Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg
Henry Mayhew's 19th Century London
What Charles Dickens Saw

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I thank the Lord for what I've had,
If I had more, I should be glad,
But now the times they are so bad,
I must be glad for what I've had.


(Grace by children receiving charity dinners at the Old Nichol)


Click to see The London Costermonger

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Click to see The Street-Seller
of Walking Sticks

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Click to see The Oyster Stall

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Click to see A View in Rosemary Lane

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Click to see The Baked Potato Man

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Click to see A Street Dog-Seller

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Click to see The Coster Boy and Girl
Tossing the Pieman

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Click to see Street-Seller of Birds'-Nests

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Click to see The Irish Street-Seller

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Click to see The Crippled Street Bird-Seller

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Click to see Orange Mart Duke's Place

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Click to see The London Sweep

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Click to see The Hindoo Tract-Seller

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Click to see The Bone-Grubber

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Click to see The Street-Seller
of Grease-Removing Composition, etc.

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Click to see Street Porter with Knot

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Click to see The Grundsel Man

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Click to see Vagrant from the Refuge
in Playhouse Yard, Cripplegate

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Click to see The One-Legged Sweeper
at Chancery-Lane

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Click to see The Asylum for the
Houseless Poor, Cripplegate

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Click to see The Long-Song Seller

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Click to see The Coster-Girl

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Click to see The Lucifer Match Girl

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Click to see The Mud-Lark

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Click to see The Street-Seller of
Nutmeg-Graters

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Click to see The London Dustman

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Click to see The Street-Seller of
Crockery-Ware (Bartering for Old Clothes)

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Click to see One of the Few
Remaining Climbing Sweeps

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Click to see The Book-Auctioneer

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Click to see The Sweeps' Home

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Click to see Costermongers
in Holiday Attire

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Click to see The Crossing-Sweeper
That Has Been a Maid-Servant

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Click to see The Street-Seller
of Dogs' Collars

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Click to see Punch's Showmen

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Click to see Dr. Bokanky,
The Street Herbalist

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Click to see a Street Conjurer Performing

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Click to see The Blind Boot-Lace Seller

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Click to see a Cab Driver

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Click to see The Street Comb Seller

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Click to see Vagrants In the
Casual Ward of the Workhouse

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Click to see a Scene in Pettycoat Lane

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Click to see a Sewer-Hunter

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Click to see the Boy Crossing-Sweepers

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Click to see a View of a Dust-Yard

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Click to see The Jew Old Clothes-Man
"Clo', Clo', Clo"

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Click to see Faringdon Market

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Click to see the Rat Catcher

-Jack_Black Mayhew's Rat catcher

Click to see Jack-in-the-Green (Cruikshank)

Jack_in_the_Green Cruikshank B

Click to see a "Gonoph" handcuffed
by a plain-clothes officer

Plain-clothes Officer + Gonoph

Click to see a Photographic saloon

Click to see a
Lambeth dust girl: 1862

scan0005 Lambeth dustgirl 1862

Click to see a Mudlark
(Munby): 1855

scan0029 Mudlark (Munby) 1855

Click to see a
Tom-All-Alone

Tom-all-alone.bmp

Click to see Crank Labour

Crank Labour

Click to see a Paddington
dustwoman (Munby)

scan0006 Paddington dustwoman, Munby

Click to see a Coalheaver giving his
dinner to a Mudlark girl (Munby): 1855

scan0046 Coalheaver gives dinner to Mudlark girl Munby 1855

Click to see workhouse at Millbank

scan0030 Millbank workhouse

Click to see idealized fantasy
of children working in a mill

scan0031 small children worked in the mills


Henry Mayhew and Charles Dickens were aware of and saw London as so few others did at this time. A few observations follow, from Dickens' Sketches by Boz", Scenes, Chapter 2, The Streets — Night, Penguin 1995 reprint, p. 76

"The streets in the vicinity of the Marsh-gate and Victoria Theatre present an appearance of dirt and discomfort on such a night, which the groups who lounge about them in no degree tend to diminish. Even the little block-tin temple sacred to baked potatoes, surmounted by a splendid design in variegated lamps, look less gay than usual; and as to the kidney-pie stand, its glory has quite departed. The candel in the transparent lamp, manufactured of oil-paper, embellished with 'characters,' has been blown out fifty times, so the kidney-pie merchant, tired with running backwards and forwards to the next wine-vaults, to get light, has given up the idea of illumination in despair, and the only signs of his 'whereabout,' are the bright sparks, of which a long irregular train is whirled down the street every time he opens his portable oven to hand a hot kidney-pie to a customer."

"Flat fish, oyster, and fruit venders linger hopelessly in the kennel, in vain endeavoring to attract customers; and the ragged boys who usually disport themselves about the streets, stand crouched in little knots in some projecting doorway, or under the canvass blind of the cheesemonger's, where great flaring gas-lights, unshaded by any glass, display huge piles of bright red, and pale yellow cheeses, mingled with little five-penny dabs of dingy bacon, various tubs of weekly Dorset [butter], and cloudy rolls of the 'best fresh.' "

Portraits of street people and street life were not unique to Mayhew. In the compilation "Petersburg: The Physiology of a City", Nikolai Nekrasov includes several stories about the street life and street people of nineteenth-century St. Petersburg, including "The Petersburg Quarter" and "The Petersburg Organ-grinders".

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