Henry+Mayhew's+London+Labour+and+the+London+Poor

Henry Mayhew’s “London Labour and the London Poor” were originally a series of articles published in the //Monthly Chronicle//, between November 1849 and December 1850, that provided an in-depth look into the lives of the working class of London. A pioneer of investigative journalism, Mayhew was able to access personal information by entering the homes of the poor (or in the worst cases, their plot on the streets), listening to their story, and relaying it to the middle and upper class through the //Morning Chronicle//.

During this time, the //Morning Chronicle// was the second most printed newspaper, next to the //Times (Donovan 38)//. Because of its high circulation, articles within the paper were read by a large amount of people. The newspaper’s price of five pence per paper (“Morning Chronicle”) limited the lower class from purchasing it, and because of this, Mayhew’s targeted audience was the middle/upper class. By relaying this information, Mayhew brought forth previously unknown societal issues such as extreme poverty, malnutrition and prostitution, describing in great detail and raw honesty the struggles his interviewees faced.

The most shocking revelation in the excerpt from //London Labour and the London Poor//, within //Secret: An Anthology of Victorian Investigative Journalism//, is the description of prostitution. Mayhew prompts an empathetic feel toward the women who are left with no other option but to work on the streets. These “fallen women” of Victorian times were excised from their homes and families, with little understanding or compassion from society. Victorians doted on the “Angel in the House” originally excemplified by Coventry Patmore’s poem describing his wife and the ideal Victorian woman whose duty in life is to keep the house and children warm and happy for the man when he returns from a hard day at work: “She laugh'd. How proud she always was / To feel how proud he was of her” (“Prologue” 4. 37-38). In his poem, the angel needs her husband’s pride to feel the pride herself.

The journalist Mary Carpenter did not share Mayhew’s sympathetic viewpoint of the fallen woman. In an article for //Fraser’s Magazine of Town and Country’s// for January 1863, entitled “On the Treatment of Female Convicts,” Carpenter begins by saying “[t]he very words which express the subject of this paper awaken in the mind thoughts too deep for utterance. A female convict! A woman who is so far from the sphere which the Heavenly Father destined her to fill” (80). She continues: “if, added to all this, what is holiest and best in woman has been perverted and diseased by unlawful intercourse with the other sex, as is very frequently the case, there is engendered in her a hardness of heart, a corruption of the whole nature, which would seem to make absolute reformation almost impossible” (84-85). Carpenter’s negativity parallels that of the public’s regarding prostitutes at this time, and a “fallen woman’s” own portrayal of her unfortunate events would not have been welcomed with empathy by many members of society.

In the case of Mayhew’s interviewee, “Magdalene,” his authority on the subject as a respected journalist and gentleman, as well as his added side note regarding his references, gives her story merit..Mayhew writes that “her statement was of so startling a nature, that [he] felt it due to the public to inquire into the character of the girl” (50). The gentleman who introduced Mayhew to Magdalene didn’t suffice as a reference on his own, and subsequently, he went on to receive two more statements to back up her story and “her virtue in particular” (51). The critic Bryan Green states that, “Mayhew makes them matter in spite of their being poor. His method of writing endows the respondents with a surplus of humaness over and above their social identities in classes and categories” (131).

With this article in circulation, the wealthy were able to glimpse into the life of the poor and begin to understand their story. The women who turned to prostitution were from such poor homes, they were left with no other options. As historian Judith Walkowitz states, “[t]he degree to which working-class women were expected to shift for themselves without depending on their parents shocked middle class commentators” (16). The wealthy could not fathom a life without assistance. Mayhew was successful in bringing forth their impossible situtations.

Mayhew’s style of writing is mostly in dialogue, with little narration. In a video interview titled “On London Labour and London Poor,” Robert Douglas-Fairhurst states that Mayhew wrote his subjects’ answers in short hand as he conducted the interviews. As Alfred Evinisky says in his review of a scholarly edition of //London Labour and the London Poor//, “Mayhew catches the lilting, poetic speech of the common people, rough and unadorned” (372). While their speech is still quite proper, he does add slang and abbreviations within the dialogue to make it realisitc. One example is the diction of a man who lived in an attic over a cat’s meat shop. At the start of his monologue, he says: “You’ll excuse me, sir, but I’ve been very ill lately. I’m obliged to do something; tho’ just to get a crust of bread. I get 5s. for a mail coachman’s or mail guard’s coat – all is one – that is for the coat and the waistcoat I get 5s” (41). His speech does not seem that of an extremely poor tailor.

While Mayhew’s articles may not have reshaped every Victorian’s way of thinking, his journalism and “his evocation of the sights and sounds of London in this work influenced fellow //Morning Chronicle// contributor Charles Dickens and other writers” (“Henry Mayhew”). For example, Charles Kingsley’s novel on social protest //Alton Locke// “borrowed heavily from Mayhew, virtually lifting entire descriptive passages” (Evenitsky 373). Not only was Mayhew’s work the catalyst for popular literature of the Victorian era, it was also the start of a new awareness within the middle and upper classes of a life unlike theirs that needs help. JS/Fall2014/UVic/Engl387

Works Cited

Carpenter, Mary.“On the Treatment of Female Convicts.” //Secret Commissions: An Anthology of Victorian Investigative Journalism Commissions//. Ed. Stephen Donovan and Matthew Rubery. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2012. 79-102. Print.

Douglas-Fairhurst, Robert. “On London Labour and the London Poor.” //A Podularity Film//. George Miller. Oxford University Press, Sept. 2010. Web. Evenitsky Alfred. “London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew.” Rev. of “London Labour and the London Poor” by Henry Mayhew. //Science & Society// 30.3 (1966): 371-374. Web. Green, B. S. “Learning from Henry Mayhew: The Role of the Impartial Spectator in Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor.” //Journal of Contemporary Ethnography// 31 (April 2002): 99-134. Web. "Henry Mayhew". //Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.// Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 02 Oct. 2014. Mayhew, Henry. “Labour and the Poor: The Metropolitan Districts.” //Secret Commissions: An Anthology of Victorian Investigative Journalism Commissions//. Ed. Stephen Donovan and Matthew Rubery. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2012. 38-54. Print. “Morning Chronicle.” //The Waterloo Directory of English Newspapers and Periodicals: 1800-1900//. Web. 16 Oct. 2014. Patmore, Coventry. //The Angel in the House//. Ed. Henry Morley. Cassells National Library. Gutenberg Ebook. Web. 02 Oct. 2014. Walkowitz, Judith R. //Prostitution and Victorian Society: Women, Class, and the State//. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1980. Web.