This course will take place online, for a reduced rate of Full £95 / Conc. £71
Booth investigated working-class political movements, women’s lives, religious beliefs, immigrant experiences, children, schools, and trades. Using Booth’s Poverty Map, we’ll examine London neighbourhoods using historical photos, sketches, and eyewitness accounts.
Among the phenomena Booth investigated are: working-class political movements, women’s lives and economic status, religious/spiritual belief, late-Victorian immigrant experiences of the city, children and schools, the various trades of London.
Delve further into London's history by browsing our collections.
Who is this course for?
This course is for anyone with an interest in the social history of London.
Will I need any equipment or materials?
This course will be held via Zoom. You need a computer/laptop or mobile phone to access the Zoom website, and a reliable internet connection. For further information on how to join a Zoom meeting, you can watch the joining video here.
Will I be assessed?
There is no formal assessment for courses at Bishopsgate Institute. However, to monitor your learning and progress, tutors will assess your participation in classroom activities.
You will learn
By the end of this course, you will know how to:
- Explain the basic concepts in Booth’s work
- Identify the dominant socio-economic structure of late nineteenth century London
- Define the various political strands of thought current at the time
- Recognise the characteristics of various individual London localities
- Pursue further reading on these subjects, with a detailed bibliography/secondary reading list.
Meet the Tutor
Sarah Wise
Sarah is an award-winning writer and historian. She teaches literature and nineteenth-century social history and literature at the University of California’s London Outreach Center. She has been teaching a variety of courses at the Bishopsgate Institute since 2014.
Her interests are London/urban history, working-class history, medical history, psychogeography, and nineteenth-century literature and reportage.
Her books include Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England; The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave Robbery in 1830s London; and The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum.
She contributed a chapter to "Charles Booth's Poverty Maps" - last autumn's best-selling illustrated book by Thames & Hudson/London School of Economics.
Her TV work includes providing background material on BBC1’s "Secret History of Our Streets", and BBC2’s "The Victorian Slum", and she has twice been the history expert on "Who Do You Think You Are?"
Course Overview
Week 1
Place – the "Old Nichol" district in Shoreditch
Theme: Introduction to Charles Booth and his work, and the "Map Indicative of Poverty"
Week 2
Place – Soho
Themes – the textiles and footwear industries of the West End; and the increasing division between East and West London
Week 3
Place – Whitechapel
Themes – the religious and spiritual life of the poor; the "common lodging house" phenomenon; and the lives of Jewish immigrants to London
Week 4
Place – Lisson Grove
Themes – schools, the lives of children; and Booth’s team of investigators – who were they?
Week 5
Place – the Docks, including Limehouse, Shadwell, Bermondsey, and Rotherhithe
Themes – the politicisation of the poor / trades unions
Week 6
Place – Covent Garden
Themes – unemployment and how to end it; what happened next? The "Liberal Reforms", 1906 to 1914. And Booth’s survey revisited (in 1930)
Need to Know
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