How Much it Cost to Clothe the Working Poor of London, 1854

JF Ptak Science Books  Post 1761

The "working poor" of England may have been half of that--working, that is, and hard at work, though not being paid even enough to be considered poor. Their story has been told in many ways, of course, the backbone of the Industrial Revolution succeeding on their bones, observed and recorded and shared by Charles Dickens and others, and on and on, told elsewhere in brevity and quick detail better than I can do so here.

I did want to make a quick comment about a very small detail in the state of those poor people, found in Charles Kingsley's  Cheap Clothes and Nasty, printed in 1850.  It is quite a documentarian's tour of the plight of the poor, written by a very able observer.  (Kingsley is a very interesting person--an historian, priest in the Church of England, social commentator, and novelist.  As a matter of fact he was exceptionally prolific, producing during his lifetime (1819-1875) a fine long list of accomplishment, three of which have survived to this day as sorts of minor classics.  But what he did with great regularity was publish books--34 of them in 25 years between 1850 and 1875, including 15 during the decade of the 1850's, 11 in the 1860's, and 8 in the 1870's to his death in 1875.  Perhaps as important as all of that was the role he played in the arrival of C. Darwin's On the Origin of  Species..., as Kingsley wrote one of the earliest reviews of the book and defended it strongly.)

But getting back to the poor,  Kingsley made a very strong case for the poor being less so than that, as we see here:

"Folks are getting somewhat tired of the old rodomontade that a slave is free the moment he sets foot on British soil! Stuff! - are these tailors free? Put any conceivable sense you will on the word, and then say - are they free? We have, thank God, emancipated the black slaves;  it would seem a not inconsistent sequel to that act to set about emancipating these white ones.Oh! we forgot; there is an infinite difference between the two cases - the black slaves worked for our colonies; the white slaves work for us. But, indeed, if, as some preach, self interest is the mainspring of all human action, it is difficult to see who will step forward to emancipate the said white slaves; for all classes seem to consider it equally their interest to keep them as they are; all classes, though by their own confession they are ashamed, are yet not afraid to profit by the system which keeps them down..."--Charles Kingsley, Clothes, Cheap and Nasty, 1850

Kingsley continues on with the stuff of research, uncommonly sharing the lot of what a vast section of English society experienced daily though mostly in silence.

Another excruciating and interesting report was made by George Godwin in his London Shadows, a glance at the "homes" of the thousands of 1854 (the whole work found on the wonderful Victorian London blog, here and about which I posted about here).

Godwin--an influential architect and editor of the very influential The Builder  as well as a social reformer, who lived from 1813-1888) wrote an expose of how so many Londoners lived at the middle of the century. It is also illustrated with woodcuts of the places in which people lives--artwork in wood and ink that have a very definite quality of the unforgiving cameras of Life magazine a century later.  The images are awakening and abrupt--all the bitter observation of George Orwell, only told much more quickly, like a person trying to describe a raging house fire before the thing burned itself out.  Its a powerful work, and I can't help but think that those reading it in 1854 must have been appalled not only by the deep visualization of the state of the working poor, but also by its scope, and the possible revelation of England's basic bedrock.

Here is an example of Godwin's work, which includes observations on not only housing the poor, but clothing them as well, and published in the editorial pages of journal The Builder. He presents one aspect of their lot by discussing their clothing and its purchasing, bought for what the polite reading circles who would find The Builder  to be almost for no money at all, though the few pennies spent on a pair of shoes or shirt were a major factor in the weekly ration of the working poor., particularly if they were making 5 or 10 pounds per year.   It was an interesting way for Godwin to present to the non-poor what the other-half really had to live like, and perhaps by reaching out to the population that did the building-of-London he probably hoped to affect some sort of reform in the way in which the poor had to live and work.  An example of the Godwin work:

"One of the London missionaries (a body whose valuable services can only be properly appreciated by those who understand the nature and extent of the evil to which we are directing attention) says:-
    "Persons who are accustomed to run up heavy bills at fashionable tailors' and milliners', will scarcely believe the sums for which the classes we are describing are able to purchase the same articles for their own rank in life."
    A missionary who recently explored Rag-fair, reported that a man and his wife might be clothed from head to foot for from 10s. to 15s. Another missionary stated that 8s. would buy every article of clothing required by either a man or a woman, singly. In Pennant's time it was less. He says (speaking of the other Rag-fair), that the dealer pointed out a man to him, and said: "Look at him. I have clothed him for fourteen-pence. A third missionary reported : "There is as great a variety of articles in pattern, and shape, and size, as I think could be found in any draper's shop in London." The mother may go to "Rag-fair" with the whole of her family, both boys and girls,- yes, and her husband, too, and for a very few shillings deck them out from top to toe. I have no doubt that for a man and his wife, and five or six children, £1 at their disposal, judiciously laid out, would purchase them all an entire change. This may appear to some an exaggeration: but I actually overheard a conversation in which two women were trying to bargain for a child's frock; the sum asked for it was 1½d. and the sum offered was a penny, and they parted on the difference..."

The following is the copy of the bill delivered by the dealer to one of the missionaries, who was requested to supply a suit of clothes for a man and woman whom he had persuaded to get married several years after the right time:-
        "A full linen-fronted shirt, very elegant . . . . . 6d.
        A pair of warm worsted stockings . . . . .1d
        A pair of light-coloured trousers . . . . . 6d
        A black cloth waistcoat . . . . . 3d
        A pair of white cotton braces . . . . . 1d
        A pair of low shoes . . . . .1d
        A black silk velvet stock . . . . . 1d
        A black beaver, fly-fronted, double-breasted paletot coat, lined with silk, a very superior article . . . . . 1s. 6d
        A cloth cap, bound with a figured band  . . . . . 1d
        A pair of black cloth gloves . . . . . 1d
        [Total] 3s. 3d.
   The man had been educated, and could speak no fewer than five languages; by profession he was, then, however, nothing but a dust-hill raker.
    The bill delivered for the bride's costume was as follows
        "A shift  . . . . . 1d
        A pair of stays . . . . . 2d
        A flannel petticoat . . . . . 4d
        A black Orleans ditto . . . . . 4d
        A pair of white cotton stockings . . . . . 1d
        A very good light-coloured cotton gown . . . . . 10d
        A pair of single-soled slippers, with spring heels . . . . . 2d
        A double-dyed bonnet, including a neat cap . . . . . 2d
        A pair of white cotton gloves . . . . . 1d
        A lady's green silk paletot, lined with crimson silk, trimmed with black . . . . . 10d
        [Total] 3s. 1d.