Backgrounder: homelessness
As the Conservatives and Labour clash over the best way to tackle the UK’s homelessness crisis, two historians consider Britons’ attitudes to vagrancy in the 19th century and the rise of charitable support groups
Central government simply did not regard it as part of its role to provide any kind of safety net for the most vulnerable in society PROFESSOR JANE HAMLETT
TheVictorians didn’t perceive homelessness as a social problem in the same way that we do today. Before the advent of the welfare state, central government did not regard it as part of its role to provide health and social care, or any kind of safety net. For that reason, it was difficult for those who did campaign for change, like Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, to get reforming legislation through parliament.
In 1834 the system of poor relief was reorganised in Britain: what was previously a hotchpotch of schemes offering different kinds of help at a local level was now centralised, and local authorities were obliged to set up workhouses for the poor in their localities. However, this system wasn’t really designed to relieve homelessness – it was more about dealing with the poor as a social problem. As a result, it was punitive, and acted as a deterrent as much as a support.
As a part of the workhouse system, local authorities operated casual wards that offered immediate shelter to men, women and children who had nowhere else to go. Accommodation in casual wards was basic and often unpleasant, and inmates were expected to perform menial labour in return for a night’s stay. There were restrictions on how much time inmates could spend in casual wards – a policy that was designed to push vagrants on to other parishes. Those who were unable to move on ended up in the workhouse.
But the Victorians were increasingly worried about poverty and the condition of the poor – and these anxieties often focused on their living conditions. Social reporters like Henry Mayhew and photographers such as John Thomson conveyed London street life vividly to middle-class audiences. The image of the homeless child, in particular, was reproduced in many forms in the second half of the 19th century and certainly helped stir some of the middle and upper classes into action.
The strongest drive to help the poor came from charities, many of which were motivated by religion. In the 19th century, missionaries invested enormous energy in helping the poor at home, particularly in the East End of London. Many of them believed that saving souls was as important as providing food and shelter, though they often acknowledged that the two went hand in hand.
It’s perhaps inevitable, then, that some of the most important providers of shelters for the homeless in London were religious groups. By the late 19th century, the Salvation Army had established a complex network of institutions across the capital designed to help those in need of immediate support, before encouraging them to earn a livelihood through training in new trades.
It was in the Victorian era that the idea that everyone should have a home started to gain cultural traction. The term ‘ homelessness’ has had huge resonance in our society ever since. Unfortunately, our concern for the homeless has rarely been matched by universal, state-organised action to bring homelessness to an end.
Whattipped Britons into homelessness in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, and which types of people were most vulnerable? Those questions have been at the centre of my studies into the lives of people prosecuted for vagrancy between the 1880s and the First World War.
My research suggests that we should dismiss the romantic idea of ‘gentlemen of the road’ following a nomadic lifestyle out of choice. It’s true that some vagrants did spend short periods on the road before returning to settled living, going on to marry and raise families. But for the most part, vagrants were vulnerable individuals, often displaying signs of physical or mental ill health, who struggled to hold down regular work and, because of that, adopted a mobile life. Many were ex-servicemen who had left the army without any skills or pension.
Historians have suggested that the nature of ‘tramping’ changed in the late 19th century: artisan workers moving around the country supported by their trade were now being replaced by unskilled labourers taking ad hoc casual work and relying on workhouse casual wards. This new breed of vagrant was predominately drawn from the urban and rural poor, and a combination of circumstances (trade cycles, mechanisation, unemployment) and personal crises (family bereavement, abandonment and ill health) had tipped them into vagrancy.
The public response to tramps was ambiguous. They were widely feared, often because people assumed that they posed a threat to women. Yet, just as today, the public were willing to donate food and money to beggars. In one case, in 1906, a family in rural Leicestershire allowed a woman in her sixties to shelter in a vacant pigsty during a severe winter storm. They would not admit her to their home, but provided her with food and drink and complied with her request not to summon the police. Though the woman ultimately died of exposure, at the inquest the family were commended for their charity.
How much has homelessness changed since the First World War? In some respects, very little: mental and physical ill health and poor education remain the main drivers of vagrancy. Ex-servicemen are still disproportionately represented in Britain’s homeless population.
But there’s one factor that has changed over the past century – and that’s the mobility of the homeless. Their movements around the country now appear to be more restricted, and they often find that only in cities can they sustain begging and rough sleeping – through charity and welfare support. Their growing visibility in urban areas has sparked headlines about the abuse of synthetic substances on our streets. This recalls moral panics over substance abuse that swept Scotland in the 1880s, 1890s and 1930s – though, back then, the drug of choice would have been methylated spirits.
Of course, while alcoholism may have been the cause of many people’s homelessness, others turned to drink only after finding themselves on the streets – in order to block out the stresses of their existence.
Victorians often regarded the homeless as a threat to women but they were also willing to donate money to beggars NICHOLAS CROWSON