Sitting on long wooden benches in a dimly-lit

hall, rows of men - scruffy and unwashed - look grimly at the camera as they ready for

another night in the shelter.

'Coffin beds': These cramped bunks weren't particularly comfortable, but they did offer visitors a dry and clean place to sleep

Sleeping rough: This painting, titled 'A Recess on a London Bridge', by Augustus Edwin Mulready shows a poor Victorian boy on the streets

Scraping a living: Thomas Benjamin Kennington's painting, The Pinch of Poverty, shows a young girl selling bunches of flowers on the street

Women and children were considered as second class citizenswomen were not allowed to vote

children were forced to work long hours in stuffed dark rooms

There were no laws or regulations restricting child labor