A generous helping?  The archaeology of soup kitchens and their role in post-medieval philanthropy 1660-1914.

This project traces the birth and development of the soup kitchen in England during the long-nineteenth century (1790-1914) a period of great social change.  Soup kitchens were a crucial element in the welfare economy on which the poor depended to survive.  In some winters in the mid-nineteenth century, over two million people, around 10% of England’s population, probably received soup from a soup kitchen on account of their poverty.  Between 1797 and 1801, the proportion of the country getting soup was even greater.  Some large urban soup kitchens served over 4,000 quarts (4,500 litres) of soup a day.  In London in 1887 over 200 London charitable institutions served around 100,000 meals of cooked food daily to the local adult poor.  Despite these numbers, soup kitchens have barely been studied.

My research involves understanding how the buildings and material culture were used to deliver charity on an industrial scale, how the landscapes in which the buildings were situated affected the poor and how the first mass-produced “fast food” and first nationally-shared experience for the poor came into being.