ABSTRACT
Henry Mayhew was born in London in 1812, the son of a solicitor. He attended Westminster School, but ran away to sea at age 12. In 1829, he began training as a solicitor, but finding the work uncongenial, he became a journalist instead. Mayhew was constantly in debt, and became part of a circle of writers which included William Thackeray and Douglas Jerrold. He wrote novels and plays in addition to his journalistic work, and in 1841 co-founded the satirical magazine, Punch. In 1849–50, Mayhew wrote a series of articles for the Morning Chronicle investigating the state of the London poor. The articles caused a sensation, but stopped when Mayhew came to believe that the pro-free trade newspaper was censoring his increasingly protectionist economic views in his articles. Mayhew continued his investigations, publishing articles serially on an independent basis in 1851. He re-issued some of the pieces from the Morning Chronicle, and added new investigations as well. The project petered out as Mayhew again ran into debt. The articles he published independently were collected and published in 1861 as the four-volume London Labour and the London Poor, with John Binny writing much of the last volume. Mayhew’s work has been claimed as the forerunner of modern sociological investigation, although some historians have been critical of his methodology and veracity. 1 Mayhew died in 1887.
