Non-fiction on Victorian/Edwardian poor

[seaweedseven]

I'm looking for recommendations for non-fiction books about the everyday lives of working class people in Victorian and Edwardian times, especially about workhouses, factory life, being a servant, women's lives, family life, etc. I've been researching my family tree and have got interested in finding out more about everyday lives in this era.

About all aspects of society, not just poor but Victoria London by Liza Picard is good.

Victorian London

Any particular area? I can suggest some on London, not so much on other places.

Henry Mayhew's 'London Labour and London Poor is unbeatable.

Yes, for London Mayhew would be first on my list. It's free online.

For England generally, especially rural areas, look out for books by Pamela Horn. Try Abebooks for second hand - usually cheaper than Amazon.

Angel Meadow by Dean Kirby is interesting. It’s about a slum in Manchester that was infamous for being the worst in the country - even more than in London. It’s pretty desperate, the way that people were having to live.

It's a bit left field, but I found The Five about the Jack the Ripper victims absolutely fascinating in its social history detail - who knew that Trafalgar Square was one massive homeless shelter?

I found The Five to be fairly shattering on just how fine the line was between being just about ok and getting by, and everything falling apart, particularly for women.

I loved that she humanised and gave voice to the victims - the story of how they ended up in Whitechapel as a potential victim for Jack the Ripper, rather than what happened to them there when he found them.

The Classic Slum and A Ragged Schooling by Robert Roberts. Salford.

OP, if you can bear with me I have a book which I’m sure is called something like The Victorian Underworld. I’m happy to send it to you - IF I can find it! I think it’s out of print but you can probably find a copy on Amazon second hand.

@JassyRadlett

I found The Five to be fairly shattering on just how fine the line was between being just about ok and getting by, and everything falling apart, particularly for women.

I loved that she humanised and gave voice to the victims - the story of how they ended up in Whitechapel as a potential victim for Jack the Ripper, rather than what happened to them there when he found them.

That sounds fascinating.

Thanks for the speedy replies! I've just looked up the Mayhew and Liza Picard books on Goodreads - they look really interesting.

@UserEleventyNine lots of my ancestors lived in London, so any reading suggestions about London would be great. Others were in the North East, Yorkshire, Suffolk and Kent, a mix of cities and rural areas, all in England as far as I can tell so far.

Following for ideas, I like this type of reading too.

There is one, it's fiction but written at the time. I read it as a child and think it was either my grandmother's or great aunt's Sunday school prize. They were born in 1884 and 1894.

It's called Cricket a Tale of Humble Life by Silas Hocking.

Thank you all - a lot of other replies appeared while I was typing my last one! These all look like interesting suggestions.

I've read The Five, but thanks Jassy and PuppyLucky. I agree about how well it describes how precarious life was for working class women. And also a great page-turner - I'd recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it. You don't need any interest in Jack The Ripper (and it doesn't go into any detail about the killings).

Robert Tressell The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists- excellent book

For London, the bibliography at The Dictionary of Victorian London has lots of contemporary books, most of which should be available free online. Also Tower Hamlets History Online for the East End.

I'm currently reading East London by Walter Besant, published 1899. Free online.

Also see the Booth poverty maps.

On York, look up Seebohm Rowntree.

On workhouses, workhouses.org.uk/ is an excellent site.

On Kent, Life in Kent at the Turn of the Century by Michael Winstanley is based, as the title suggests, on interviews carried out in the 1970s with people who could remember back to around 1900. I don't know how easily obtainable it is.

What part of Kent were your ancestors from?

Suffolk was the last place in the uk to have an outbreak of plague - really not that long ago, in the great scheme of things, in 1906. Might be interesting reading to be found about it. www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/5E5C121F07307A7D8C467B82D662903C/S0025727300015143a.pdf/the-last-epidemic-of-plague-in-england-suffolk-1906-1918.pdf

Thanks @UserEleventyNine - all of those look really interesting. I'll work my way through them all. The workhouses website looks amazing. I've just ordered Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor from abebooks.

Re Kent, some were from Canterbury, some from around the Gillingham and Chatham area.

Thanks Spudlet - I just had a quick skim of that, but will read it properly later. I had no idea there were any British plague outbreaks in the 20th century.

@Puppylucky

It's a bit left field, but I found The Five about the Jack the Ripper victims absolutely fascinating in its social history detail - who knew that Trafalgar Square was one massive homeless shelter?

I was going to suggest the same.

At first glance you might think it's a book about Jack the Ripper but is isn't at all; after the introduction I don't think he's mentioned at all. It's the biographies of the five women he killed, and they all lived in poverty in Victorian London. It's really a book about being a poor woman in that time.

Maud Pember Reeves "Round about a pound a week". Poverty and child mortality in London. Written in 1913, so slightly later but interesting. Available on Kindle for 70p at the moment - noticed as I used Amazon to check that I had remembered the author correctly.

I think I've got Round About A Pound A Week somewhere - I remember reading it years ago, and I think a sequel too. I'll find it and re-read - thanks for the suggestion.

Nice one OP , the Mayhew is excellent. I also recommend the journalism of Adolphe Smith for insight into Victorian life.

I'm interested in the answers. Not books but I catch bits of some quite interesting documentary series on BBC Four - I don't know how much of this is available on Iplayer.

My aunt wrote a book about childhood poverty in Victorian London but although I'm sure it's very readable it was published as an academic work, so likely to be a small print run and quite expensive.