[Hackney from Booth's Poverty Map of London]

A map of the London Borough of Hackney, one section (of twenty) of an extended version of the incredibly influential Poverty Map, originally published in Charles Booth's 'Life and Labour of the People in London', a founding text of British sociology. The key gives seven color codes for the degree of wealth of the inhabitants (ranging from black - 'Lowest class', through shades of blue and purple - 'Poor', 'Mixed', 'Fairly Comfortable', to red - 'Well to do' and yellow - 'Wealthy').

Booth (1840-1916), owner of the Booth Shipping Line, acted in response to an 1886 Pall Mall Gazette article that claimed that 25% of Londoners lived in poverty. Booth regarded this figure as wildly exaggerated, so recruited a team of volunteer researchers to compile an analysis of social conditions based on field visits and interviews with local police, clergy and employers.
The first volume of 'Life and Labour' (1889), covering the East End, showed that 35% lived in poverty. The second series, covering the rest of the city (1891) showed that no less than 30 per cent of the city's total population could be classed as poor