]]> Angela Burdett Coutts (1814-1906), a philanthropic millionairess, became friends with Dickens about 1840. He undertook research for Coutts and began advising her on various charities in which she was interested. In the letter displayed, Dickens recounts his visit to a Ragged School in Saffron Hill, a notorious slum area of London and home to the fictional Fagin. Ragged Schools were set up in an attempt to bring education to the street children of London while also providing them with some food and clothing. Dickens praised the efforts of the teachers but was shocked by the parlous state of the children and advised Coutts that the school was ‘an experiment most worthy of [her] charitable hand’. Dickens and Coutts went on to other charity projects and set up Urania Cottage, a ‘Home for Fallen Women’, in May 1847.

[Page 50 and 51 from Letters from Charles Dickens to Angela Burdett-Coutts 1841-1865. Selected by Edgar Johnson.]

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Henry Mayhew’s (1812-1887) London Labour and the London Poor (1851), chronicles every aspect of the lives of the poor working classes of London. Especially poignant are Mayhew’s descriptions of the lives of the street children. He writes of the reasons for their being on the streets ‘through neglect… viciousness…from utter destitution’; their money-making ventures as crossing sweepers, errand runners and street sellers; their clothing and appearance; their diet, religion, education and morals. He describes how the children often drank a penny’s worth of gin ‘to keep the cold out’ and how they learned the ‘grossest immorality’ and ‘obscene expressions’ from adults.

[The Boy Crossing-Sweepers. Plate no. 47, facing page 178, from Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor. Volume II.]

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Taken by John Thomson, a Scottish photographer, in 1877, the image on the left is titled ‘The Crawler’. ‘Crawlers’ were typically people so poverty-stricken that they didn’t even have the energy to beg. The destitute woman depicted is minding the baby of a friend with the hope of receiving a cup of tea and a piece of bread as payment, possibly the only nourishment she would have had all day. Although Thomson’s photograph is staged, the image is heart-breaking and there is no denying the desperation of the woman’s situation. The bedraggled group of boys on the right are awaiting admission to Dr Barnardo’s Home in about 1880. The lucky ones? Maybe.

[Photographs from Victorian Life in PhotographsThe Crawler (left) and Barnado's Boys (right).]

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Angela Burdett Coutts (1814-1906), a philanthropic millionairess, became friends with Dickens about 1840. He undertook research for Coutts and began advising her on various charities in which she was interested. In the letter displayed, Dickens recounts his visit to a Ragged School in Saffron Hill, a notorious slum area of London and home to the fictional Fagin. Ragged Schools were set up in an attempt to bring education to the street children of London while also providing them with some food and clothing. Dickens praised the efforts of the teachers but was shocked by the parlous state of the children and advised Coutts that the school was ‘an experiment most worthy of [her] charitable hand’. Dickens and Coutts went on to other charity projects and set up Urania Cottage, a ‘Home for Fallen Women’, in May 1847.

[Copy of photograph of Angela Burdett Coutts. ]

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