Crime and Punishment: Housing and Rookeries

Flower and Dean Street

By 1870 Flower and Dean Street was one of Whitechapel's best-known rookeries.

People often stayed only one or two nights while they tried to earn enough for food and the next 4d bed.

The street was narrow, only about 16 feet at its widest, and outside space had been built over to create more rooms.

Conditions and evidence

The 1880 Board of Works report found dirty, dilapidated rooms around Flower and Dean Street, Keate Street and Lower Keate Street.

It recommended that some houses in Lower Keate Street should be closed or demolished, showing official concern about sanitation.

Charles Booth later marked the area black on his poverty map, meaning the lowest class and associated by Booth with criminality.

Why it mattered

Overcrowding did not automatically cause crime, but it created pressure through disease, homelessness and competition for casual work.

The constant movement of lodgers made it harder for H Division to know who lived where or to trace suspects.

Use precise details in source answers: 902 lodgers, 31 doss houses, the 16-foot street and Booth's black shading.