Book claims writers like Charles Dickens created myth of mass squalor in Victorian Britain

By Ed Cullinane via SWNS

Mass squalor in Victorian Britain was a myth created by writers such as Charles Dickens - and the working class had many luxury items in their home, a new book claims.

The notion of 19th-century paupers who lived in degradation was largely exaggerated for middle-class readers, according to "The Working Class at Home, 1790-1940."

Co-edited by Dr. Joseph Harley, alongside Dr. Vicky Holmes and Dr. Laika Nevalainen, the book attempts to set the record straight by detailing the lives of working-class people.

The book argues that far from living in perpetual poverty the Victorian working-class ''made the best of their situations to create relatively comfortable environments'."

It debunks the common view that working Britons in the 19th century lived in squalor - and says writers tended to exaggerate to get readers' attention.

Books by Dickens for example were mostly bought by middle-class readers who loved stories about workhouses and extreme poverty - encouraging exaggeration.

In the book, Dr. Harley says how people accumulated a sizable range of possessions and furnishings despite being working class.

Paupers, typically seen as the most impoverished workers, often had clocks, watches and mirrors - expensive items for the time.

The books says timepieces were found in over a quarter of households and looking-glasses allowed their owners to maintain their appearance and also light their homes more efficiently.

In some cases paupers even literally grew up with a silver spoon in their mouths - with silver spoons, tea making items and 'sugar nippers' used among the working class.

Dr. Harley, lecturer in History at Anglia Ruskin University, analyzed pauper inventories and pauper letters for his book.

He said: “The concerned reformers of industrializing towns and cities painted a picture of severe deprivation, of rooms that were both cramped yet bare at the same time, and disease-ridden spaces from which their subjects required rescue.

“Even today, working-class abodes of this period continue to be perceived as being unhomely and devoid of the most basic of furnishings, material comforts, and cleanliness.

''However, this image is wrong and implies that working-class people didn’t have the ability, desire or means to create moderately comfortable domestic spaces.

“The material wealth of the poor was, of course, smaller and much more modest than that the middle classes but for the poor themselves, the changes that took place in this period were significant and their homes contained myriad possessions.

“Our new book does not deny the existence of squalor. Instead, it demonstrates that such contemporary depictions do not represent the typical experience of the working class at home during this period.”

Dr. Harley shows how people accumulated a sizable range of possessions and furnishings.

But he says ''the level of comfort they enjoyed was often precarious and fluctuated depending on their immediate financial situation'."

Dr. Harley says went ''through several cycles of being materially rich and materially poor over their lifetimes."

The Working Class at Home, 1790-1940 is published by Palgrave Macmillan and is co-edited by Dr. Vicky Holmes, Dr. Laika Nevalainen and Dr. Joseph Harley.