Revolution and Reform: Poverty, Wealth and History in the East End of
London
Part Two: Poverty and Chaos
Assessing Poverty Resource
To Check the Survival of the Unfit: A New Scheme by
the Rev. Osborne Jay, a Militant Bethnal Green
Parson, for Sending the Submerged to a Penal
Settlement.
The London
12 March 1896
A few years ago the wretched tenements which the County Council is now razing to
the ground in Bethnal Green harbored the most abandoned characters of London.
Crime and immorality ran riot, and what efforts the clergy and police put forward to
grapple with the deplorable condition of affairs were of no avail. Nothing remained
but to clear the area, and this the County Council has done at a cost of £300,000.
In the midst of this area however, upon which the new buildings are being erected,
stands the Church of Holy Trinity, of which the Rev. Osborne Jay is vicar. It stands
where previously existed the worst court in the worst spot in the metropolis. It is a
small church capable of seating about 400 people, but has cost £20,000. The church
has, however, a very handsome interior, and was greatly admired by the late President
of the Royal Academy. The chief feature of Holy Trinity is not the fact that it is the
only consecrated church in England built on the first floor, nor the fact that it is
beautiful, but that in its congregations can be found men who would not attend any
other place of worship.
The secret is in Mr. Jay. He has used common-sense methods of getting hold of the
people. Nine years ago, when he first went into this awful district, he had no church. It
was, however, necessary that he should have one of some kind, and after a long search
-2-
for a suitable building, he utilised a loft over a row of stables. The loft was reached by
a kind of ladder, and the children could communicate with the horses below through
the holes above the mangers. In addition to this hay-loft church, Mr. Jay started a club
for men in a cheese and bacon warehouse, the subscription to which was a penny a
week. Here the men were allowed to smoke and sing, play cards, dominoes, or
bagatelle, indulge in gymnastic exercises, or, with their fists enclosed in boxinggloves, punch each other about to their heart's content. Even with these great
temptations the men were not readily won over, but Mr. Jay has now gained the
success which his energy and devotion deserve. He has at the present time on this
Boundary Street area, beneath one roof, a church, a clubroom, a gymnasium, and a
lodging-house. The church is, so to speak, a continuation of the stable loft, and the
club-room an extension of the bacon warehouse. There are, practically, only three
rules which govern the club life, and they are not very exacting. The fee is a penny a
week ; members must be over 18 years of age, and live in the district. There are 500
members, and the average nightly attendance is 150. It will astonish many good folk
to know that there are thieves and loafers among the patrons of the club. Mr. Jay,
however, thinks that they are better in the club than elsewhere. The lodging-house is
certified to accommodate 92 men, but Mr. Jay will not take more than 48. With this
number the house pays its way and is not crowded. The fees are half-a-crown a week
for the use of the kitchen and a cubicle, and two shillings for a bedroom with other
lodgers and the common use of the kitchen. Besides this house, there is also a free
shelter in the club-room, where a few selected out-of-works are allowed to sleep.
In church work Mr. Jay has been singularly successful. Every Sunday the church is
crowded at all services, and over 1,800 communions were made during the year by
the poor and ignorant parishioners. There are Sunday schools with an aggregate of
1,000 scholars, who, twice on Sundays, pack the church to the doors. But Mr. Jay
does not only feed the children spiritually, on Sunday mornings he gives some
hundreds of them a free breakfast, and prevents, in this way, the poor mites from
sitting hungrily through the school hours. Mothers' meetings are held on Tuesday and
Thursday afternoons; there are about 600 members. At present Mr. Jay employs
sisters from Kilburn, but when the new mission-house is built, at a cost of £5,000,
there will be room for resident sisters. The building will also contain two large halls
each seating 300 people, several smaller rooms for general purposes, and a bath-room
where mothers can wash their children.
After nine years' work amongst the most desperate and depraved characters in
London, Mr. Jay's opinions on the solution of the great social problem are full of
interest. In an interview with Mr. Jay on this subject a representative of this journal
asked:
"What do you think was the great cause of the degradation which used to exist here,
Mr. Jay?"
"There were, no doubt, several reasons, but it is my opinion that poverty was the
chief. There is no temptation like that of poverty. It is the greatest that can fall in the
way of any man or woman. It fills our prisons and turns honesty into crime and virtue
into dishonor. But it must also be remembered that at the very outset of our social
problem we are met by the incontrovertible fact that the major portion of the
submerged and semi-criminal class are in their present position through physical,
Poverty, Wealth and History in the East End of London
-3-
moral, and mental peculiarities. They have no nerve nutrition, no energy or staying
power. Again, their natural gifts are small. Cunning, not wisdom ; sharpness, not
intelligence, are stamped even on their faces. And yet all the time the well-to-do
virtuous classes, walled off from temptation, surrounded by all that conduces to right
living, wrap themselves in the wretched mantle of their detestable hypocrisy and
pretend to believe that all in this life have equal chances, and must be uniformly fairly
judged. But science in unmistakable accents teaches the reverse. It is easy to talk
about laziness and lack of thrift, and to moralise over opportunities lost or power
misapplied, but we forget that there is this large class which never had a fair chance of
being quickened into life."
"But in what way do you think the problem can be solved ?"
"There is, it seems to me, only one solution to this problem. Education has failed,
religious work cannot he expected to do what is needed, the Poor Law and prison
systems are alike ineffective, and universal charity cannot rightly be considered a real
factor in the case. The only method, I think, is to stop the supply of persons born to be
lazy, immoral, and deficient in intellect. This can only be done by sending the present
stock of them to what I will call a penal settlement. The submerged constitute a
peculiar separate class, and yet people are so afraid of weakening individual
responsibility that, though they may be forced to agree to these things, they persist in
going on with the dreary old routine of injustice which we have inherited from our
forefathers. We have with us a large, miserable, and costly class, which, by our own
folly, increases daily. Are we merely to please ourselves and satisfy our own idle
inherited theories to go on treating them as exactly like everybody else ? The fact is,
all men are not equal, nor can they be treated as such. This, through no fault of their
own, I grant; but we can prevent them bringing into the world children stamped with
the character of their parents."
"But what is the nature of the settlement you propose, Mr. Jay?"
"It would be a settlement where the class I have spoken of should be kept for life. In
many respects it would resemble a prison, only, of course, larger and far less gloomy.
It should be possessed of all appliances for physical development and well-being,
gardens, covered promenades, a gymnasium, and baths of all descriptions, recreation
rooms, reading rooms, and even a theatre and concert room. The inmates should be
treated as well as, say, the inmates of Hanwell. In such a place there would
necessarily be the possibility of recourse to punishment, solitary confinement, or even
an application of corporal punishment, but I think the inmates could be ruled without
punishment. It is one thing to go to prison for a few years, and quite another to settle
down in a penal settlement for life, especially as the latter would offer every incentive
to good conduct. To the submerged temperament such a place would be the best home
they had ever known, and in time it might be that poor creatures, acknowledging their
own weakness, knowing the dreary bitterness of the past, would gladly, many of
them, be put where they would lose some liberty, but gain a better and perhaps a
happier life. The officers of the settlement would have to be chosen wisely and trained
carefully. Human sympathy would be, perhaps, their most necessary qualification. No
nobler surrender could be imagined than that which would bring those in easy and
comfortable circumstances to look on it as an honor to serve in any capacity these the
least of their brethren."
Poverty, Wealth and History in the East End of London
-4-
"How would you define what persons are suitable for inmates of this settlement, Mr.
Jay?"
"It could, I think, be easily settled that any one convicted the second or third time,
even for stealing, could be made the subject of a careful examination by a hoard of
experts in criminal anthropology, both physical and psychical. Their unbiased
unanimous judgment on any given case would carry certain conviction to the mind of
all thinking persons."
"But would there not be a great outcry against shutting human beings off from all
contact with the outside world?"
"No doubt; but the public must be educated to the idea. But it can scarcely be
rationally argued that society has a right to condemn criminal lunatics and others to
life-long imprisonment, and yet possess no authority to act in a similar preventive
manner as regards the semi-criminals of our everyday experience. There could of
course be reformatories as well as penal settlements; but freedom is not licence, and it
is, on the whole, a thousand times more humane to place persons who possess no
power of guiding themselves where they can neither harm themselves nor other
people. The new method sounds drastic and harsh, but it must be remembered that a
virulent fever cannot be cured by doses of treacle. The time has come when
something must be done : why not at least try this new method, which seems to
promise and portends so much?"
Poverty, Wealth and History in the East End of London