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.

Coordinates

Latitude: 51.526080822983
Longitude: -0.069651603699

View on the COVE Master Map

Timeline of Events Associated with Old Nichol Slum

Date Event Manage
Oct 1883

The Bitter Cry of Outcast London

Poverty map of Old Nichol slumIn mid-October 1883, The Bitter Cry of Outcast London: An Inquiry into the Condition of the Abject Poor, a twenty-page penny pamphlet detailing the housing conditions of the poor in South London, was published to extraordinary critical attention. The pamphlet generated political, journalistic, and layperson commentary alike, and culminated in the 1884 Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes and the pivotal Housing Act that followed. Image: Poverty map of Old Nichol slum. This image is in the public domain in the United States as its copyright has expired.

Articles

Barbara Leckie, “‘The Bitter Cry of Outcast London’ (1883): Print Exposé and Print Reprise”