Very small business, National Portrait Gallery

The British Parliament’s Act for the Relief of the Poor of 1601 lasted (with amendments) for well over 200 years – until 1834. Under the so-called ‘Old Poor Law’, able-bodied people who were found begging on the streets could be arrested, whipped, placed in the stocks or confined in a House of Correction, and forcibly relocated to their home parish, their ‘place of settlement’. In order to avoid such stigma and punishment, the poorest of the poor often pretended to commerce, offering the most marginal of goods and services.

Billy the match man, Liverpool, 1844 by John Dempsey

1. Match man, Salisbury. 2. Match woman, c.1823. 3. Billy the match man, Liverpool, 1844. All by John Dempsey.

Many of them sold the cheapest and most commonplace of household articles – the old ‘brimstone’ (sulphur) matches that retailed at five bunches for a ha’penny.

Match woman, Woolwich,1824 by John Dempsey

Crossing-sweeper, London by John Dempsey

Charles McGee, crossing sweeper, London, c. 1824 by John Dempsey

1. Match woman, Woolwich,1824. 2. Crossing-sweeper, London. 3. Charles McGee, crossing sweeper, London, c. 1824. All by John Dempsey.

In populous urban areas, where mud, horse manure and other muck dirtied the roadways, other beggars would sweep clear a path or crossing for middle-class pedestrians in the hope they would be given a small gratuity.

Blind beggar, Woolwich, 1824 by John Dempsey

Mark Custings, known as Blind Peter, and his boy, Norwich, 1823 by John Dempsey

1. Beggar, Durham. 2. Blind beggar, Woolwich, 1824. 3. Mark Custings, known as Blind Peter, and his boy, Norwich, 1823. All by John Dempsey.

Related information

Copeman, gardener, Great Yarmouth by John Dempsey

Dempsey's people

A folio of British street portraits 1824–1844

Previous exhibition, 2017

Dempsey’s people: a folio of British street portraits 1824–1844 is the first exhibition to showcase the compelling watercolour images of English street people made by the itinerant English painter John Dempsey throughout the first half of the nineteenth century.