Charles Booth's London

Bringing Victorian London to life through archives

A colourful section of map with a portrait image of Charles Booth layered upon it.

Explore the maps and notebooks

Use Charles Booth’s London to explore the famous poverty maps and search, browse and download the original notebooks from the Inquiry into Life and Labour in London (1886-1903).

A section of map including part of the Thames.

Maps

The Maps Descriptive of London Poverty are perhaps the most distinctive product of Charles Booth's Inquiry into Life and Labour in London.

Two pages of a notebook including handwriting and a drawn walk map.

Notebooks

The notebooks from Charles Booth's Inquiry into Life and Labour in London offer a fascinating insight into how data was collected for the study.

A young Charles Booth sat for a portrait.

Who was Charles Booth?

Charles Booth was an English industrialist and social reformer.

Part of a notebook that includes a table with data.

What was the Inquiry?

Learn more about Charles Booth’s Inquiry into poverty in nineteenth century London.

A Minecraft graphic showing characters from the World.

Charles Booth on Minecraft

Explore our Minecraft world inspired by Charles Booth's famous poverty maps.

Download the maps

A section of Booth map covering Buckingham Palace area.

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