ABSTRACT
Charles Booth's 1902 Inquiry 'Life and Labour of the People of London' was his attempt to understand nineteenth-century housing in how people understand poverty. A synopsis of Inquiry's methods and findings highlights key facts and draws links to contemporary housing issues with specific reference to the work of Environmental Health Practitioner (EHP). By 1889 Booth was able to use his classification system to plot data on maps to see geographical trends in poverty; his maps show concentrations of people in lowest classes away from main through routes around East London and close to the docks. Booth has a legacy into town planning and urban layout; his published Inquiry data are so comprehensive they have been used by researchers such as Professor Laura Vaughan to investigate the relationship between spatial form and why poverty has persisted in some areas. The author explores London County Council (LCC) scheme to remove the 'Old Nichol' slums, an area sandwiched between Shoreditch and Bethnal Green.
