2. In the 1880s, rich Londoners started going undercover in the slums – and ‘slumming’ became a big business.
The relative failure of the 1875 Dwellings Improvement Act might have been bad news for the poorest members of London’s working class, but it was good for the tourist industry. In the 1880s, London experienced a boom in so-called ‘slum tourism’. For the men and women of polite society ‘slumming’ became a fashionable activity, albeit one with an added sense of danger. They would don scruffy clothes and put dirt on their faces and then venture into the slums of Whitechapel or Shoreditch to see first-hand the poverty and deprivation they had only ever read about.
Undoubtedly, the ‘slumming’ phenomenon was hugely offensive. Many people did find amusement in witnessing misery and loved bragging about their brushes with danger. At the same time, however, slumming had some positive points. Up until the 1880s, many people dismissed the slum’s residents as feral drunkards. Seeing them in real-life convinced richer Londoners that most poor people were respectable and hard-working, albeit down on their luck. As a result of their slumming experiences, some notable individuals were inspired to start campaigning for better housing for London’s working class. What’s more, encounters between rich gentlemen and lower-class women were also credited with breaking down class barriers and reshaping gender relations.