The industrial and social developments of the nineteenth century and their effect on the city and by extension the poor in Britain were subjects of interest and detailed study in the Victorian period.

Street Life in London by Adolphe Smith and John Thomson was an early use of photography as a medium to illustrate their findings. Adolphe Smith was an experienced journalist connected to social reform movements. While John Thomson was a photographer who had spent considerable time in the Far East, especially China, and central to his work was the photography of streets and individuals at work.

Street Life in London was produced in 12 monthly issues, starting in February 1877, each with three stories accompanied by a photograph. Most of the text was written by Smith, although two are attributed to Thomson – London Nomades and Street Floods in Lambeth. The 12 issues were collected into a book in 1878.

The images were staged as tableau rather than being spontaneous street scenes and the relatively new process – Woodburytype – was used to reproduce the images consistently in large numbers for the publication. The volume in the library at LMA from which these images are taken does not include all 36 images; the London Cabmen, Flying Dutchmen and Old Furniture being missing.