On Saturday 5 October 1867, a letter entitled ‘Mud Larks,’ appeared in the South London Press. Addressed to the editor, it expressed concern over a group of ‘urchins’ who ‘have been wont daily to stand at low water above their knees in the thick mud left by the tide’ on the Surrey side of the Thames. The ‘larks’ in question had been haranguing passers-by to ‘heave over a copper’ so that they could amuse onlookers by locating the money in the mud and claim it as their prize. According to the anonymous letter writer, ‘the sight is a disgusting one’, not because of the inherent dangers of a group of unsupervised small children next to a large, and at that time filthy, body of water; but because the writer ‘cannot help thinking that if the copper-throwers would throw their pence in the clean water&hellip they would be encouraging a more decent performance&hellip a good wash, and probably by familiarising them with the water, render them, instead of filthy objects, with mud-covered legs, arms and faces, good swimmers and useful divers’.

Such a blasé attitude towards the plight of the poor was commonplace in 18th and 19th century London; mudlarking along the banks of the Thames being just one of many undesirable ways to scratch out a living.

London’s rivers had long been the favoured waste disposal system for the city. As the population grew over the course of the 19th century, so did the amount of waste, and a great deal of refuse and household rubbish was simply dumped straight into the River Thames. Mudlarks were a familiar sight along the banks of the river, scavenging at low tide, crawling between barges and searching for paltry treasures such as coal, scrap iron, rope and copper nails – anything that could conceivable be sold for a few pennies. The term ‘lark’ is disingenuous, suggesting something fun and enjoyable akin to the copper-throwing game of the urchins described above. But the reality was less of a lark and more a game of survival, played in dangerous and filthy conditions in which there was the very real possibility of injury, and in some cases death.

They were often children – particularly young boys – between the ages of six and 15 years old, although one notable exception was Peggy Jones, a well-known mudlark from Blackfriars whose antics were well documented in contemporary accounts. In Kirby’s Wonderful and Eccentric Museum of Remarkable Characters Vol III, published in 1805, the writer describes Peggy as,

a woman, apparently about forty years of age, with red hair&hellip She was always to be seen at Blackfriars, even before the tide was down, wading into the water, nearly up to the middle, and scraping together from the bottom, the coals which she felt with her feet&hellip She appeared dressed in very short ragged petticoats, without shoes or stockings, and with a kind of apron made of some strong substance, that folded like a bag all round her, in which she collected whatever she was so fortunate as to find. In this strange apparel, and her legs encrusted with mud, she traversed the streets of London.

The future didn’t look too bright for poor Peggy, however, as the writer reveals in the next paragraph,

We are sorry to be obliged to state, that Peggy Jones was not exempt from a failing to which most individuals of the lower orders are subject, namely, inebriety. Her propensity to liquor was sometimes indulged to such a degree, that she would tumble about the streets with her load.

Peggy allegedly disappeared in February 1805 and she has long since been lost to history, although an engraving of her exists, a look of grim resignation etched on her face.

For the likes of Peggy, who could command 8 pence a load for her troubles, the Thames provided rich pickings. As the world’s largest port – with the added benefit of large, exposed riverbanks – it provided a vital transportation link between London and the rest of the world. With thousands of boats and ships, from ocean-going vessels to little rowing boats, and hundreds of wharves, docks, factories and shipbuilding yards lining 11 continuous miles, mudlarks would work in all weathers, raking through the river mud – often up to their armpits – for up to eight hours a day, looking for bricks, canvas, bits of metal and even bones. These would be sold on to dealers, earning a mudlark on average 3d a day. Street dealers were often known as ‘dollies’, after the black wooden dolls that hung over the doors of the shops they supplied. Most dealers would specialise in a particular type of scavenged item – such as crockery and glass, rags or scrap metal – which they would collect in a barrow or donkey and cart. Some items could be sold directly to the ‘marine stores’. Part junk shop and part pawnshop, Charles Dickens would describe these in Sketches by Boz (1836) as containing ‘the most extraordinary and confused jumble of old, worn-out, wretched articles that can well be imagined. Our wonder at their ever having been bought is only to be equalled by our astonishment at the idea of their ever being sold again.’

Some mudlarks even scavenged the areas around sewer outlets, often entering the sewers themselves in desperation. This gave rise to a new type of revolting employment, that of the sewer-hunter. In his seminal work, London Labour and the London Poor (1851) Henry Mayhew wrote ‘of men having lost their way in the sewers, and of having wandered among the filthy passages – their lights extinguished by the noisome vapours – till, faint and overpowered, they dropped down and died on the spot. Other stories are told of sewer-hunters beset by myriads of enormous rats&hellip in a few days afterwards, their skeletons were discovered picked to the very bones.’ These ‘subterranean operatives’ were also found to exist in Glasgow – where they alarmed the unsuspecting sewer cleaners with their ‘flickering and dancing lights’ (Glasgow Herald, April 1848). One notable Glaswegian sewer-dweller was Old John, a ‘courageous old fellow’ who almost perished in a storm which threw him ‘out on the banks of the Clyde, more dead than alive’. Old John was well acquainted with the rats, paying ‘no more attention to his movements than though he belonged to their own species’, and was known to ‘nearly frighten the wits out of half-tipsy citizens stoitering home by the light of a summer morning’.

Mudlarks often found themselves on the wrong side of the law. One notorious female mudlark, Katherine Macarthy, who was described as ‘one mass of mud and filth’ by the The Era in July 1841, took to stealing coal directly from the barges. The ‘wretched creature’, who was making her 50th appearance in court, was well known to the river police for removing coal from barges and then smearing them in mud to ‘give them the appearance of having fallen overboard by accident’. On one occasion Macarthy, having been apprehended, decided to drag a police officer into the mud; ‘the old woman appeared to consider it as glorious fun; but it was nearly death to the man who came out of the mud quite exhausted, and in the most pitiable condition that can well be imagined.’

Henry Mayhew’s Life of a Mudlark, which was published in 1861 in an extra volume of London Labour and the London Poor, gives perhaps the most detailed account of the pitiable existence a young mudlark could expect in the 19th century. Mayhew’s mudlark worked near Millwall, picking up coal to sell to the ‘poor people in the neighbourhood’, but also pieces of fat, which would be sold for ‘¾d. a pound at the marine stores; these are thrown overboard by the cooks in the ships, and after floating on the river are driven on shore’. Driven by desperation, the mudlark reveals he takes ‘what I can get as well as the rest when I get an opportunity’ and that he had ‘been in the habit of stealing pieces of rope, lumps of coal, and other articles for the last two years; but my parents do not know of this’. In another of his interviews, Mayhew describes a nine-year-old mudlark whose ‘legs and feet (which were bare) were covered with chilblains&hellip He had been three years mudlarking, and supposed he should remain a mudlark all his life. What else could he be, for there was nothing else that he knew how to do?’ The same mudlark also reveals that ‘he often ran pieces of glass and long nails into his bare feet. When this was the case, he went home and dressed the wounds, but returned to the riverside directly, for should the tide come up without having found something, he must starve until next low tide’.

Mayhew was in no doubt as to who was responsible for the plight of these poor unfortunates, laying the blame squarely at their fathers’ feet, who ‘by going too often to the public house they keep their families in destitution&hellip’ For those with no family, life was even harder and orphan mudlarks would have to ‘sleep in barges or in sheds or stables or cow-houses, with their clothes on. Some of them have not a shirt, others have a tattered shirt which is never washed, as they have no father nor mother, nor friend to care for them.’ Despite such a sorry tale, it is perhaps surprising that Mayhew chose to include this account in a section of his book titled, ‘Felonies on the River Thames’, because in spite of their resourceful endeavours – and out of sheer necessity – mudlarks were dismissed as common thieves. They were almost universally disliked, particularly by other river-folk who saw them as both a nuisance and a menace. Both bargemen and the police would throw them into the water if they were unlucky enough to get caught. Even the children of fishermen, who were themselves of a fairly low order, would look down upon the mudlarks, ‘calling them nippers and other scornful names’ (St James Gazette, August 1884).

Attempts to educate, and therefore improve the fortunes of, mudlarking children in the 19th century were more often than not a thankless task. As Henry Mayhew concludes in one of his accounts, the mudlark ‘could neither read nor write and did not think he could learn if he tried ever so much’ (London Labour and the London Poor, 1861). Often the children didn’t want to be helped – seeing no benefit in attending lessons when they could be scavenging and earning some pennies.

An account published in the Falkirk Herald in June 1870 tells of one unlucky teacher, who coming across a group of mudlarks, decided to take matters into his own hands. He accosted the group ‘as they were trotting past the school door’, but matters soon took an unfortunate turn,

When I took hold of the little girl’s hand, she raised a piercing scream, and her brothers, who were a little way ahead, instantly dashed back to the rescue. Up to the breast went their little clenched right fists, backwards and forwards went their little clenched left fists; ‘Kick his shins, Sally.’ ‘Bite his thumb, Sally,’ they shouted. They danced around me with menacing gestures, and looks and words of contemptuous defiance, and then putting down their heads, rushed in, and assaulted me in the most vigorous manner: little Sally meanwhile kicking like a little donkey, and biting and scratching like a cat.

The mudlark’s lot was not a happy one. The archives, sadly, have no record of a mudlark chancing upon any hidden treasure; or any other major discovery that may have changed the fortunes of the Peggy Joneses and Katherine Macarthys who were scavenging the river at that time.

But their spirit lives on. If you happen to be crossing a London bridge at low tide, you might see people scuttling down ladders and slipways that are normally hidden by the water. It is tempting to think they might be the ghosts of mudlarks past, if it weren’t for their welly boots and trowels. These are the modern-day mudlarks; scavenging as our ancestors did – only this time for objects of historic value that create a picture of the past. These finds are sometimes important enough to be displayed at the Museum of London, such as medieval pilgrim badges, Bronze Age swords and Roman glasswork. Never has the phrase, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure, felt quite so apt.

NOTE: In order to go mudlarking on the Thames foreshore, a Thames Foreshore Permit must be obtained in advance from the Port of London Authority. All discoveries of potential archaeological interest must be reported to the Museum of London.