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Booth map equivalents in Birmingham

LizzieBee

proper brummie kid
Hello fabulous map fiends!
As I have plunged myself headfirst into my family’s roots I have become more and more fascinated by mapping and what it can tell us about the social history of the streets that it represents.
To the best of anyone’s knowledge, are there any sources in existence that would give us an equivalent to the Booth poverty mapping of London in the mid/late 1800s? Or any rough proxies for that such as mapping by crime category, occupancy rates, cost of rentals, or even where outbreaks of illness occurred which would correlate with overcrowding and poor sanitation?

(If there isn’t, have I just created myself an unfunded PHD life work to create them from source material…?)

Lizzie.
 
Hello fabulous map fiends!
As I have plunged myself headfirst into my family’s roots I have become more and more fascinated by mapping and what it can tell us about the social history of the streets that it represents.
To the best of anyone’s knowledge, are there any sources in existence that would give us an equivalent to the Booth poverty mapping of London in the mid/late 1800s? Or any rough proxies for that such as mapping by crime category, occupancy rates, cost of rentals, or even where outbreaks of illness occurred which would correlate with overcrowding and poor sanitation?

(If there isn’t, have I just created myself an unfunded PHD life work to create them from source material…?)

Lizzie.
Hi Lizze and welcome.

I dont know, but the guy in the map shop in Upton on Severn may know. Not been in there for a couple of years, but he knew his stuff. Try the link below.

The Map Shop
 
Found this whilst hunting online.
It seems to be a fairly interesting tool created between Historic England and BCC aimed at collating, categorising and overlaying map data with other social and usage information for Birmingham as far back as information goes. Still interrogating it, but it looks useful.
Hi LizzieBee,
How are you progressing? I casually used digital mapping with overlays when I worked with landscape architecture students, but found there was a significant learning curve. I have more time, having retired, so I'm looking at mapping of very specific areas. As others have said, there's no Booth type maps of Birmingham, but the rich and the poor lived within walking distance, in Ladywood for example my grandparents lived in a back-to-back in Reservoir Terrace, but worked across Hagley Road in Edgbaston as gardener and housekeeper. I'm at the stage of exploring what digital maps I can work with. Good luck with your project! Let us know if you have any more useful sources of mapping.
 
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