5. The Dockers
Social Conditions

In the streets around the docks and along the riverside were the homes of the dock labourers.

The casual nature of their work meant that they did not receive a regular income and periods of unemployment meant no income at all. They and their families existed in a state of acute poverty.

Charles Booth conducted a survey in the East End at the turn of the century which revealed the full extent of their plight.

It was a wide-ranging survey carried out by teams under Booth's direction. In one part of the survey he described a dock labourer's family (among others).

B: 'No. 1. - This is the poorest case on my list, but is typical of a great many others. The man, Michael H___, is a casual dock-labourer aged 38, in poor health, fresh from the infirmary.

His wife of 43 is consumptive. A son of 18, who earns 8s. [40p] regular wages as carman's boy,' and two girls of 8 and 6, complete the family.
(A carman drove a horse and cart.).

Their house has four rooms but they let two. Father and son dine from home. The neighbouring clergy send soup 2 or 3 times a week, and practically no meat is bought.

It figures the first Sunday only: "3 Ibs. of meat at 4d. [2p]". Beyond the dinners out, and the soup at home, the food consists principally of bread, margarine, tea and sugar. Of these the quantities are pretty large ... the prices are the lowest possible ...

I suppose the two rooms in which the family live will be those on the ground floor - bedroom (used sometimes as a parlour) to the front, kitchen, where they eat and sit, to the back. In the kitchen the son will sleep, his parents and sisters occupying the front room.

Neither of these rooms will exceed 10 ft. square; both I am told (for I have not seen them), are patterns of tidiness and cleanness, which with Class B* is not very common.

This accommodation cost 17s. [85p] a month.
On firing, &c., the H___'s spent 10s. 4d. [52p] in the 5 weeks - as much as, and more than many with double the means; but warmth may make up for lack of food, and invalids depend on it for their lives. Allowing as well as I can for the meals out, and the charitable shop, I make the meals provided by Mrs H___ for her family to cost Id, [1/2p] per meal per person (counting the two little girls as one person).

A penny a meal is very little, but is expended chiefly in cheap bread, cheap butter, cheap tea and cheap sugar...

This diet is somewhat varied, so as to bring in some fish, a little bacon, and a few eggs, besides the charitable soup.'

Charles Booth, Life and Labour of the People of London, Vol. 1,1892

Sack-making in Shadwell

Kitchen of a common lodging-house.

*Booth divided the people in the survey into eight classes. Class B was one of the poorest.