The Historic Environment: Whitechapel Flashcards
Where is Whitechapel located?
Whitechapel is a district in East London.
What was the main type of housing in Whitechapel during the late 1800s?
Most housing was located in rookeries. In these areas, there were lodging houses, where lodgers paid a nightly fee for a bed.
What is a rookery?
A slum area in a town or a city where rates of poverty and crime were high.
What percentage of Whitechapel’s residents lived in lodging houses?
Around 25%.
What was the problem with lodging houses?
- They were extremely overcrowded
- Lack of sanitation
What is the name of the well-known rookery of lodging houses?
Flower and Dean Street.
What characterised the lodging houses on Flower and Dean Street?
- Gained the reputation for housing thieves, drunkards and prostitutes
- Had a terrible smell due to use of buckets and pots as toilets
- Lots of disease
What was Whitechapel’s form of provision for the poor in the late 19th century?
Workhouses.
What did workhouses offer and what was this in return for? Give examples.
They offered a bed and food in return for hard labour such as chopping wood or cleaning.
What were the main types of people to go to the workhouse?
- The elderly
- Orphans
- The disabled
- The poor
What were the three reasons why Whitechapel workhouses were seen as a last resort?
- Families were segregated
- Parents were only allowed to see their children once a day
- Inmates had to wear a uniform
What attempt was there to improve the housing situation in Whitechapel?
The Peabody Trust (a charity set up) to build the Peabody Estate.
Who was the Peabody estate set up by?
Wealthy American banker George Peabody.
What was the aim of the Peabody Trust?
To build a new body of flats that offered affordable rents to tenants.
How much did a one-room flat cost in the Peabody Estate? Was this affordable?
Weekly rent started at 3 shillings (15p) for one room and this was affordable as the average labourer earned 22 shillings per week.
How did the Peabody Estate improve living conditions?
- Had shared kitchens
- Better ventilation
- Had shared bathrooms
What was the employment situation like in Whitechapel?
There was high unemployment due to economic depression.
How did women earn money?
As there were few jobs available to women, many turned to prostitution as a means of income.
What jobs were available in Whitechapel?
- Factory work in the sweated trades
- Building railways
- Work in the dockyards
What were working conditions in the sweated trades like?
Had to work up to 20 hours in dusty, cramped and dark conditions.
What are the links between the environment and crime in Whitechapel?
- Low income levels led to people desperately stealing
- Lack of work led to alcoholism and violence
- High levels of prostitution caused more violence towards women
What caused the influx of Irish immigrants in Whitechapel?
In the 1840s, many Irish left for the USA but ended up in London instead.
What did most Irish migrants work as?
They were employed at the docks as ‘navvies’ (navigators) and did labouring jobs such as building roads and railways.