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A census of homeless persons in London was taken on the night of Friday, 14th
February, 1930. The area covered extended over the whole of the county, except
such of the outlying portions as are not usually the resort of such persons. The
night was cold with a north-east wind. Seven persons (males) were found sheltering
under arches or on staircases. In the streets 47 men and 25 women were found
compared with 22 men, 8 women and 1 child on the night of the census in 1929.
In the common lodging houses 14,855 persons were accommodated compared with
14,648 in 1929. In the free shelters and labour homes not licensed, 631 men, 117
women and 18 children were accommodated compared with 700 men, 110 women
and 24 children in 1929. The number of persons in casual wards and in the Metropolitan
Asylums Board hostel on the night in question was 740 (724 males and 16
females). In London Rowton Houses, 5,014 men were accommodated and there
were 26 vacant beds.
Census of
homeless
persons.
After the dissolution of the monasteries in the years 1539-1541 the care of the
poor became a State problem and from the year 1601 onwards numerous laws
have been passed dealing with this class of the population. In earlier years,
vagrants were punished by whipping and branding, discharged soldiers were
rewarded by a licence to beg, whilst poverty in general, when unrelieved by
charitable effort on the part of the Church, or by private benevolence, was regarded
as an offence. The present century, however, has seen a great advance upon these
methods, and various Acts, such as the Workmen's Compensation Act, the
National Health Insurance and various Pensions Acts, have paved the way to
the Local Government Act of 1929, which, in its reform of the Poor Law administration,
adumbrates the treatment of poverty as a social service.
Among the evils of recurrent poverty, the attention of the Council was directed
early in 1904 to the number of apparently homeless persons to be observed aimlessly
wandering in the streets of London at night. A preliminary census undertaken by
skilled observers on the night of the 29th January, 1904, showed that as many as
2,000 persons might be regarded as coming within this category. As the result
of the experience then gained, an area was mapped out and used in 1905 roughly
approximating to an ellipse, having its centre at St. Paul's Cathedral with a major
axis of eight miles from east to west, and a minor axis of five miles from north to
south. The same area was adopted in all future censuses so that the figures should
Historical
note.