Vagabonds

A primary source derived excursion in to the rarely heard voices of people who lived and worked in London's streets between the 1780s and 1870s. Oskar Jensen's goal is to humanize and empathize with people who lived and worked on the streets, offering a quite different view of how we picture or imagine Victorian London.

This is not an architectural or legal story, but one of people. Jensen using the birth to death structure to arrange chapters describing street life for different groups. Chapter one looks at the infant, chapter the boy, three the girl. Chapter four explores the immigrant experience. Chapter five looks at the life of the professional. Chapter six looks at those living beyond or fleeing from the law. Chapter seven centers on the elderly. All of these chapters looks at that almost century and present, in their own words, or the words of contemporary witnesses, lived experience. Some people reappear across multiple chapters, having written of their own lives. Other's we only see briefly.

It is very much a work focused on the poor and the struggle and challenges of survival. Some are temporary residents of the streets falling on bad luck, others have made due and eke out their daily lives through an established location or routine. However, it does also highlight stories of success, of those who learned to game the system or reached heights of fame. There are some possibilities of support either through the local parish or by entering a workhouse, but many speak to the inefficiency or unhygienic conditions of these places. To appear clean and presentable is seen by many to be necessary to secure any sort of work, especially as begging is criminalized.

Most striking is the ephemerality of the lives led. For example, in 'The Elder" chapter, some street musicians names are only known, because they performed at a funeral that made the newspaper. Many of the people's whose stories are told here are only known through the writings cited in this volume. What traces does a life leave? Is to survive enough?

Recommended to those interested in History, this book serves as an excellent survey of London's Street life and would be a useful accompaniment to Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth.

Think our homeless have it bad? This book will give you a look at how those in the past faced the issue. Interesting perspective.