This is a true and moving story of a typical family living in poverty in London at the turn
of the 20th Century, as they struggle daily to house and feed their children
– and stay out of the workhouse! Mrs Mathews’ account was recorded by the
American Press and published for the same audience, so the costs of living are
translated by the journalist into dollars and cents. The article is narrated
here quoting Mrs Mathews’ own account of her fight for food and lodging.
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London, June 19th – Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the premier of Great Britain,
in a recent address, stated that there were 13 million people in England on the edge
of starvation. All of the great cities: London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin,
have their hordes of poor. The unemployed men who marched through the streets
the other day devoured ravenously the cheese sandwiches which were given out
by the labour committee. The following story is written by one of the starving poor
of London. With her husband and five children, she lives at Gascoyne Court,
20 minutes’ walk from the Bank of England. The seven members of the family live in one
room. In a corner of the room is an iron bed, on which is a mattress about
two inches thick, covered by a single brown blanket. A stove with the merest suggestion
of fire fills the room with smoke from a foul chimney. The single window of the room
is minus several panes, the places of which have been taken by brown paper.
The window is hermetically sealed, and the air is sickening. A kitchen table is the only
other piece of ‘furniture’, besides the bed. There are no chairs, only soap boxes.
“My husband is a box and packing case maker and gets a bit of work now and then.
When fully employed he can make about $4.32 per week. But work has been very
slack and he has not been able to get anything to do. I am a bow maker for fancy
shoes, but have not been able to do any work since baby was born.
When working I made about $1.20 per week. I have had no work for five months
and my husband has been selling watches and what are known as ‘Hounsditch
novelties’ on the streets. I sell them myself. We manage to get the rent together most
every night. This room (it is called furnished) costs us 24 cents a night.
The deputy (or rent collector) for the landlord, comes each night and gets her
shilling, or we have to go on the streets. Some nights we have had within 4 cents
of the rent, but the deputy wouldn’t let us stop in. So out we had to go
with the five little ones. When that happens I have to go to what is called the ‘Twopenny
Coffin,’ or if we haven’t the two pence (4 cents) we go to the Penny Sit-Up (2 cents).
In the ‘Twopenny Coffin’ you can lie on the floor in a sort of bunk and get covered with
a piece of oilcloth for the night. It sticks to your skin unless you put newspaper over
your face. They let children in the ‘Twopenny Coffin’ free; but in the ‘Penny Sit-Up’
they charge 1 cent for children over 2. In the Sit-Up you are allowed for 1 cent to sit
on a bench all night. It is very trying on one’s body, especially when nursing child.
My husband sits up all night on the embankment, as they don’t allow men in
these shelters. About food – after paying the room rent to the deputy, sometimes we
have about 12 cents left. There are seven of us; so we have to make it go a long way.
Here is how we would spend it: coal for fire, 2 cents; wood ½ a cent; oat meal 2 cents;
sugar ½ a cent; fried fish and potatoes 5 cents; milk (condensed) 2 cents.
The coal will make two fires if managed right. The condensed milk and sugar will do
for one or two other meals. Sometimes we get more fried potatoes with the fish,
instead of the oatmeal. But it all doesn’t go very far to feed seven of us.
The oatmeal is filling for the children. Sometimes someone on the street will give
me or my husband an extra five cents, especially when they see us with the babies.
I get more money on the streets when I carry baby than when I don’t and we have to
take her out with us anyway as they won’t let us stay in the room in the daytime.
If you want to stay indoors in the day the deputy charges 6 cents extra.
It’s very hard in rainy weather to get about the streets with the children.
Why don’t I go into the workhouse? I have been in four or five times.
But they put the children away from me. They are kept in a separate part from the
mothers. I suppose it’s a better system; at least they say so.
My little baby died in the workhouse and I have never been back since.
They let me see her the day she was dying, but I wasn’t allowed to nurse her.
My husband says I couldn’t have saved her, but it has always been in my mind that
perhaps I might. I don’t know what ought to be done to put an end to such an existence
as ours, but it doesn’t seem if anything were right in this big city of London
when we are compelled to march through life the way we do.”
Just how grateful (or indeed desperate) should a person be, in a world of little
alternative, to have to endure what must often have been an insufferable experience
of stench, chronic coughing (the hacking of consumption), snoring as well as
ranting and moaning of tortured souls in exchange for a penny or two.
It must have been an intolerable experience and sleep all too often impossible
- or interrupted at best. It is the accounts of ‘clients,’ like Mrs Mathews and her family,
which are all the more revealing and too often went unrecorded and unheard.
By today's standards, the Penny Sit-Up and Twopenny Coffin would be considered
not only inadequate accommodation, but callous. However, at the time they were
considered a well-meaning, inexpensive, and compassionate attempt to deal with the
growing phenomenon of homelessness. Check out the video on this channel
which tells you all the dark details of rough sleeping in Victorian shelters
if you want to learn more. See the description for links.
Philanthropists who set up such accommodation sought to do ‘good’ or
‘God’s work’ in seeking to better the plight of the poor, and for the most part
it is their accounts that are recorded. The Salvation Army, for example, believed these
shelters provided relief from the harsh London winters and provided new religious
followers. Professor Howard Sercombe of the University of Strathclyde, has argued
that such institutions were more likely to have been designed to control
the homeless, or at the very best were a compassionate response to the harsh
‘moving on’ laws of the time, which made it illegal for people to remain vagrant
upon the streets. The poor could (if they so wished) find welcoming accommodation in
more expensive lodgings - the Salvation Army offered a choice with beds.
But shelters in the Victorian era existed for the very reason that they offered the
destitute an inexpensive solution to avoiding bitterly cold winters.
Many, as illustrated by Mrs Mathews’ story, clearly had no choice.