Charles Booth (social reformer)

Charles Booth, a Liverpool shipowner, doubted claims that a quarter of Londoners lived in poverty and set out to measure it himself from 1886. With a team that included Beatrice Potter, later Beatrice Webb, and with school board visitors' records, he found the true share was nearer a third. His colour-coded street maps of London's poverty helped make the case for old-age pensions.