London, 1898–9

Blue London, Red London: Charles Booth’s poverty map, one colour at a time

In 1898 and 1899 investigators working for the businessman Charles Booth walked London beside police officers, and their notes were used to recolour his map of its streets by the condition of their people: black and blue for the poorest, red for the well-to-do, yellow for the wealthy. Choose a colour, or look up a street you know.

Marius Comper · 3 October 2026 · Map scans: LSE Library, public domain

Booth’s 1898–9 map of inner London with the blue streets kept in colour and the rest faded.

Map: LSE Library, public domain

Showing in colour: dark blue (very poor); light blue (poor)

Look up a street

Try

Blue London

Two of the seven colours are blue.

Dark blue: Very poor, casual. Chronic want.

Light blue: Poor. 18s. to 21s. a week for a moderate family.

7.1% of the colour printed on the map. The largest shares are in today’s boroughs of Tower Hamlets (26%), Southwark (19%) and Islington (9.4%).

What did the colours on Booth’s poverty map mean?

The key is printed under every sheet. It begins: “The streets are coloured according to the general condition of the inhabitants”. Seven colours follow, and the words beside them here are the map’s own.

BlackLowest class. Vicious, semi-criminal.0.35% of the printed colour
Dark blueVery poor, casual. Chronic want.2.0% of the printed colour
Light bluePoor. 18s. to 21s. a week for a moderate family.5.1% of the printed colour
PurpleMixed. Some comfortable, others poor.20% of the printed colour
PinkFairly comfortable. Good ordinary earnings.39% of the printed colour
RedMiddle class. Well-to-do.26% of the printed colour
YellowUpper-middle and Upper classes. Wealthy.7.5% of the printed colour

Two colours on one street mark a mixed street. The key says: “A combination of colours—as dark blue and black, or pink and red—indicates that the street contains a fair proportion of each of the classes represented by the respective colours.”

The colours are the classification of the 1889 map, revised from what each investigator noted on his walk and what the policeman beside him said about the people who lived there. “Vicious, semi-criminal” is the wording printed on the map’s key for the residents of the black streets.

How was the map made?

Charles Booth (1840–1916) was a Liverpool-born businessman with interests in leather and a steamship line. From 1886 to 1903 he ran an inquiry into how Londoners lived and worked. His first poverty map, in 1889, was built from information gathered by School Board visitors. Booth put the inhabitants of each street into classes by “the known position and condition of the parents” of its schoolchildren, and coloured the streets “according to their prevailing social character”.

For the second map his investigators went out with policemen on their beats. LSE Library, which keeps the notebooks from more than 300 of these walks, dates them to 1898–99; the earliest notebooks are from 1897. George Duckworth and Ernest Aves were among the walkers. The result was printed in twelve sheets on Stanford’s Library Map of London, at six inches to the mile (1:10,560), and published with the final edition of Booth’s Life and Labour of the People in London in 1902–3.

How many Londoners did Booth count as poor?

The count of people is older than this map. In the 1892 edition of his survey Booth divided an estimated 4,209,170 Londoners into classes, scaling up from the families of schoolchildren known to School Board visitors, and put 30.7 per cent of them “in poverty” and 69.3 per cent “in comfort”.

Booth’s classes of people, from Life and Labour of the People in London, volume 2 (1892), pages 20–21.
Class	Booth’s description	People	Share
A	The lowest class — occasional labourers, loafers and semi-criminals.	37,610	0.9%
B	The very poor — casual labour, hand-to-mouth existence, chronic want.	316,834	7.5%
C and D	The poor — including alike those whose earnings are small, because of irregularity of employment, and those whose work, though regular, is ill-paid.	938,293	22.3%
E and F	The regularly employed and fairly paid working class of all grades.	2,166,503	51.5%
G and H	Lower and upper middle class and all above this level.	749,930	17.8%

Those are people. The percentages beside the colours on this page measure something else: how much of the map’s printed colour each class takes up. Large houses cover more paper than crowded courts, so a colour’s share of the map is not its share of Londoners.

Where was each colour of Booth’s map?

Each picture is centred on the square kilometre where one colour is printed most thickly, with the other six faded. The street names are today’s.

Detail of Booth’s 1898–9 map around Limehouse: the black streets in colour, everything else faded. — Around Limehouse, about 1.7 km across. Scan: LSE Library, public domain.

Detail of Booth’s 1898–9 map around Shoreditch: the dark blue streets in colour, everything else faded. — Around Shoreditch, about 1.7 km across. Scan: LSE Library, public domain.

Detail of Booth’s 1898–9 map around Bethnal Green: the light blue streets in colour, everything else faded. — Around Bethnal Green, about 1.7 km across. Scan: LSE Library, public domain.

Detail of Booth’s 1898–9 map around Whitechapel: the purple streets in colour, everything else faded. — Around Whitechapel, about 1.7 km across. Scan: LSE Library, public domain.

Detail of Booth’s 1898–9 map around Fulham: the pink streets in colour, everything else faded. — Around Fulham, about 1.7 km across. Scan: LSE Library, public domain.

Detail of Booth’s 1898–9 map around Soho: the red streets in colour, everything else faded. — Around Soho, about 1.7 km across. Scan: LSE Library, public domain.

Detail of Booth’s 1898–9 map around Mayfair: the yellow streets in colour, everything else faded. — Around Mayfair, about 1.7 km across. Scan: LSE Library, public domain.

What colour was your street on Booth’s map?

Type a street into the box beside the map. The answer gives the shares of colour printed within 25 metres of the street’s present-day centreline, by area. The table lists 84 streets many readers will know.

Share of the printed colour within 25 m of today’s street line, by area.
Street	Borough today	Printed along it
Abbey Road	Westminster	red 94%
Baker Street	Westminster	red 79%, pink 11%, yellow 9.8%
Battersea Park Road	Wandsworth	pink 83%, red 8.8%, purple 8.3%
Bayswater Road	Westminster	yellow 86%, red 12%
Bedford Square	Camden	yellow 98%
Belgrave Square	Westminster	yellow 100%
Berkeley Square	Westminster	yellow 100%
Bethnal Green Road	Tower Hamlets	pink 71%, purple 13%, red 9.8%
Borough High Street	Southwark	red 96%
Brick Lane	Tower Hamlets	pink 46%, purple 43%, black 6.6%
Brixton Road	Lambeth	red 100%
Cable Street	Tower Hamlets	purple 52%, dark blue 23%, pink 20%
Caledonian Road	Islington	pink 65%, purple 17%, red 16%
Camden High Street	Camden	red 79%, pink 20%
Carnaby Street	Westminster	purple 55%, pink 28%, red 10%, light blue 6.6%
Charing Cross Road	Westminster	red 63%, pink 33%
Cheshire Street	Tower Hamlets	dark blue 87%, purple 8.2%
Cheyne Walk	Kensington and Chelsea	red 63%, yellow 36%
Chrisp Street	Tower Hamlets	pink 55%, purple 38%
Clapham High Street	Lambeth	red 99%
Columbia Road	Tower Hamlets	pink 67%, light blue 14%, purple 13%
Commercial Road	Tower Hamlets	red 86%, pink 7.3%, purple 5.0%
Commercial Street	Tower Hamlets	red 64%, purple 15%, pink 11%
Cromwell Road	Kensington and Chelsea	yellow 69%, red 22%, pink 8.8%
Dean Street	Westminster	pink 76%, purple 13%, red 8.7%
Deptford High Street	Lewisham	red 96%
Drury Lane	Westminster	purple 51%, pink 27%, dark blue 9.7%, light blue 8.6%
Eaton Square	Westminster	yellow 96%
Edgware Road	Westminster	red 86%, pink 7.5%
Electric Avenue	Lambeth	red 93%
Essex Road	Islington	pink 83%, red 11%
Fournier Street	Tower Hamlets	pink 79%, red 21%
Gill Street	Tower Hamlets	black 71%, red 10%, purple 9.6%, pink 8.5%
Gloucester Terrace	Westminster	yellow 97%
Golborne Road	Kensington and Chelsea	pink 49%, purple 45%, light blue 6.6%
Gower Street	Camden	red 95%
Great Russell Street	Camden	red 97%
Grosvenor Square	Westminster	yellow 100%
Hanbury Street	Tower Hamlets	purple 69%, pink 27%
Harley Street	Westminster	yellow 94%
Haverstock Hill	Camden	red 84%, yellow 9.2%, pink 6.8%
Holloway Road	Islington	red 64%, pink 35%
Hoxton Street	Hackney	pink 61%, red 27%, purple 9.2%
Jamaica Road	Southwark	pink 50%, red 20%, purple 20%, light blue 9.1%
Kennington Road	Lambeth	red 56%, pink 41%
Kentish Town Road	Camden	pink 81%, red 16%
Kingsland Road	Hackney	red 45%, pink 44%, purple 9.9%
Ladbroke Grove	Kensington and Chelsea	pink 45%, red 32%, yellow 16%, purple 6.4%
Lamb's Conduit Street	Camden	pink 61%, red 35%
Lavender Hill	Wandsworth	red 97%
Leather Lane	Camden	pink 80%, red 9.8%, dark blue 8.4%
Lisson Grove	Westminster	pink 73%, red 14%, purple 13%
Lower Marsh	Lambeth	pink 70%, red 18%, purple 8.1%
Mare Street	Hackney	red 65%, pink 27%, purple 5.8%
Marylebone High Street	Westminster	red 37%, pink 33%, purple 29%
Mile End Road	Tower Hamlets	red 92%
Narrow Street	Tower Hamlets	purple 31%, red 22%, pink 17%, light blue 16%, dark blue 13%
New Bond Street	Westminster	red 97%
North End Road	Hammersmith and Fulham	pink 47%, red 28%, purple 24%
Old Compton Street	Westminster	pink 72%, purple 19%, red 8.4%
Old Kent Road	Southwark	red 74%, pink 22%
Oxford Street	Westminster	red 95%
Pall Mall	Westminster	red 88%, yellow 11%
Park Lane	Westminster	yellow 95%, pink 5.2%
Piccadilly	Westminster	red 51%, yellow 48%
Portobello Road	Kensington and Chelsea	pink 53%, purple 33%, red 12%
Princelet Street	Tower Hamlets	purple 38%, pink 33%, black 15%, dark blue 14%
Queen's Gate	Kensington and Chelsea	yellow 91%, pink 6.8%
Regent Street	Westminster	red 95%
Roman Road	Tower Hamlets	pink 69%, red 14%, purple 5.7%, light blue 5.4%, dark blue 5.1%
Russell Square	Camden	yellow 76%, red 17%, pink 6.8%
Rye Lane	Southwark	red 89%, pink 9.5%
Salmon Lane	Tower Hamlets	pink 75%, purple 16%, light blue 5.2%
Savile Row	Westminster	red 92%, pink 8.4%
Shepherd's Bush Road	Hammersmith and Fulham	pink 80%, red 11%, purple 6.8%
Sirdar Road	Kensington and Chelsea	black 42%, pink 42%, purple 8.8%
Soho Square	Westminster	pink 93%, purple 7.0%
Strand	Westminster	red 92%, pink 5.9%
Sultan Street	Southwark	dark blue 94%
Tooley Street	Southwark	pink 75%, red 16%, purple 7.4%
Tottenham Court Road	Camden	red 95%
Upper Street	Islington	red 92%, pink 5.8%
Walworth Road	Southwark	red 80%, pink 19%
Whitechapel Road	Tower Hamlets	red 95%

Does Booth’s map still show where London is poor?

Partly. Areas that Booth’s map prints in poorer colours tend to have more income deprivation in the official 2025 indices, but the link is moderate and there are reversals in both directions.

A study in the BMJ in 2000 laid an earlier edition of the map over the wards of 1991. A poverty index built from Booth’s colours and the same index built from the 1991 census agreed closely across 132 wards (correlation 0.73). For deaths from stroke and stomach cancer in 1991–5, Booth’s index added more to the prediction than the modern one; for the other causes examined, the modern index added more. The authors spell out what the old index measures: “Almost everyone who was surveyed by Booth at the end of the 19th century will have died or left London before 1991”, so it describes places, not the people now living in them.

This page asks the same question with the colours read here and the English Indices of Deprivation 2025. For each of 1,252 small census areas with enough of Booth’s colour (at least 5,000 square metres of it, covering at least 3 per cent of the area), it takes the average colour printed inside the area, with the seven colours counted as equal steps from black (1) to yellow (7), and sets it beside the indices’ income deprivation rate: the share of residents counted as deprived through low income.

The poorer the colours, the higher that rate tends to be: the rank correlation between colour score and deprivation rate is −0.46 (95% interval −0.54 to −0.38, from resampling the map in 1.5 km blocks). Among the areas compared, 131 of the 251 with the poorest colours in 1898–9 are in the most income-deprived fifth of England’s neighbourhoods in the 2025 indices, and 97 of the 251 with the wealthiest colours are in England’s least income-deprived three-tenths.

Map of inner London’s small census areas shaded in five steps by the average colour Booth printed in each. — 1898–9: average colour printed in each area, in fifths of the areas compared, from poorest to wealthiest. poorest fifthwealthiest fifth

The same areas shaded in five steps by their income deprivation rate in the 2025 indices. — 2025 indices: income deprivation in the same areas, in fifths of the areas compared, from most to least deprived. most income-deprived fifthleast income-deprived fifth

Outlined, without fill: areas not compared.

Each dot is one small area.

The exceptions run both ways. 17 areas from Booth’s poorest fifth are in England’s least income-deprived three-tenths (7 in Southwark, 4 in Wandsworth and 2 in Hammersmith and Fulham). 24 areas from his wealthiest fifth are in England’s most income-deprived fifth (7 in Hackney, 4 in Lambeth and 4 in Islington).

The two sides measure different things: printed colour by area in 1898–9, and people on low incomes in the 2025 indices, on today’s boundaries. The areas are today’s, so the comparison does not follow the same families. It is this page’s own calculation, not a published study.

How were the colours read from the map?

The scans

The twelve printed sheets come from LSE Library’s Charles Booth’s London, which publishes them with a public domain mark. Each sheet colours one district and prints its neighbours in grey, so the twelve were cut along the district edges and joined.

Placing them on today’s streets

Each sheet was fitted to today’s street network from OpenStreetMap by matching the pattern of streets. On street patterns held back from the fitting, the 1899 lines land a median 2.5 to 4.0 metres from today’s centrelines, depending on the sheet.

Telling the inks apart

The printers used solid ink for black, dark blue, purple, red and yellow, and line hatching in the same blue and red inks for light blue and pink. The reading uses the ink’s hue, its darkness and whether the print is solid or hatched.

Checking the reading

A second computer model was shown 360 magnified crops of the print, 40 to 60 for each colour and for uncoloured ground, each with one point marked, and named the colour at that point without seeing this page’s answer. Where it was sure (254 points) the two agreed on 92 per cent; over all 360 points, many of them on the edge of a block, on 84 per cent. Where the second model was sure, black was confirmed least often: 42 of 51 points, and most of the rest were dark blue with lettering or heavy hatching printed over it. Over all 360 points pink was confirmed least often: 22 of 40, and the second model was sure at only 13 of them. No person has checked the colours point by point.

What a street answer covers

A street’s colours are the printed area within 25 metres of today’s centreline. The lookup holds 17,983 named streets; 13,069 of them have Booth’s colour along them. Where a street was built or moved after 1899, the answer describes what stood on that line.

What carries no colour

The City of London, as it was bounded then, is uncoloured: it was left out of the street-level survey. Parks, docks, railways, factories and public buildings are uncoloured too, and so is everything outside the twelve sheets.

Sources

Charles Booth’s London, LSE Library: the twelve sheets of the Map Descriptive of London Poverty, 1898–9. booth.lse.ac.uk
LSE Library, “What were the poverty maps?” and the police notebooks. booth.lse.ac.uk
Charles Booth, Life and Labour of the People in London, vol. 2 (1892), pp. 10 and 20–21 (“Statistics of Poverty”). archive.org
Dorling, Mitchell, Shaw, Orford and Davey Smith, “The ghost of Christmas past: health effects of poverty in London in 1896 and 1991”, BMJ 2000;321:1547–51. doi.org
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, English Indices of Deprivation 2025 (Open Government Licence v3.0). gov.uk
Office for National Statistics, Lower layer Super Output Areas (December 2021) boundaries (Open Government Licence v3.0; contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right). geoportal.statistics.gov.uk

Blue London, Red London: Charles Booth’s poverty map, one colour at a time

Blue London

Black London

Dark-blue London

Light-blue London

Purple London

Pink London

Red London

Yellow London

Seven-colour London