Round About a Pound a Week

✍ Scribed by Maud Pember Reeves

• Publisher: London, G. Bell and sons, ltd.
• Year: 1914
• Tongue: English
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

From 1909 to 1913 the Fabian Women's Group, part of the English Labour Party, recorded the daily budget of thirty families in the Lambeth (South London) area. The research covers married life. children, diet, work and just how close most of these families were to death ... and how they saved for the frequent burials. In these days it is difficult to realise just how low the expectations of the average family in London was. A book that contains the seed of personal undersanding and will certainly make you happy to live with what you have today.

I picked up this book some years ago, and found it very insightful. It looks at poverty from the inside, and though it's about a by-gone era in another country, there are still lessons in it for anyone trying to understand the dynamics of living so near the edge that rent and food compete for whatever money comes in.