Ordnance Survey – Great Britain's national mapping agency

Historic maps reveal wealth and poverty in England

08 February 2008

A series of historic maps published on the British Library's website reveals the distribution of wealth and poverty in England over the last few centuries.

Many of the maps in the ‘mapping history’ section of the Library's website are ‘elegant, intricately crafted’ pieces, whereas others were created for more practical uses.

Booth's London Poverty Map, for example, was created in the 1880s when a large proportion of the city's population lived in poverty, and was designed to determine the extent of the ‘unacceptable living conditions’ in the city.

At first Booth estimated that social reformers had over-exaggerated London's poverty levels, but while creating the map he realised that the reality was worse than official figures suggested.

The map charts this poverty with colour codes, with dark blue signifying ‘very poor’ and black indicating the ‘lowest class’ of living.

Another map in the section dates back to 1905 and plots out the idea for a utopian village in the middle of London.

Hampstead Garden Suburb, in the north region of the city, would encourage people from across the social spectrum to live side by side in ‘beautiful surroundings.’

All residents would share a library, church, playgrounds and ‘pretty open spaces’.

The British Library has a wide range of maps in its Map Library, which visitors can see at first hand when they visit the Euston-based library.

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