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This section has individual studies of the 12 inner London boroughs, a snapshot of local life in the 1890s. Each of these 'Snapshot 1890s' has a map of part of the borough, short extracts about certain streets and some general remarks. Click on View Map of London and then click on the borough you want to investigate.
All of the maps and documents used in the Snapshots are from Charles Booth's survey of life and work in London in the 1890s and are reproduced by kind permission of the London School of Economics Archives. If you want to see all of Booth's map and notebooks, then visit their site on www.booth.lse.ac.uk.
Charles Booth employed men to visit all parts of London and write down what they saw. Each observer was accompanied by a policeman - his remarks were recorded as well. Booth used his observers' notebooks to produce a map of London, colour-coded to show how rich or poor each street was. His code was:
| COLOUR | CLASS | COLOUR | CLASS |
| Yellow | Upper-middle and upper classes - Wealthy | Red | Middle-class - Well-to-do |
| Pink | Fairly comfortable - Good ordinary earnings | Pink-barred (brick colour) | Mixed - Some comfortable, others poor |
| Light blue | Poor - 18s to 21s a week for a moderate family | Purple (dark blue) | Very poor, casual workers - Chronic want |
| Black | Lowest class - Vicious, semi-criminal | | |
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