34 images show striking squalor and hardship of Liverpool's lost slums

   

Life in Liverpool's slums could be short and difficult, with families crammed into damp, squalid conditions, often struggling to make ends meet.

The sometimes controversial slum clearance campaigns saw large parts of the city cleared out, their inhabitants moved on to new homes, often further from the city centre.

Old slums were demolished ,repurposed or rebuilt in an effort to improve the quality of life of Liverpool's residents.

These images offer an insight into the hardship and squalor of life in Liverpool's slums, which have long since disappeared.

These pictures capture the city's slums over the decades, encapsulating the bleak reality of life in some of these areas.

A mother and her family seen here living in one room of a Liverpool terrace slum. November 1948

 

 
Children playing in a demolished housing area adjacent to their own homes between Sim Street and Page Street, Liverpool, Merseyside. Taken by White for the Daily Herald newspaper on July 12, 1954.

 

 
Woman and child in slum housing scene, Liverpool. Circa 1935

 

 
Liverpool Slums, June 27, 1962. Mother and children making their way through a back alley.

 

 
A woman and six children, some on a balcony, in a Liverpool slum scene. The faces of the three children grouped together on the balcony have been significantly retouched, adding definition to their features. November 2, 1933
The occupiers of No 3 Court, Clayton Street, Liverpool, with their canary. March 2, 1933
Residents of a Liverpool terrace pose for the Daily Herald photographer. March 2, 1933.

 

 
A man inside slum housing in Liverpool inspect a large damp patch on the wall. Circa 1935

 

 
These two bins served a row of houses in Mona Terrace, of Great Homer Street, Everton, Liverpool, May 30, 1960.

 

 
Child playing in alleyway at rear of Gordon Street and Elias Street, Toxteth, Liverpool, June 29, 1962.

 

 
Back alleyway, Kensington Fields, Kensington, Liverpool, July 2, 1970.

 

 
Alleyway in Toxteth, Liverpool, Circa 1980.
Back of Conway Street, off Great Homer Street, Everton, Liverpool, December 5, 1961.

 

 

Scarlet Street off St Annes in Liverpool. March 2, 1933

Slum housing in Everton, Liverpool. Mrs Frances Pulford aged 72 years old emptying a bucket of washing-up water down a gutter in the street where she lives. There were no sinks and no drains in any of the nine houses in Wellington buildings. There was one cold water tap for each house, and the cold water tap was situated in the coal place. April 3, 1960.

 

 
Mrs Bessie Braddock MP visiting one of the slum areas in Liverpool in 1962

 

 
MP Bessie Braddock meeting residents in a Liverpool slum housing area. Mrs McGuiness and her young son Peter, aged two, had to climb over demolition rubble to leave the back of their house, Liverpool, Merseyside. July 12, 1954.

 

 
Slum housing in Everton, Liverpool. Diane McCardle aged two and a half siting in the sun outside one of the lavatories that served nine families. April 3, 1960.

 

 
Don't ever be told that kids can't have fun without high tech computer games. These 50s kids are having a fantastic time, clambering all over these old metal bins.

 

 
6 - 44 Torboch Street, Liverpool, part of the slum clearance redevelopment March 2, 1933
Children playing in alleyways of Liverpool's Flower Streets, Kirkdale, Liverpool, August 4, 1974.

 

 
Slum housing in Everton, Liverpool. April 3, 1960.

 

 
A typical Edge Hill alley way, Liverpool, August 17, 1981.

 

 

Slum housing in Everton, Liverpool. April 3, 1960.

Slum housing in Everton, Liverpool. April 3, 1960.

 

 
Slum housing in Everton, Liverpool. April 3, 1960.

 

 
Slums house in Toxteth, Liverpool

 

 
Children playing in a Toxteth slum

 

 
Children playing in a demolished housing area adjacent to their own homes between Sim Street and Page Street Liverpool. Taken by White for the Daily Herald newspaper on July 12, 1954.
 
Toxteth, Liverpool

 

 
A woman in the rear yard of a slum house in Toxteth

 

 
A man washes himself in the rear yard of a slum house in Toxteth

 

Children playing in Toxteth

 

 

A man washes himself in a basin at a slum house in Toxteth