8. In the cramped and dirty slums, sexual abuse of children was accepted as another grim part of life.
Sadly, it wasn’t just disease and dirtiness that the children of London’s slums had to cope with. Sexual abuse was rife in the poorer parts of the city. Just how bad it was is hard to quantify, however. Most cases of abuse would have gone unreported, while some reports from outside observers were sensationalized and exaggerated, keen to present the slums as dens of sin. However, most historians of 19th century London agree that a significant proportion of children would have been sexually abused at some point – with both young boys and girls targeted by predators taking advantage of the dark alleys, cramped conditions and lack of policing.
Most children in the slums would have been exposed to sex from a very early age. Given the cramped living conditions, they would have seen their parents having sex – surely a traumatic sight for younger infants. Many would also have endured much worse. Beatrice Webb, one of the founders of the London School of Economics, would write: “To put it bluntly, sexual promiscuity and even sexual perversion – the violation of little children – are almost unavoidable among men and women of average character and intelligence crowded into the one-room tenements of slum areas.”