Why Charles Booth, a Liverpool shipowner stated, “London needed there building of at least 400,000 rooms to house its poorest citizens” ?
The reasons for the statement by Charles Booth that London needed the rebuilding at least 400,000 rooms to house its poorest citizens were as follows : One million Londoners (about one-fifth of the population of London at that time) were very poor. Their average life expectancy was 29 years as against the life expectancy of 55 among the gentry and the middle class. The poor had no houses. These people were more than likely to die in a ‘work house, hospital or lunatic asylum’.
