The city as terra incognita: Charles Booth's poverty survey and the people of London, 1886-1891

Charles Booth's great survey of London poverty has not received full recognition as an early scientific inquiry. In defining and identifying social classes, and locating them spatially, across the world's largest city, it broke new ground. The methods of representation used by Booth, in charts, tables and maps, also went beyond anything previously undertaken by social scientists anywhere in the world. Behind this methodology, however, lay assumptions about poverty, work, crime and morality which largely determined the scientific results.