889. Even if they cleared the actual Devils Acre slum before the time your story's set, there would still be poor people, just they would live somewhere else. The map shows that rich and poor lived very close by. If you set in in Westminster, you'd could have rich and poor characters living close by. Identify areas by street name and show through your narrative whether each street was rich or poor. Everyone in the whole UK will instantly recognise Westminster as being in London. I would've thought even many people outside the UK would recognise that, seeing as Buckingham Palace is there and parliament is referred to as "Westminster" on the news and stuff.

The only thing about Westminster, because it is considered to be one of the wealthiest parts of London - like crazy mega wealthy... the Queen lives there - you will have to make it clear that back when your story was set, there were parts of it where there were slums. I was rather surprised to learn that there were slums there, but obviously there were. And as it's historically accurate, you're safe. But you would have to make that clear, because "Westminster = posher than posher than posh" is what's going to be in people's minds. It would also be really interesting to have a historical perspective of poverty in Westminster though, so don't be put off by this.

East End places will be more easily associated with poverty in people's minds and there obviously was a lot more poverty in the east end than the west end. But London's a big place, so what do you need for your story? A slum street in an otherwise wealthy area, or an area where everyone's poor? London's a big place though. Going from one part to another can feel like going to another city.

I wouldn't recommend inventing parts of London. I'm a Londoner and wouldn't feel able to just invent a part of London. London regions are well known, even by non-Londoners. Making a fictional part of London feel like real London is an epic challenge. The BBC soap opera Eastenders with its fictional Walford managed to do that. They had film cameras and a big budget, and the ability to broadcast to the whole nation twice a week (later on, more often than that). Even then they had to get enough details right to make it feel like a real part of London.

https://booth.lse.ac.uk/map/12/-0.0737/51.507

In 1880 Charles Booth made a poverty map of London, you will find it using the link. Pretty much every part of London has had poor areas. The Devils Acre is actually an area in Westminster in about 1850. It was given that name by Charles Dickens in an article in a magazine. By 1880 most of it had been demolished.

Victorian novelist George Gissing, as I recall, wrote a lot about the lives of the poor in London in Victorian times. He was one of them.

caw

For a sense of their lives, you could try London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew. It was written a little early for your purposes (1840s) but would give an idea of the conditions and economics of the London of the poor.

One book I rely on is "Palace and Hovel" by Daniel Joseph Kirwan. It was a book published in 1870, written by an American traveling in London during the 1860's. He encounters a broad strata of society, ranging from being escorted by policemen through the slums to a curious peep into Queen Victoria's patchouli-scented bedroom. It's especially good for bits of dialogue and local color.

You will find more sources by using the term 'rookery' or 'rookeries' rather than 'slum'.

Slightly early for your purposes but a good source: http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications5/rookeries.htm

A possibility is Seven Dials (now Covent Garden). It wasn't cleared until Shaftesbury Avenue was cut through in 1889 and was still renowned as a slum area into the twentieth century. It was one of the worst of London's slum areas throughout the 1880s.

This is from 1884: http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications6/slums.htm
And this from 1877: http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications/thomson-30.htm

The nearby St Giles (now Tottenham Court Road) is another possibility, although I believe clearing had begun there by the 1880s. However, the scandal of people being evicted and forced onto the streets during the clearance might have mileage for you.http://www.coventgardenmemories.org.uk/page_id__118.aspx

If you want to cross the river, there's always Tabard Street. It wasn't cleared until the twentieth century. More useful if you want people travelling through: http://www.socialhousinghistory.uk/...Housing_Part_3_27-Long_Lane_and_Tabard_St.pdf

Google "Victorian poverty map London" and plenty of good images will come up. It is true that the worst areas of poverty were right next to the poshest houses.

I found this useful: https://charlesdickenspage.com/dickens_london_map.html

I managed to print out a Dicken's map in sections and taped it together, then up on the wall for reference. Most of the streets have not changed locations since then, but some names have changed.

Since many buildings are also unchanged, Google street maps will also be a good resource, particularly using the street level mode to see those buildings. I used this feature quite a lot.

Another hack: real estate. You can find very old buildings (updated) with drawings of their interior layout. I got lucky locating a posh one in the right neighborhood for my work. While I did NOT describe it in dull detail, it did help in visualizing things.

Best of luck!