Old Nichol Slum

One of London’s most notorious slums by the end of the nineteenth century, Old Nichol Slum was located in the east end, between High Street, Shoreditch, and Hackney Road in the north, and Spitalfields in the south. The slum was known locally as “The Sweaters’ Hell” for the artisan workshops producing furniture for very low pay. By the late 1880s, the mortality rate was 40 per 1,000 people each year, nearly double the national average annual mortality rate.