Yesterday LSE hosted the Charles Booth Centenary Lectures. Booth’s seminal “poverty maps” of London had a profound influence on late 19th-century welfare reforms, and on the disciplines of sociology and social statistics.
Here is an extract from one of Booth’s maps dated 1898-99, with a yellow circle in the centre (which we added). Does the location seem familiar?
The yellow circle marks the present-day location of Connaught House, where we have our rooftop hives. Booth coded the area with dark blue, which denotes “Very poor, casual. Chronic want.” (This is the second-lowest tier of poverty in Booth’s scheme, the lowest being “Lowest class. Vicious, semi-criminal.”)
And here is a recent satellite image of the same area. Again we’ve added a yellow circle, which encloses two white boxes. Can you guess what they are?
Yes, they are two of our hives!
