Slums Gallery

'Gin Lane', 1751. Artist: William Hogarth

'Gin Lane', 1751.The scene is the St Giles slums. A child falls to its death from the arms of its drunk mother who sits with ulcerated legs. A skeletal figure holds an empty glass. Goods are being pawned in order to buy gin, a baby is being fed with gin, a corpse is put into a coffin in the background.The pawnbroker, distiller and undertaker are the only well-off and successful people in the neighbourhood. Third of four states of plate. This print was published in support of a campaign directed against gin drinking among London's poor. Consumption of cheap spirits by the poor had soared in the early eighteenth century, with dire social consequences. Gin inspires violence and careless inebriation. Addiction to spirits leads to negligence, poverty and death

© London Metropolitan Archives (City of London) / Heritage-Images

Literature - George R. Sims

George R. Sims, an English journalist, poet, dramatist, novelist and philanthropist. Sims began writing for Fun magazine and The Referee, but he soon concentrated on social reform, particularly the plight of the poor in London's slums

© PA Archive/Press Association Images

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Flood Sufferers

circa 1877: Impoverished people in front of a rag shop in Lambeth, London, where the Thames annual tidal overflow causes hardship to the locals. 'Sufferers From The Floods', a photographic plate from 'Street Life In London' by Smith and Thomson (pub. 1877). (Photo by John Thomson/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)