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INTRODUCTION

The Boon family, between the 1840s and the 1870s, lived in Harding Lane, Collingwood Street and Nelson Street, Woolwich, in an area known as 'The Dusthole'. This comprised the High Street and the squalid streets between the High Street and the River Thames. Many of the streets were grandly named after famous admirals, as befitted an area adjacent to the Royal Dockyard. However, by this time it was inhabited by the poorest people in Woolwich and infested with thieves and prostitutes. The lodging houses crammed several families into a single room.

Charles Booth and General William Booth were amongst those concerned at the living conditions in the area. In 'Environs of London' published in 1875, James Thorne described the streets as 'narrow, irregular and lined with mean brick dwellings and small shabby shops'

No photographs are known to exist of Harding Lane, Collingwood Street and Nelson Street, but Hog Lane was a few streets to the west, and Meeting House Lane was between Collingwood Street and Harding Lane.

Hog Lane, Woolwich

Meeting House Lane, Woolwich Pictures Courtesy Greenwich Local History Library

In the 1870s the Boons, who had come to Woolwich from Gravesend, presumably for the work available at the Arsenal and the Royal Dockyard, managed to  move to more salubrious accommodation, first elsewhere in Woolwich, then further east into adjoining Plumstead.

'The Dusthole' was eventually demolished, first for the approaches for the Woolwich Free Ferry, opened in 1889 and the rest in 1912 to make way for the Power Station.