What was life like in Victorian London?

London’s population increased dramatically across the 19th century, ballooning from around one million in 1800 to well over six million in 1900. It was the world’s largest city and the centre of the British empire. The riches and resources extracted from the colonies all flowed through London’s port, making it the most profitable ‘warehouse of the world’.

London’s wealth made it a place of opportunity. Huge numbers of people flocked to the capital. People came from the countryside and from countries within the British empire to study, train, work and ‘make their fortune’.

Pockets of extreme poverty were visible throughout the capital as the authorities struggled to provide adequate housing, clean water and sanitation to its growing working-class population.

There were overcrowded slums, also known as ‘rookeries’, in places like Stepney, Spitalfields, Covent Garden and Borough. The conditions in these neighbourhoods were awful, and they became stigmatised as areas of criminality and depravity.

Those who found themselves destitute sought temporary refuge in lodging houses or, as a last resort, shamefully entered workhouses. Here they were sheltered in exchange for gruelling work and harsh conditions that separated families.

Victorian architecture was a blend of the old and the new. The medieval-inspired gothic revival style was popular, but industrial innovations meant that materials like wrought iron and plate glass could be widely used.

The city – and its people – smelled. Many middle-class Londoners referred to the capital’s poor as ‘the great unwashed’. As the population swelled and industry boomed, air pollution became an even bigger problem than before. Hundreds of open sewers and industrial waste flowed into the River Thames.

The Victorian city was artistically interpreted by artists like James McNeill Whistler, and vividly described by authors like Charles Dickens. Photography, invented in the 1830s, offered a new form of documentation.

The Victorian era saw huge innovations in industry and technology. Our modern sewer system, for example, is one of the most significant pieces of Victorian engineering. Profits from the empire, including wealth extracted from the colonies and the trade in enslaved Africans, helped fund this industrial revolution.

There were numerous other innovations in infrastructure, such as developments in public transport and communications. The building of the London Underground physically expanded the city. And the launch of the telegram and telephone connected Londoners with the rest of the world.

London was at the forefront of new political ideas. Radicals and activists were drawn to the capital to form new political groups, discussion forums and radical publications.

As state education grew, London’s working class became more literate and politicised. They began to demand more rights and better conditions. Strikes proved that by uniting together within a trade union structure, workers could become a powerful force for change.

Alexandrina Victoria was just 18 years old when she came to the throne in 1837. She reigned for 63 years, making her the second-longest-serving British monarch after Queen Elizabeth II.

Queen Victoria became the figurehead of the British empire, which, by the end of her reign, had ruthlessly imposed its rule over a quarter of the world’s population.

Victoria married her first cousin, Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840 and they had nine children together. Upon his death in 1861, Victoria entered a permanent state of mourning and withdrew from public life for a decade.

Though violence wasn’t unusual, the most common crimes in Victorian London were drunkenness and theft. Throughout the Victorian era, the authorities gradually took greater responsibility for their citizens, including protecting them from crime.

The abolition of public executions in 1868 and the building of new prisons reflected changing attitudes towards state punishment and justice.

Diseases like cholera, typhoid, smallpox and tuberculosis were a leading cause of death in Victorian London. Overcrowding and poor sanitation helped them spread.

There were major advances in healthcare and medicine during the Victorian period. Modern anaesthesia was developed. The understanding of germs as the cause of disease led to the introduction of antiseptic procedures during surgery. Legislation around public health was passed and health boards were established.

Thanks to fixed working hours, the expansion of the railways and increasing living standards, working-class people had more time and money to spend on leisure.

Affordable music halls and variety theatres opened. Many pubs, once only used by working-class men, transformed into ornate gin palaces, respectable enough for courting couples. Sports like football became formalised spectator events. And grand exhibitions, like the Great Exhibition of 1851, glorified the empire and Britain’s exploitation of its colonies.

Attitudes towards children changed and they were no longer thrown into the world of work as soon as possible. The production of toys and novelties also boomed. An increase in literacy meant print media, like newspapers, magazines, novels and cheap serials called penny dreadfuls, thrived.