Houseless and Hungry

Black and white illustration entitled Houseless and Hungry published in the first edition of The Graphic magazine in December 1869. Samuel Luke Fildes's depiction of London’s homeless queuing for a ticket of admission to the casual ward of a workhouse accompanied an article on the Houseless Poor Act, that allowed the unemployed to shelter for a night in the casual ward of a workhouse. On seeing the illustration the author Charles Dickens approached the artist to be the illustrator for his unfinished work The Mystery of Edwin Drood. ‘I see from your illustration’, he wrote to Fildes ‘that you are an adept at drawing scamps, send me some specimens of pretty ladies’. The illustration was subsequently used by Fildes as the inspiration for his oil painting Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward, first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1874.