The 1880s The Victorian Slum

150 years ago,

Victorian Britain became the world's first industrial superpower.

And as the country thrived, London - the beating heart of Empire -

became the world's richest city.

But this was a city divided.

For the first time, geographical lines were drawn

between those enjoying the nation's wealth in the West...

..and those who weren't, in the East.

This is the story of one poor community

living in London's East End.

In the heart of modern Stratford...

a Victorian slum has been recreated.

And a group of 21st-century people are moving in.

Oh! Oh! Absolutely awful.

I'm just a bit dumbstruck.

To survive...

Oh!

..they'll have to work to keep a roof over their heads...

It's absolutely shattering.

..and put food on the table.

I'm starving. It's making me a bit emotional, to be honest.

And they'll learn first-hand what life was like...

You will call me ma'am.

..for those at the bottom of the economic pile.

If they were disabled, they couldn't do it.

They didn't eat. They didn't eat, they died.

They'll live through five decades of turbulent history...

Look at the newspaper!

..and seismic social change.

I am proud to be an East End suffragette.

Power to the people.

This is the story of how a quarter of a million slum dwellers

in the East End changed our attitude to poverty forever.

This is The Slum.

Last time...

the 1870s.

I've always wanted one of these machines.

The residents moved into mass production.

22 pairs of trousers.

-SHE GASPS

-Oh, my God.

I think we'll be working late tonight.

Oh, my God.

-Bread, that's now 97p.

-Oh!

But an economic nosedive...

30% reduction in prices is a big bombshell.

..meant harder work...

He treats us like employees, not family, when we're working.

-Just about past.

-What do you mean just about?

..just to scrape by.

You know, being the only breadwinner,

I've got to work twice as hard to earn money,

and then still I've nothing.

And I'm running out of options.

Oh, wow!

There were hopeful new arrivals...

The Irish are moving up.

Ssh! (We are packing.)

..and a desperate departure.

I don't know how these people did it, I mean...

If I was a Victorian woman,

I would rather take my chances elsewhere and start afresh.

Wow. She's just gone. Unbelievable.

It's nearly touching at the back now.

There was a big gap before at the waist.

Slum diet's working, then.

It's the residents' third week in the slum

and the start of a new decade, the 1880s.

I don't know what's going to happen in the next decade.

As a family, we just take it day by day,

but there's always that worry.

For slum dwellers like the Potters,

it's an ongoing battle to make ends meet.

Seems to be no end to the cycle.

You know, you get up, you go out, you look for work, there is no work.

It's absolutely soul destroying.

-Morning!

-Good morning.

We've got some lovely bacon here. 75p, or the normal bread and marge.

I think it's going to be normal bread and marge, yeah?

-Yeah, two slices of bread.

-With marge?

'We worked so hard in the 1870s just to get by.'

My greatest fear for the 1880s is that it gets worse.

In the 1870s, Britain was gripped by a dire economic depression.

By the 1880s, things were reaching crisis point.

There was an influx of cheap labour into the East End,

which led to greater competition for jobs and drove down wages.

Pressure was mounting on those who were already living on the edge.

Russell, the big bit or the smaller bit?

The smaller bit.

I'd do whatever I can to pay my rent,

doesn't matter how hard we work, I don't care how little we sleep,

and I actually don't care how hungry we go,

the main thing is we put as much money as we can away.

Because as soon as you start getting behind here,

you're never going to get back.

In the 1870s, the Howarth family got by

working from home as sweated tailors, finishing factory orders.

In the 1880s, even with the economy in dire straits,

London's population was still expanding

by more than 40,000 a year.

-Oh!

-Oh, my God.

-Oh, my God, there's a Singer.

-So, this is a workshop, yeah?

-Yeah, definitely a workshop.

-High-five.

-Oh, my God.

This is special.

As the depression worsened, factories cut costs,

creating an opportunity for East End tailors

to set up entire workshops, fulfilling factory orders

by exploiting the cheap and unregulated workforce

in the East End slums.

Compared to working at home,

this, to me, just feels like a palace.

Last time, the Howarths were sweated workers.

Now they will be the sweaters.

But their new business means their weekly rent

has almost doubled - to £30 in today's money.

So the pressure is on to make the workshop pay.

We need to work really hard and get ourselves out of this,

but we're going to be employing people and not paying them fairly,

so we are not going to be paying them for a fair day's work, are we?

No. Running a sweaters workshop's going to be tough, I think.

If we don't deliver any work, then no money's going to come in,

and then we're paying them and we don't actually make any money,

we actually lose money.

We could be in the doss house if we don't get the work done.

The success of a sweated workshop

relied on a willingness to work others to the bone.

And in an already saturated labour market,

there was no shortage of people desperate for work.

The 1880s saw a huge influx of Jewish immigrants

fleeing from poverty and persecution

in places like Russia and Eastern Europe.

They came here to the East End,

despite the fact that a lot of them had relatives

writing letters saying, "Don't come,

"conditions here are truly dreadful."

But what they were fleeing was even worse.

In 1881, in Russia, Jews were blamed

for the assassination of Tsar Alexander.

Government-sponsored massacres, known as pogroms, followed.

Thousands were killed.

The pogroms spawned attacks and oppression

that lasted decades and forced many to flee their homeland

and seek refuge in cities like London.

The number of Jewish immigrants almost doubled.

Around 30,000 arrived, and this made them the second largest

immigrant population after the Irish.

Tomas is a 21st-century Polish economic migrant.

Not what I necessarily expected.

It's so grey.

Lee and Yasha are both descendants of European Jews

who sought refuge in London.

They seem smiley, don't they?

-Yeah.

-God, give it an hour.

75-year-old Yasha's father fled Russia in the early 20th century.

I'm just very grateful to have this amazing opportunity

to experience the circumstances of London

when the Jews arrived in the East End of London.

They come to a new nation looking for something new -

for a new home, new opportunities.

Lee's grandfather was an Austrian child refugee

brought to England at the start of the Second World War.

They came here just so that they could live.

Just so that they could be somewhere

and it not be an offence to be Jewish.

I reckon they've just come in, Russ, and they're going to be looking for work.

I reckon these are the people we're going to have to look to employ.

Oh, my God, this is so weird.

In the 1880s, refugees arriving at London's docks

were often greeted off the boat by sweating sharks

who promised them work and brought them to the sweaters' dens

of the East End.

-This is the workshop.

-OK.

Russell is obviously in charge of the work,

but I'm actually in charge of the workshop itself.

So I'll be walking around making sure everybody is as productive

as they possibly can be.

Sweaters' dens maximised the productivity of their workers

by operating a strict set of rules.

There is no slacking on the job, which includes stopping to eat, OK?

There is no excessive talking.

All right?

The most serious one is any stealing or damaging any of the garments,

because we have to replace them, which comes out of our profit,

which is going to feed my children.

If any of the rules are broken, then you will be fined,

and that will be taken out of any wages

that you could potentially earn.

Like their forebears,

the workers have arrived with no money for food and shelter.

They won't be paid until the first order is complete.

New orders could come at any time.

New order, six men's pairs of trousers and six waistcoats.

Turning them around quickly was the only way to make a sweatshop pay.

You've got to do this by tomorrow. We need to work quickly.

But new employees were unfamiliar with the process.

Had a slight accident.

You see the iron here?

Really, very, very hot. Wrap it.

Got it? Pick it up.

Known as greeners...

Little bit of water.

..they were given the lowliest tasks,

such as underpressing and basic machining.

Just sew on the white chalk mark.

Mandy and Russell will need to get their greeners up to speed fast

if they're going to get their first order done today.

Oh, no, I think my bobbin's gone.

Never crank it towards you, because if you do,

it will break the cotton, which is really annoying.

If anybody is struggling, could you let me know, please?

Cos I can call Russell over rather than you just wait and wait and wait

because time is money.

-Oh, God.

-You have to understand, they've got to work quickly.

The idea is that they need to make us money.

So they're lovely, lovely, but ultimately they're not my friends.

My mum, I've never seen her like that before.

She, she is embracing the sweatshop thing.

The fact there was no laws whatsoever just blows my mind.

To keep up the pace in the 1880s,

sweated workers put in more than 18 hours a day,

six days a week.

Put one on, while that one's heating up you're using one,

and then you can go out and swap over.

They were paid amongst the lowest wages in the slums,

the equivalent of just 34p an hour.

They'd need four times that to pay for a bed in the doss house.

This is where they sort of took advantage of the immigrants.

They probably couldn't even speak English, or read, or write,

or anything like that.

These conditions are still round the world, in Bangladesh,

in China, people get treated and taken advantage of.

It was a dog eat dog world.

They probably had the attitude I had to go through it, I had to do it,

I had to survive it, and if you're strong enough you will survive it,

but that's not my problem. I'm in it to get out of this,

so I will earn as much money out of you as I possibly can.

Without a trade to rely on,

the Potters have struggled through the decades.

But families like theirs could make a living from the streets.

Oh!

Known as costermongers, or street peddlers,

they bought cheap food to sell on.

You have to cut down there.

A staple of the East End diet,

eels were an affordable source of protein,

known as the meat of the poor.

People usually prepared street food in their own homes,

but the Potters are borrowing the shop's kitchen.

I think we've not done a bad job.

Bought for five a penny,

sheep's trotters could also be sold on the street for a small profit.

We'll see if we can get enough so that we can make the rent,

and be able to feed us.

The Potters are heading to Spitalfields

in the heart of the East End to try and make their £13 rent.

Come and get your jellied eels.

Jellied eels, 17p.

No. You're all right.

Come and get your jellied eels.

Spitalfields would have thronged with people plying their trade

outside pubs like the Ten Bells, here since 1851,

where people paid pennies for snacks to soak up their gin and beer.

In the 1880s, the lack of other work

meant the number of costermongers soared by almost 40%

to more than 12,000.

Come and get your Potters' trotters.

It's a little bit like kebabs.

It's quite fatty, isn't it?

Back then, around 80,000 sheep's trotters were consumed each week.

Hello.

Now, though, the Potters will need to sell 72 trotters or eels

just to make their rent.

Would you be interested in any sheep's trotters?

-Sorry, what is it?

-Sheep's trotter.

-It's a sheep's trotter.

No, I'm all right.

What is the difference between a tube and a foolish Dutchman?

One is a hollow cylinder and the other is a silly Hollander.

As well as street selling, children found other ways to make money.

Would you like to hear a joke for 8p?

They performed acrobatics, sang ditties,

or told the jokes of the day to passers-by,

all to try and earn a few pennies.

-Ready.

-If all the seas were dried up what would Neptune say?

I don't know. I don't know.

I really haven't got a notion.

Oh!

When is a pretty girl like a ship?

-I don't know.

-Go on.

When she is attached to a buoy.

Oh!

-Amazing.

-It's all right.

It's quite embarrassing,

but every penny counts when you're in Victorian times,

because it could be the 1p that gets you your meal.

Potters' trotters!

What are you eating there?

-Fish and chips.

-That with fish and chips would be absolutely superb.

17p, just try it.

Graham injured his back while working,

shortly after his arrival at the slum.

Now he finally has a chance to earn.

Do you eat fish? That's all it is.

My parents were brought up on those.

It is nice. Yes, yes, it is, yes.

17p.

-Thank you.

-Thank you very much indeed.

-Goodbye.

-I think my dad's a natural salesman.

It's what he's done all his life.

Heather cooked them freshly this morning.

He's enjoying it.

I think it's probably done him the world of good to get out.

-So, one for takeaway?

-Yes. Thank you.

With more people arriving all the time,

the East End slums of the 1880s were filling up

with unskilled men desperate to support their families.

Employment rates were running at around 10% for casual labourers.

But the real problem was underemployment.

If you were unskilled,

then you would be lucky to get two weeks of poorly paid work a month.

And that affected the lives of everyone in the slum.

Slum residents John and Andy

are meeting social historian Carl Chinn at the West India docks,

a few miles from the East End,

to find out about job opportunities in the 1880s.

The dock would have been the first port of call

for many casual labourers,

but by the 1880s, everything was a fight.

This is why we're here today, lads.

This grand, imposing pillar.

Its twin is across the street.

This was the entrance to the West India docks.

Between the pillars there would have been great, big, heavy gates.

In the 1880s, at gates like these, along the Thames in London,

thousands upon thousands of desperate men would gather

every morning looking for casual work.

In the East End of London alone,

over 10,000 men were trying to get dock work,

which was sufficient for only 6,000.

For centuries the spoils of Empire - tea, sugar, tobacco, spice -

had passed through London's docks.

In the 1860s, when the docks were thriving,

it had offered casual labourers hard work but decent pay.

By the 1880s, the economic depression

and competition from new docks down the stream

left the East End in crisis.

Too poor to travel elsewhere, men still came, desperate for work,

often waiting hours for the chance of a job.

When those gates open, there is a mad rush for the men to get through

and be the first to get called for work.

Ben Tillett later founded the Dock Workers' Union.

He wrote in his memoirs about a place called the cage.

As the men were driven through the gates,

they were herded, almost, into a shed, as if they were cattle.

And that shed had iron bars all around it.

And around the iron bars, the foremen looking out

deciding who they were going to choose to work that day.

The younger men were flinging themselves across those in front.

Men who were so enfeebled by hunger and weakness

fell below onto the ground, and they were trampled to death underfoot.

Those were the conditions that the casuals had to put up with.

It's horrific. It beggars belief that people, like you say,

were treated like cattle, like commodities,

like pieces of flesh just to move items.

To come here, you know, in the hope to be able to support their families

and to come in and find yourself in the cage. It's...

I can't imagine that desperation for work.

It's unbelievable.

I can't even...

And the job that you casuals would have had

would have been at the bottom of the pile, to unload the bails,

the barrels, the crates, and, of course, the bags of sugar.

This is what you've punched, pushed, shoved, fought for.

And you know how much you are going to get for it?

-It'll be a pittance, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-5p an hour.

-5p an hour?

-5p an hour.

-That's crazy.

Andy, do you think you would have got work?

To be honest, I can't see me even getting through the gate.

Why would a foreman pick someone with quite an obvious disability?

I'm older than John. I'm bottom of the pile, aren't I?

You're on your way out, then.

John? Young, fitter, probably would have been picked.

Get cracking with your work, mate.

Andy's got nothing from the dock,

but for John, things aren't much better.

In the 1860s,

a docker's daily wage was equivalent to £22 in today's money.

But by the 1880s, fierce competition for fewer jobs

had forced wages down,

and they'd have been lucky to get two hours work,

earning them just £4.40.

It's horrific.

And you are just bringing it backwards and forwards

all day long.

Moving goods around the quays and warehouses was dangerous, too.

The sacks would rub the skin off their backs,

and half of all workers sustained serious injuries.

There are even accounts of men dying from exhaustion on their doorsteps

clutching their day's pay.

It makes you, kind of, angry that somebody in those days

was willing to go out and fight for this work,

but nothing could secure it from one day to the next.

It's ruthless. There's no security

and there's always somebody ready to take your place

as soon as you can't do it.

In the East End sweatshops, working conditions were just as bad.

Sweated workers were fined for mistakes, for talking,

and charged over the odds for bread and tea.

Don't be too stingy with the sugar.

With a list of rules to enforce,

12-year-old James is getting a taste for being boss.

You can't stop work to drink your tea.

Or you get fined £1.02.

You need to work...

while you're drinking your tea.

How are you supposed to be drinking while working?

It's for you to sort out. It's not my problem,

because I'm not drinking and working at the same time.

It's your problem.

I'm quite enjoying bossing people around.

I feel like I'm quite a big person in the scheme of...

Like, Dad's at the top and I'm beneath him.

And all of the workers are at the bottom.

I stitched the wrong side first.

-That is a...

-That's a definite fine.

That's £2.72.

Fines meant bosses could get away with paying workers

even less than their already meagre wage.

There is an account of one young Jewish greener

who worked 22 hours in every 24.

Finally, despair led him

to hang himself in the room he shared with his wife.

The circumstances under which they were working were very uncomfortable

and not very happy at all.

There is no fairness in the mistreatment of people like that.

These immigrants must have arrived here

with lots of hope in their hearts.

And they would have felt that once they found themselves in the slums,

being taken advantage of, and being mistreated, you know,

they must have become absolutely desperate.

As the end of the day approaches, the order's still not finished,

which means no pay for the Howarths or their workers.

-Gentlemen?

-How's it going?

-Not so well.

-Oh, no.

-Not so well?

We've come to you looking for help.

What's happening, basically, is that we are really working hard,

but unfortunately the work has not been completed,

and our boss, Russell, is not getting paid,

-so he's not paying us.

-Oh.

We are absolutely starving.

If you're really desperate, you would ask for credit,

and then we would call that putting it on tick.

But, at the moment, I can't really extend any credit.

We can only extend the credit

if we know that you have a means of paying it back.

-What have you got?

-There is a beautiful-looking bowler hat.

It's got its bow tie. Everything is still there.

-Has it got a maker's name on it?

-And warm.

Are you looking to pawn until tomorrow?

We should... Yes, hoping we will be paid tomorrow.

-OK.

-I'll give you £2.50 on it, right? The repay on that is 20%.

So you will owe us £3.

It's extortionate. But we haven't got another option.

Immigrant workers arriving in the slums faced stark choices.

Even after pawning their most treasured possessions,

they still had to choose whether to spend a few pennies on eating

or finding a place to sleep.

When it comes to putting things on tick for them,

they are transient. It's got to be cash upfront, I think,

for anything they buy.

If we just go now and, say, just out of kindness start giving stuff away,

we're not going to be around for very long.

-No, we're not.

-And that lets everybody down.

For the Potters it's been a profitable day.

-£9.92.

-Brilliant.

They're well on the way to making this week's rent.

Really, really pleased to be able to go out with an empty pot

and come home with some money.

So we've got to be really careful

and budget whatever money we've got carefully.

The majority of that will go on food.

It's been a really good day today.

With your own enterprise, you are in more control.

I'm really proud of our family.

Yasha, Tomas and Lee have prioritised accommodation over food.

OK, guys, you've got to come later.

Sign your name there for me. Just write it and sign.

Using the money from Yasha's pawned hat to pay for a night's shelter,

their arrival brings doss house keeper Andy

some badly needed income.

That's fabulous news for me. Making money from our lovely immigrants.

You two are going to settle down comfortably on the chair.

Back in the day it had to be a horrible experience,

having to trade-in your own clothes in order to pay for your bed.

I hope this is wide enough.

My grandfather, he was a refugee.

This is a lot like his experience,

because he would have come to England and...

not really speak the language, not knowing what was going on.

To imagine that people had to live in this environment everyday

is absolutely terrifying.

The very nature of it is so precarious.

Everything's reduced to survival, isn't it?

Well, what we know about tomorrow

is that we are going to get paid for the work we did today.

-Yeah.

-At least we can use the money to eat properly.

Oh!

Oh!

John's Sister Maria is up early.

I'm checking if you've got any laundry you want to do.

With John only getting a couple of hours' work,

she's trying to earn the rest of the money they need for food and rent...

Just, it's 30p, because it's only undergarments.

..by offering to do her neighbour's washing.

-Thank you very much.

-Thanks.

30p and you'll get that out, yeah? You'll get that nice and clean?

-Yeah.

-You do a nice, good job on that and I might have more for you.

-Oh, good.

-All right?

-See you later.

-See you later, all right.

These casual arrangements were common in the slums

where you could scrape a living washing the clothes of workers

doing long hours in the sweat shops.

-All right.

-Take care.

-Thank you.

And we've got a pound for everything, yeah?

-OK.

-Put it there.

-Saves us a huge amount of time.

Put it there, sister.

I think this is the worst part, because you're over the fire,

it blows so much smoke in your face that your eyes are watering.

I hate doing this.

After an uncomfortable night in the doss house...

Oh, my God, I hate this bench.

..Yasha, Tomas and Lee go straight back to work at the sweaters' den.

With rent day fast approaching,

sweatshop owner Russell needs them to complete

their delayed first order.

A lot of pressure. A massive job, getting it done.

Speed and accuracy is vital.

Trying to train new people how to do stuff.

Keep it straight. We don't want it going wonky,

otherwise the trousers will be no good.

Trying to be the owner of a sweatshop is really tough.

Russell is a trained tailor,

but it's Mandy that has a generation's old connection

with tailoring.

She and daughter Rebecca are meeting historian Dr Anne Kershen

to find out more about their family history.

Here's the census that shows your great-grandfather

-on your paternal side.

-So it's my dad's.

So he was born in Odessa.

Russia. So he's Russian.

For his occupation it's got down here tailor.

He had...

He had one, two, three, four, five, six children.

Six children?

Five were born in Kaminitz in Russia.

One was born in London.

There was a severe pogrom in Kishinev,

where 50 people were killed.

Kaminitz was not that far away.

Many fled these massacres

with no more than a bundle of precious possessions,

spending everything they had

to get as many family members out as they could.

Those with money went to America.

London was the cheaper destination.

They sailed in steerage, enduring three days below decks

in cramped conditions.

Your paternal great-grandfather had the foresight, fortune whatever,

to bring his entire family.

-To get them out of there.

-Get them out of there

and settle in the East End.

Probably made quite an arduous journey so to do.

Men often came first, hoping to secure employment

so their family could follow.

Most didn't speak English.

Many couldn't read or write.

What we have here is your grandfather's birth certificate.

David Lenov.

And there's something significant on the birth certificate,

and I don't know whether you can notice it,

if you look at it carefully.

His father couldn't write.

No, because he's got "the mark of".

He's got the cross.

He may well have been able to read Hebrew sufficiently

to be Bar Mitzvah,

but he obviously couldn't read English,

and probably couldn't read, write Hebrew or Yiddish.

Looking at the family tree...

..what's significant is the fact that all of your ancestors

were engaged in economic activities

that were part of the sweating system.

Seamstress, tailor, tailor's presser, buttonhole hand,

were sweated trades.

Are you crying? Oh!

I know, it's quite emotional, isn't it?

Sorry, it's very emotional.

Mandy's ancestors would have done the jobs

and worked in conditions similar to those in her own workshop.

Knowing it's your own family that was treated like that,

you know, it's really upsetting.

They were prisoners within their workplace.

They couldn't answer back. They couldn't do anything,

because they'd lose their job.

It doesn't sit right with me,

that I'm that person that's being, you know,

really strict with what was my great-great-grandfather.

It's-it's wrong, every way you look at it, it's just wrong.

It's not comfortable.

Gentlemen, wages.

With their first order finished at last,

the Howarths are finally in a position to pay their workers.

Lee, you've earned £3.60. Yasha, you've earned £3.60.

-It's a hard couple of days' work.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you, gentlemen.

-Yeah!

-Not easy doing this.

Thank you for working so hard.

Thank you.

I've already pawned my hat, as you know,

I'm going to get my hat back now.

After paying out wages,

the Howarths are still short of the £30 weekly rent.

They'll need their workforce to complete another order

to stay afloat.

But James's time as a sweatshop boss is over.

-Give me the book.

-No, I can't.

-Give me the book.

Thank you. And pencil.

OK.

I hate how the sweaters' den was run and everything it stood for.

And to know that someone that's related to me

and has helped me be in the place that I am today,

might have been treated like immigrant workers,

it makes me feel a bit sick, to be honest.

After a successful day of sales yesterday,

the Potters get ready to head out with another batch of street food.

Oops.

Aye up, what's all these chains on the cart?

What the hell?

We can't take them out, can we?

"Street traders, costermongers and stallkeepers

"have been found to be obstructing the public highway...

"has been impounded."

They're stopping us working and earning money, aren't they?

Yeah, it's disgraceful.

They are forcing us into starvation.

That's right.

As the 1880s progressed,

pressure on everyone in the East End was building.

In Bethnal Green, shopkeepers,

terrified that the surge in costermongers

was affecting business, managed to get street selling banned.

Barrows were impounded, produce confiscated,

and fines imposed on anyone caught flouting the ban.

They have no right to take our living away from us,

and that's what they've done.

I'm 59, you know, I've had a bad back.

I'm done, that's me. If I can't sell my stuff on the street,

I'm completely without any income whatsoever.

It's beyond comprehension, actually,

that you can think that somebody can make up, out of nowhere,

one rule like that, that they can destroy so many lives,

and the only thing that I can think that they might have done it for

was to push them down a notch further.

Just keep pushing them down, keep pushing the poor down.

By the mid-1880s, there were more people out of work than ever before.

And the word unemployment enters the Oxford English dictionary

for the first time.

The poor relief system was stretched to its absolute limits.

In the East End there were 17,000 people living in workhouses

or in hospitals.

In Shoreditch, death rates were four times the city's average.

Although most people thought the poor only had themselves to blame,

there were philanthropists who, driven by a sense of religious duty,

decided to do what they could to help.

It was just a drop in the ocean,

but it generated publicity

and got people interested in life in the slums.

But not all of the interest generated was philanthropic.

-We're here for a tour.

-We'd really like to see how you live.

-You want to have a look around?

-Yes.

-Yes. If you don't mind.

OK. Can we do that?

Right, well, welcome to the slum, come on in.

In the 1880s it became fashionable

for middle and upper-class Victorians

to go on guided tours of the poorer parts of Britain.

It was called slumming.

Journalists were also drawn to the slums.

Some wrote sensational stories.

What evolved was a new genre of writing called slum fiction,

which fuelled a fascination with the squalor and depravity of slum life.

Here was a place where the normal rules of Victorian respectability

seemed not to apply,

and the upper classes couldn't get enough of it.

Poverty had become a form of entertainment.

It's definitely a bit smelly.

Obviously watch your shoes.

This is our courtyard.

To lead a group of rich people

just to see how the scum slum dwellers live is...

I mean, that's very, very distasteful by my modern mind.

Scraps.

But I can certainly understand why, in the 1880s,

someone in my position would do it to earn a few extra pennies.

This is called a copper.

This would be used communally to heat water, to cook.

It's bad enough being here, but being shown off as a sort of like,

-entertainment...

-Zoo animals.

-Yeah.

Well, if they buy something from us,

we could make a couple of quid out of this to help with the rent.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, anything would help at this point, wouldn't it?

-Nobody else is going to be buying any.

-No.

OK, so, obviously our privy consists of a wooden hut.

This particular form of tourism...

Hmm...

..came with slum tour operators and even guidebooks.

Looking up, they're staring up at our place.

-Are they?

-Yeah.

They're not.

This is a tour group...

and they would like to come in and ask you a few questions.

Is there anything good about it?

The good about it is that it ends after about 20 hours of the day.

It's very hard work.

This is our space.

When you come it is like we're a show to you,

-do you know what I mean?

-That's how it was.

So, for us, I feel really demeaned by that.

I'm going to throw you out, I'm afraid.

Come on, let them get on with their work.

So, what was that? Freak show.

What is the enjoyment about coming to see people struggle?

Through history you have got all of these gross people.

The elephant man, who used to be put in a cage.

Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what it felt like.

Yeah, the curiosity of people won't change, will it?

How much can these people take?

They've got no money, they've got no food,

they're working their butt off day in day out,

day in day out, no day off, no time off.

-And then...

-What option?

And then they had people come in and stare at them

whilst they're doing it.

Our local shopkeeper and his wife, called Mr and Mrs Bird.

-There we are.

-Very enlightening, yeah.

We've got some delicacies here for you.

-What is that?

-You can purchase them if you want,

those are lamb's feet and jellied eels.

-Jellied eel.

-Try it, see what you think.

-Give us two.

-OK, no problem.

With street selling banned, it's the shopkeepers who can cash in

on the appetite for East End fare.

-Oh, come on.

-I can't do it, I can't do it.

It's a real tenement building, isn't it?

Yeah, there's no lift.

How do, guys? Come on in, chaps.

I'm running a tour today.

These guys have come to have a look and see how we live.

This is a typical room that would be used for a family.

There's five in here at the moment.

Do you want to tell them a little bit about yesterday?

No, I wouldn't. First of all, I'd like to know why you're here.

OK, well, I can explain that one.

-Apologies there, she didn't need to be rude.

-I did.

OK, what this is called is class tourism.

Basically, people like to come and see how the bottom of society live.

And are you being paid for this, Andy?

It will be a paid position for myself, possibly, yes.

What do you do? What do you work as?

We're costermongers, we're street sellers.

It sounds like you're quite entrepreneurial.

Well, we're not stupid.

But people do suggest that the poor are thick and stupid,

and they like to be poor. And, actually, we're not.

Maybe we should get a photo here.

Excuse me, no.

CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS

All right, well, it's about time we left the Potters.

If we can start filing out.

The minute they walked in the door...

-Immediate.

-..my heart rate went up.

The first time was when she took that photo, I wanted to punch her.

-Thank you so much.

-Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Bless you. Thank you.

The Victorian upper-class paid to mock and jeer the poor.

It's just another nail in the coffin of saying,

"You might as well be dead."

Seriously don't know how they could have possibly have carried on.

Just finding it too hard to talk.

I think over the last three decades,

it's just got intolerably harder and harder.

You cannot let it happen.

Somebody has to do something.

This morning I'm feeling the anger we felt yesterday

and the fact that human beings

aren't going to treat us like chattel

and we are going to start fighting back.

1886 marks a turning point in the story of the East End poor.

After years of falling wages and terrible working conditions,

labourers like the costermongers began to get organised.

West Enders had enjoyed their forays into the East End slums.

Now it was time for the poor to pay the West End a visit.

John and the Potters are meeting Dr Louise Raw,

a leading expert on British labour history to find out what happened.

Here we are in Trafalgar Square -

the heart of London, the centre of London,

and also, at this point in history,

the centre of a clash between the West End and the East End,

between the rich and the poor.

On the 8th of February 1886,

John Burns, a member of the Socialist Democratic foundation,

one of the country's first Socialist parties,

hijacked a demonstration

to highlight the plight of the unemployed.

John Burns was literally up behind us on the plinth there.

And he was addressing a huge crowd of about 13,000.

Not just men, but women and children, too.

He asked the crowd, show your hands, how many of you are out of work?

Almost every hand went up.

He takes them through the poshest bits of London.

Through Pall Mall, Saint James' Street,

where the gentlemen clubs are.

It's so unusual to see the poor out of their place,

literally, and geographically,

when the crowd gets to the Carlton Club,

the members pour out onto the balconies

and they hoot at you, they jeer, they boo at the crowd going past.

But in that situation, you're starving, you can't get work,

you can't help your family, your children are starving,

and all the well-to-do can do is laugh at you.

There's a lot of anger from the crowd.

They find some broken paving stones and they start chucking things back.

I have all of this anger inside me

and the frustration of not doing anything that, so what?

I don't care what happens to me now.

I can't get any lower.

So, yes, I would have thrown stones.

I think I would have thrown stones, definitely.

-Yeah.

-I probably would have been one of the first.

The anger that builds up, it's got to go somewhere.

And if there's broken paving stones there,

they're going through windows. Absolutely no doubt at all.

What followed became known as the West End riots.

Windows were smashed and shops looted

on Oxford Street and Piccadilly.

This is the Morning Post the next day.

Clubs and shops attacked, premises pillaged,

the monster demonstration of the unemployed in London

ended in a disgraceful riot

and the sacking of many shops by these savage animals.

There's no mention of the provocation

that actually starts all of this.

The following summer, large numbers of the unemployed

camped out in Trafalgar Square.

This time they were watched over by 2,000 police.

The upper-class fascination with the sordid lives of the poor had turned

to a fear of bloody revolution.

Posh London and the rest of the country is starting to

really ramp up the fear, the fear of the East End.

"You're all immoral, you're criminals,

"you're lazy, you're feckless,

"you're drunks." Ramp up the fear of the poor.

But instead of revolution

the next few years saw a growth in activism,

as membership of trade unions in Great Britain grew faster

than at any other point in history.

-Stop it.

-Oh! How do you stop it?

You put your foot on it again.

In 1888, the Costermongers' and Stallkeepers' Protection Society was formed.

They set to work to try and overturn the ban on street selling

where possible with the help of sympathetic printers

and local activists to spread the word about their cause.

That's it, absolutely fine.

I mean, I can imagine that the people stood there

using a machine like this, it would have seemed so hi-tech.

I'm sure it probably gave them a bit of wind in their sails to go forth

and spread the message that the lower classes, the poor,

the have-nots will not be trodden on.

In the East End in 1888,

700 costermongers took to the streets to petition

the authorities against the street selling ban.

People really starved.

-Here?

-Yes, right on this street here.

-Right.

-This is where the costermongers used to sell their wares.

So, your name and your signature on the other side there.

This is the first time, really,

that we've had the opportunity to get the support of the public.

In the 1880s when it happened, they got 10,000 signatures.

If you could just sign it for us, that would be absolutely superb.

Do you want me to hold the dog?

Costermongering means nothing,

you have to explain the term to start with.

But we've got no income coming in whatsoever,

and once you tell the people that, the general public,

they're interested in that.

We are street sellers. We've been told that we are not allowed

to sell on the streets any more.

Thank you very much.

I've got to understand what they were fighting for

and what they actually did, and I wish to honour them.

-You can't go out and sell.

-Perfect.

The common people on the street seem to support us.

It shows it's not just a problem from 1880s. It's, you know,

a problem that can be related to now, so, power to the people.

Towards the end of the decade,

London was hit by a series of strikes.

In 1888, 500 girls working at the local match factory

walked out in protest at conditions.

A year later, 100,000 dockers marched through

the streets of London demanding a pay rise of 1p an hour.

After a succession of peaceful strikes, fears of revolution

subsided and the workers gained widespread support from the public,

who'd lined the street and cheered them as they passed.

"The great strike of London tailors and sweaters' victims."

In 1889, three Jewish tailors unions

joined forces and launched a five-week strike in the East End.

No more than two hours overtime to be worked in any one day.

So, no longer 20 hours working days, maximum of 14.

They were supported by the dockers

who gave them £100 towards their cause.

It would have been terrifying, cos your work is so precarious,

you don't really have the opportunity to complain.

When you complain, you get fined.

And to think that you could lose your job, like, what would you do?

It must have taken a lot of courage,

I would have thought, to actually get it going.

In the 1880s, with few workers' rights,

striking meant risking what little livelihood you had

and seeing your family starve.

-We've got another order.

-Another order?

Another one.

Guys, we've got 16 pairs of trousers to make by tomorrow.

So we need to work quickly, please.

This is the third day we've been working here

and these circumstances are really...ridiculous.

It's difficult. It's very harsh, it is.

This isn't right. If we all decided we are not going to work with you,

you're going to be in trouble. I think you should consider

your terms and conditions.

You're on the edge the whole time in slum life.

I strike in solidarity with all those men and women

who did so in 1889.

I hope you will follow me.

Bye-bye. Thank you.

I absolutely understand why they wanted to strike

because the hours that they're supposed to work and the conditions

that they're expected to work in

for the pay they're getting is disgusting.

So, how they haven't walked out sooner, I have no idea, to be fair.

Oh, I would have gone on strike in a flash.

I would have been gone!

While Yasha, Lee and Tomas strike...

Right, let's carry on, shall we?

..the Howarths have no choice but to work into the night.

For decades, the upper classes had either believed

those in poverty chose to live in squalor,

or just ignored the existence of the slums altogether.

Now the poor were no longer invisible.

Over the course of a decade,

they'd gone from entertaining spectacle,

to a force to be reckoned with.

And, in 1889, there was good news for some of the slums' inhabitants.

The first two hours overtime to be paid at ordinary rate.

And the second hour, two hours to be paid at the rate of time and a half.

A raise!

This would have been a great improvement.

The tailors' strike succeeded in securing a 12-hour working day

and a proper lunch break for sweated workers.

I think it makes me so happy to know that people did eventually

come together and organise strikes.

I didn't realise what it's like not having workers' rights until I went

through this experience. There's no rules, there's no regulations,

and the systems are designed around the abuse of people.

-Let's go.

-Let's go.

In the 1880s, winning a strike was no guarantee you'd keep your job.

In some small workshops of the East End, bosses would often

be unwilling to take striking workers back

and they would have to move on.

There's no question that the whole subject matter

appears to be relevant to today's migrants.

People seeking a better life than what they had.

Fleeing persecution and looking for...

fairness on the other end.

And, of course, I'm sure there are elements of exploitation

that took place in the 1880s that is being repeated even today.

For the Potters, there's news of the costermongers' campaign.

Oh! Have you seen these posters?

-What does that say?

-Oh!

-Victory!

-"To costermongers and stallkeepers..."

"There has been a great victory.

"Montague Williams, the Justice of the Peace,

"found no cause for the vestries' complaint of obstruction."

-Yeah!

-We've won.

Let's get the barrows out.

After a long battle, public support for their cause

meant the Costermongers Society finally won back the right

to sell on Bethnal Green's streets.

This victory did show that the Victorian poor

did have power if they spoke. Not just one voice,

but a mass of voices.

It is a very big deal.

From feeling so demoralised and oppressed...

..this must have been a glorious victory.

Potters' Trotters back in business.

It means the Potters can get back out and sell again.

By working all night,

the Howarths have earned enough to pay their rent.

-How are we, Howarths?

-I see the rent book before I see Andy.

How was it this week? Did you find it hard?

It was hard, it's been hard this week. Really hard.

Trying to train up three unskilled guys in the workshop.

It's like pulling teeth.

As a sweaters' den boss, you're glad you're doing better,

but you don't like taking advantage of these people.

-See you later on.

-Goodbye.

Thank you.

KNOCK ON DOOR

Mr and Mrs Bird. £30.60.

With their regulars struggling,

the Birds have the slum tour to thank for making their rent.

I've been tight again this week, to say the least.

The real hard things I've found mentally is that it just

never seems to get any better.

-KNOCK ON DOOR

-Come in.

It's only me, Maria.

How are you, darling, you all right?

The weekly rent is £8.16.

Maria's home-grown laundry business has earned enough

-to keep her and John's room.

-£1.17 from you.

So, I will let you get on with some work so you can make

-next week's rent money.

-Yeah. All right.

-OK?

All right, darling, well, you take care.

How you doing, guys?

Do you remember what your rent is?

£13.26, Andy.

-OK to do that today?

-Yeah.

£13.25...

And for the Potters, paying up is a real victory.

Absolutely perfect.

That's a relief.

However, the pressure is back on. Once you know you've got your rent

you can, sort of, relax a little bit,

but then when you hand it over, you know that...

It starts all over again.

But with the ban on street trading lifted, it's time for a celebration.

And there was no better way than the costermongers' derby.

Oh!

Go, go...!

Traditionally, the costers competed in basket-carrying races...

Yes!

..with prizes for the fastest runner...

and the highest stack.

-Go on, Andy.

-Go on, Andy!

Come on, Andy.

Come on!

There was a closeness here and a community that we've built up very,

very quickly. In fact, anything like it was in the Victorian era,

then actually the slums themselves

were not necessarily an unhappy place.

It was a difficult place to live, but there's a huge heart here.

CHEERING

Oh! That's lovely. I'll have a bit more, Andy.

At the end of a gruelling week,

it's a chance for the residents to come together and share.

All we've really had, since we got here, was bread, butter, cheese,

the occasional hot meal, and cabbage.

A lot of cabbage. Never had a trotter in my life.

And it isn't the best thing I've ever tasted.

But, like, living in a slum, it's lovely.

There's some good company.

-Cheers.

-Jacket potato and a trotter.

It's the happiest I've been in two weeks.

Proper food. It's not just, like...

..a quarter slice of bread. It's, like, a whole feast.

The first one that I'm going to award is to Heather.

Pearl buttons had long been a feature of costermonger life.

-Well done, darling.

-Well done.

Sewn onto their clothes, it signalled their selling talents

and gave a sense of identity and pride.

Does everyone agree that Graham should have won, as well?

-ALL:

-Yes!

Costermongers adorned in buttons became known as

the coster kings and queens,

the forerunners of the well-known Pearly Kings and Queens

the East End is famous for.

There is a feeling of solidarity between us as a community

and also the people that we're trying to represent felt solidarity.

They rose up together.

I think that's wonderful that these people who had nothing

were willing to risk it all just to make a better life for themselves

and their families.

Hope is everything, really.

During those dark periods, I don't think there was much hope at all.

But now it seems as though the sun has come out.

There will always be that feeling in the back of your mind

that it could change so very quickly.

But, while the sunshine and the rays are there,

we've got to make the most of it.

CHEERING

Next time, the 1890s.

Victorian social science puts the East End poor on the map.

One in three was living in poverty.

And, for the first time, he gave a human face to the poor.

Ushering in a time of great change.

Equals 63...

If you do not work well, then you will be given the cane.

But, for most, life is still a struggle.

A family in our position

would never have been able to work their way out of the slum.