text: Rowntree conducted a study of poor families in York in 1899 and drew a poverty line in terms of a minimum weekly sum of money ‘necessary to enable families … to secure the necessaries of a healthy life’ (quoted in Coates and Silburn, 1970). The money needed for this subsistence level of existence covered fuel, and light, rent, food, clothing, household and personal items, and was adjusted according to family size. According to this measure, 33 per cent of the survey population lived in poverty.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seebohm_Rowntree\n\n[Charles Booth's] most famous work is undoubtedly the seventeen-volume Life and Labour of the People in London (1889–1903), parts of which were read before the Royal Statistical Society in May 1887 and May 1888. He was aided in his work by other academics of the time such as Stephen N. Fox, Clara E. Collet, David F. Schloss and H. Llewellyn Smith. Beatrice Potter, the future Beatrice Webb, also participated.\n\nThis work can be seen as one of the founding texts of British sociology, drawing on both quantitative (statistical) methods and qualitative methods (particurly ethnography). Because of this, it was an influence on Chicago School sociology (notably the work of Robert E. Park) and later the discipline of community studies associated with the Institute of Community Studies in East London.\n\nBooth began work on Life and Labour of the People in London in 1885 after reading the results of a survey undertaken by the Social Democratic Foundation, which claimed that 25% of Londoners lived in abject poverty. He considered this figure to be exaggerated for the purposes of socialist propaganda, and set out with the original intention of disproving it. However, Booth came to the conclusion (which shocked him and others) that in fact 30.7% of Londoners lived in poverty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Booth_%28philanthropist%29\n\nI hope this helps you out - Good Luck!!!