ABSTRACT
Children were so prevalent as street traders in the mid-nineteenth century that Henry Mayhew devoted a whole section of his London Labour and the London Poor to the subject in 1851.1 Of course, when over a third of the population was then under 15 and there was no national compulsory schooling, it was inevitable that children should appear so conspicuously in street life. They were sent out by parents to contribute to the family income however they could, or if mistreatment by parents or employers was unbearable they ran away to fend for themselves. In the absence of a home life, they banded together for companionship, living in sordid common lodging-houses, where, before regulatory legislation, both sexes and all ages mixed promiscuously in the foetid kitchens and dormitories.2 Those that could not afford the price of a bed slept in the streets, under arches, in doorways, or under the barrows in Covent Garden Market.
