Mudlark

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For the album, see Mudlark (album). For the Australian bird, see Magpie-lark.

A Mudlark is someone who scavenges in river mud for items of value, especially in London during the Industrial Revolution. Poor peasants would scavenge in the River Thames during low tide, searching for anything of value.

During the Industrial Revolution, mudlarks were usually young children or widowed women. Becoming a mudlark was a cry of desperation as it is considered one of the worst "jobs" in history. At the time of the Industrial Revolution, excrement and waste would wash onto the shores from the raw sewage which wasn't treated. The corpses of humans, cats and dogs would also wash up. Mudlarks would be lucky if they made a penny a day selling what they had found during low tide, which was the only time people could scavenge along the shores of the rivers.

Henry Mayhew in his book, London Labour and the London Poor; Extra Volume 1851 provides this detailed description of mudlarks:

“

THEY generally consist of boys and girls, varying in age from eight to fourteen or fifteen; with some persons of more advanced years. For the most part they are ragged, and in a very filthy state, and are a peculiar class, confined to the river. The parents of many of them are coalwhippers--Irish cockneys--employed getting coals out of the ships, and their mothers frequently sell fruit in the street. Their practice is to get between the barges, and one of them lifting the other up will knock lumps of coal into the mud, which they pick up afterwards; or if a barge is ladened with iron, one will get into it and throw iron out to the other, and watch an opportunity to carry away the plunder in bags to the nearest marine-storeshop.

They sell the coals among the lowest class of people for a few halfpence. The police make numerous detections of these offences. Some of the mudlarks receive a short term of imprisonment, from three weeks to a month, and others two months with three years in a reformatory. Some of them are old women of the lowest grade, from fifty to sixty, who occasionally wade in the mud up to the knees. One of them may be seen beside the Thames Policeoffice, Wapping, picking up coals in the bed of the river, who appears to be about sixtyfive years of age. She is a robust woman, dressed in an old cotton gown, with an old straw bonnet tied round with a handkerchief, and wanders about without shoes and stockings. This person has never been in custody. She may often be seen walking through the streets in the neighbourhood with a bag of coals on her head.

In the neighbourhood of Blackfriars Bridge clusters of mudlarks of various ages may be seen from ten to fifty years, young girls and old women, as well as boys.

”

A modern organisation founded in 1980, the Society of Thames Mudlarks, has a special license to search the Thames mud for treasure and historical artifacts [1].

[edit] See also

tosher – someone who scavenges in sewers
grubber – someone who scavenges in drains
The Mudlark – a 1950 British film about a young street boy whose contact with Queen Victoria plays a part in bringing her back to public life after her lengthy mourning for Prince Albert.