ABSTRACT

Commercial lodging houses presented their own problems and dangers to women. Although W. G. Boase in 1848 reckoned that male tramps sent their womenfolk into the casual wards for 'security' while they went to the lodging houses, Edwardian observers suggested the reverse: that the men put their women and children into the lodging houses, holding any money while they went into the casual wards. As women were lower-paid and had the care of children they received more official sympathy when it came to outdoor relief. London was not alone in the dearth of women's accommodation; in 1912 Birmingham had only 90 beds for women in the city's registered commercial houses. The LCC for its part insisted that the paucity of women's beds in the commercial houses was due to lack of demand and there was no significant vagrant problem among working class women.