- As we have seen in pictures from the 1830s and beyond and heard it has described by Charles Dickens in the book Oliver Twist, it is no surprise that the living conditions of the poor did not compare to those of wealth. However, out of all the slums in London, one place in particular sticks out in history and did so to Charles Dickens as well; That place is known as Jacob’s Island. “The area was notoriously squalid and was described as “the very capital of cholera” by the Morning Chronicle in 1849” (Dance). Though Dickens is better known for bringing to light and creating depictions of grim workhouses, child labor and London’s criminal underbelly in his novel Oliver Twist, all throughout the book, especially in Chapter 50, he reveals the living conditions in homes and cities like Bermondsey as well. In fact, Dickens would occasionally go on patrol with the Thames police and it was on his patrol that he was taken to the island one day. Absolutely appalled and utterly horrified at the sight of it, Dickens was inspired to concoct the ending of Oliver Twist and the demise of the villain Mr. Bill Sykes:
“Crazy wooden galleries common to the backs of half a dozen houses, with holes from which to look upon the slime beneath; windows, broken and patched, with poles thrust out, on which to dry the linen that is never there; rooms so small, so filthy, so confined, that the air would seem to be so tainted even for the dirt and squalor which they shelter; wooden chambers thrusting themselves out above the mud and threatening to fall into it – as some have done; dirt-besmeared walls and decaying foundations, every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot, and garbage: all these ornament the banks of Jacob’s Island” (Dickens 487-488).
Though the picture itself (included above) does not reveal the true horror of the living conditions encompassed on Jacob’s island, Charles Dickens does a rather good job at doing so through his grand detail and figurative language.
Work Cited
Dance, Caecilia. “Filth, Disease and Dickens: Jacob's Island, a London Slum.” A Historical Miscellany, 24 Oct. 2019, www.danceshistoricalmiscellany.com/filth-disease-dickens-jacobs-island-….
Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. Amazon Classics, 2017.
Jacob's Island. Bermondsey, London, 1840.