Victoriana | Victorian Era Online. The National Archives Learning Curve | Victorian Britain | Main Menu. Primary History - Victorian Britain. The history of the workhouse by Peter Higginbotham. Queen Victoria. Victorian Britain. Rare glimpse of Victorian London's working class captured by street photographer. John Thomson / Courtesy Dominic Winter Auctioneers 'Crawlers', one of a series of pictures of 19th century London by pioneering street photographer John Thomson.
Ben Cavanna / Courtesy Dominic Winter The volume of Street Life in London containing 36 of John Thomson's photographs that will be sold at auction on Thursday. By Yuka Tachibana, Producer, NBC News A book of photographs depicting the grueling poverty lived by many residents of Victorian London is due to be auctioned on Thursday. "In or around 1877, photography was mainly about beautiful landscapes or portraits of the wealthy, but these images [photographer John] Thomson deliberately set out to take were those of the Victorian underclass," John Trevers of auctioneers Dominic Winter told NBC News.
"This was a pioneering work of social documentation," he added. Scottish photographer John Thomson, a pioneer of street photography, captured images of London's working class in the 1870s. Update, 12.40 p.m.