You may never have heard of Victorian Crawlers, but what you’re about to hear is an
eye-opening account of the most desperately poor people of 19th Century
London. This report is taken from a journalist who walked the streets and talked
to these pitiful ‘Crawlers’ and recorded his observations and conversations with them
in every detail. Be warned, it is an account that will make you shudder to think that
society could forget about such citizens whom time and again, through no fault of
their own, fell through the cracks of social order, to become even worse off than
beggars. The account, taken from ‘Street Life in London’, 1877, by John Thomson
and Adolphe Smith, is narrated in the words of Smith and you should therefore note that
you may not be familiar with the language, which is a product of its time and some of
his words have, today, fallen out of everyday use. Check the description to see a glossary
to help explain the meaning of some of these. You can check the in-video cards
and description for links to more interesting videos about the Victorians – in particular
we have ‘Street Life in London’, from the same authors, which opens a window on
more genuinely wonderful characters from Victorian London and the hard lives they
led. Do check it out. Before we start, please consider clicking the subscribe button in the
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Huddled together on the workhouse steps in Short's Gardens those wrecks of
humanity, the Crawlers of St. Giles's, may be seen both day and night seeking mutual
warmth and mutual consolation in their extreme misery. As a rule, they are old
women reduced by vice and poverty to that degree of wretchedness which destroys
even the energy to beg. They have not the strength to struggle for bread, and prefer
starvation to the activity which an ordinary mendicant must display. As a natural
consequence, they cannot obtain money for a lodging or for food. What little charity they
they receive is more frequently derived from the lowest orders. They beg from beggars,
and the energetic, prosperous mendicant is in his turn called upon to give those who are
his inferiors in the "profession." Stale bread, half-used tea-leaves, and on gala days, the
fly-blown bone of a joint, are their principal items of diet. A broken jug, or a tea-pot
without spout or handle, constitutes the domestic crockery. In this the stale
tealeaves, or, perhaps, if one of the company has succeeded in begging a
penny, a halfpenny -worth of new tea is carefully placed; then one of the women
rises and crawls slowly towards Drury Lane, where there is a coffee-shop keeper and
also a publican who take compassion on these women, and supply them gratuitously
with boiling water. Warm tea is thus procured at a minimum cost, and the poor
women's lives prolonged. But old age, and want of proper food and rest, reduces them
to a lethargic condition which can scarcely be preferable to death itself.
It will be noticed that they are constantly dozing, and yet are never really asleep.
Some of them are unable to lie down for days. They sit on the hard stone step of the
workhouse, their heads reclining on the door, and here by old custom they are left
undisturbed. Indeed, the policeman of this beat displays, I am told, much
commiseration for these poor refugees, and in no way molests them. When it rains, the
door offers a little shelter if the wind is in a favorable direction, but as a rule the women
are soon drenched, and consequently experience all the tortures of ague and
rheumatism in addition to their other ailments. Under such circumstances sound
sleep is an unknown luxury, hence that drowsiness from which they are never
thoroughly exempt. This peculiarity has earned them the nick-name of "dosses,"
derived from the verb to doze, by which they are sometimes recognized. The crawlers
may truly be described as persons who sleep with one eye open. Those who seem
in the soundest sleep will look up languidly on the approach of a stranger, as if they
were always anticipating interference of some sort. Some of these crawlers are not,
however, so devoid of energy as we might at first be led to infer. A few days' good lodging
and good food might operate a marvelous transformation. The abject misery into
which they are plunged is not always self-sought and merited; but is, as often, the
result of unfortunate circumstances and accident. The crawler, for instance, whose
portrait is now before the reader, is the widow of a tailor who died some ten years
ago. She had been living with her son-in-law, a marble stone-polisher by trade, who is
now in difficulties through ill-health. It appears, however, that, at best, "he never
cared much for his work," and innumerable quarrels ensued between him, his wife,
his mother-in-law, and his brother-in-law, a youth of fifteen. At last, after many years
of wrangling, the mother, finding that her presence aggravated her daughter's
troubles, left this uncomfortable home, and with her young son descended penniless
into the street. From that day she fell lower and lower, and now takes her seat among
the crawlers of the district. Her son is not only helpless, but troubled with
unjustifiable pride. He has pawned his clothes, is covered with rags, but still scorns
to sell matches in the street, and is accustomed of giving himself airs above his
station! The woman, though once able to earn money as a tailoress, was obliged
to abandon that style of work in consequence of her weak eyesight, and now
her great ambition is to "go out scrubbing." But who will employ even for this menial
purpose, a woman who has no home, no address to give, and sleeps on the
workhouse steps when she cannot gain admittance into the casual ward? Her son,
equally homeless and ragged, cannot, for the same reasons, hope to obtain work; but,
on the other hand, I convinced myself after a long conversation, that this woman
thoroughly realized her position, and had a very clear idea as to what she should do to
redeem herself. She would move heaven and earth to obtain a few shillings, and with
these would proceed to the hop-fields, where she would earn enough to save about
a pound, and one pound, she urged, would be sufficient to start in life once more.
Her son might get his clothes out of pawn, and then obtain work. She would, on her
side, rent a little room so as to have an address, and then it would be possible for
her to apply for work. Nor was this castle in the air beyond realization.
A fellow crawler, who used to doze on the same step leading to St. Giles's workhouse,
had actually obtained employment in a coffee-shop, and, while awaiting an
opportunity to follow this example, my informant was taking care of her friend's
child. This infant appears in the photograph, and is entrusted by its mother to the tender
mercies of the crawler at about ten o'clock every morning. The mother returns from her
work at four in the afternoon, but resumes her occupation at the coffee-shop from
eight to ten in the evening, when the infant is once more handed over to the crawler,
and kept out in the streets through all weathers with no extra protection against
the rain and sleet than the dirty and worn shawl which covers the poor woman's
shoulders; but, as she explained, "it pushes its little head under my chin when it is very
cold, and cuddles up to me, so that it keeps me warm as well as itself." The child,
however, cried, and wheezed, and coughed in a manner that did not testify to the
success of this expedient; but it was a wonder that, under the conditions, the
woman took care of the child at all. The only reward she receives for the eight hours'
nursing per day devoted to this little urchin, is a cup of tea and a little bread. Even this
modest remuneration is not always forthcoming, and the crawler has often
been compelled to content herself with bread without tea, or tea without bread, so
that even this, her principal and often her only meal per day, is not always to be had.
Another well-known crawler had consented to have her portrait taken in company
with that of the woman whose circumstances I have already described, but
on the previous evening a gentleman gave her sixpence while she was strolling down
Albemarle Street. This enabled her to indulge in a night's lodging, and she was so
unaccustomed to the luxury of a bed, that she overslept herself and thus missed the
appointment! She is a tall, bony, grey-haired Scotchwoman, and wears a hideous grey
waterproof, fastened as tightly round her as is safe, considering the feeble and
worn nature of its texture. It is not known that she has any under-clothing. There is
only a muddy nondescript substance hanging loosely round the lower part of her
legs, which may be freely seen peering from under the skirt of the waterproof, while
the upper portion of her feet are covered by soleless goloshes, on the purchase of
which she actually laid out the sum of twopence. There was no certain evidence
as to her possessing anything else. "Scotty," as she is called, had recently been
condemned to pick oakum for three days in the Marylebone workhouse, as a
punishment for having sought refuge in the casual ward three times in the course of
one month. To risk what is equivalent to three days' imprisonment with hard labor,
for the sake of spending one night in a casual ward, testifies to a degree of misery
and want that beggars all description. But the horror of this picture is intensified when
we consider that it is often undeservedly endured. Scotty, for instance, is no criminal,
nor is she even a drunkard. No amount of pressure on my part could persuade her to
drink even a single glass of beer with the dinner which, of course, I found an early
opportunity of giving her. Further, she is neither stupid nor ignorant. She can read
and write well, and her language is at times even polished and refined. How, under these
circumstances, she could have become a crawler was at first an inexplicable mystery;
but gradually I discovered, one by one, the chief incidents in her career, and it all
seemed so natural that it was difficult to doubt her word. "Scotty's" husband had
been employed in a bank at Edinburgh, and, at one time, possessed property to the
value of £2000; but this was sold, and the proceeds placed in the hands of some
lawyers. I do not know whether Scotty's husband was also born north of the Tweed,
but, in any case, he was not gifted with the spirit of economy, which, when it does not
lead to the vice of meanness, is one of the chief characteristic virtues of Scotchmen.
At every moment, whenever he experienced the least want of money, he applied to his
lawyers, till at last they one day informed him that there was none remaining.
His first impression was that he had been egregiously robbed, but he had not kept any
account of the sums received, and was therefore quite helpless. The poverty-
stricken couple came up to London, and Scotty soon found herself a widow. Alone
and friendless, she nevertheless bravely struggled against adversity, and obtained
work as a tailoress, but an illness almost deprived her of her eyesight. So long as her
eyes remained inflamed she was unable to work, and consequently fell into debt,
till at last she was turned out of her room and her things seized and sold. This
harshness on the part of her landlord did not, however, crush the poor woman. She
had no money to pay a week's rent in advance so as to obtain a private room, and
was therefore compelled to go to a common lodging-house; but she determined
to spend the whole of the next day searching for work, and for some more
respectable abode. During the night, however, a final catastrophe destroyed all
these hopes. A fellow-lodger stole all her clothes. Protestations and complaints were
all in vain, it was impossible to detect the thief, and poor Scotty, like Cardinal Wolsey,
but in a more literal sense, found herself left naked to her enemies. Her petticoats,
under-linen, skirt, apron, boots, all were gone, nothing but her waterproof, which
fortunately she had put over her bed, remained. In this plight it was impossible to
apply for work; no one was at hand to help or to suggest a remedy, and shivering with
cold and almost naked, Scotty went out into the streets which were henceforth to
become her only home. Hunger and cold soon reduced her to still deeper gloom and
helplessness, till, at last, she gladly availed herself of the meagre shelter available on
the workhouse steps. At times the stupor that this intense suffering begets, obtains
such complete sway over her mind and body that she is unable to stand or walk,
and she has often fallen from sheer exhaustion. "But," added Scotty, "I am
becoming more accustomed to it now; I have not fallen once the whole of this week.
What, however, I cannot endure, is the awful lazy, idle life I am forced to lead; it is a
thousand times worse than the hardest labor, and I would much rather my hands
were cut, blistered, and sore with toil, than, as you see them, swollen, and red, and
smarting from the exposure to the sun, the rain, and the cold." Gradually she seemed to
recover her old energy. If she could only obtain a decent set of clothes, she would
seek employment at the army stores in Pimlico, where she had worked in her more
prosperous days. Here she could earn seven shillings a week. An old woman
who she had met in a mission hall had offered to share her room, a back kitchen,
with her for eighteen-pence a week. Scotty had been obliged to refuse this offer,
as she had no earthly prospect of being able to pay even the eighteen-pence; but,
if ever she got to work again, this was the style of arrangement she would make.
Then she would spend four shillings a week on her food, which she declared would be
ample, particularly as she knew where to get excellent porridge! There would,
therefore, remain out of seven shillings per week about eighteen pence for clothes, etc.
Such was the ambition of this poor woman, and yet, for want of slight assistance
necessary to attain this modest end, she had been compelled to live the life of a
crawler for nearly two months. Imbued with a pride that does honor to her nationality,
Scotty has stubbornly rejected all suggestions as to her entering the
workhouse, and does not, I believe, condescend to beg. Sometimes persons
take compassion on her, and seeing her forlorn appearance, give her a few pence;
but, had it been her practice to beg, she would never have endured all the misery
I have but feebly described. Perhaps, however, with the help that will now
be forthcoming, Scotty may once more resume work and leave the "dossing door."