The Proletarian Other: Charles Booth and the Politics of Representation

'For philanthropically inclined males who wanted to go among the poor, the 1880s saw the rise of settlement houses, people's palaces and philanthropic working men's clubs. Toynbee House in Whitechapel, started by Samuel Barnett, Oxford House, started under the aegis of Octavia Hill, and Walter Besant's People's Palace on the Mile End Road (which now houses Queen Mary College) were all institutions intended to bring culture and education to the benighted people of the East End. Toynbee Hall and Oxford House were "settlement houses"; university-educated young men lived in them and were supposed to form bonds with the working men of the slums that would civilize the latter. Male settlement workers, like Hill's female rent collectors, entered the formerly closed spaces of the working class. As with Hill's young ladies, settlement men were in the forefront of the development of “new liberal” and socialist political economy and urban sociology. Three of Booth's assistants were Toynbee residents.'Taken from:The Proletarian Other: Charles Booth and the Politics of Representation Ben Gidley Isbn: 0 902986 61 9 Price:£2.50 (p&p free) First published in Great Britain 2000 by Goldsmiths College, University of London, New Cross, London SE14 6NW.

Casebook: Jack the Ripper - Message Boards: Toynbee Hall, Whitechapel

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