Begging places: Poverty, race, and visibility on Ludgate Hill, c.1815

When someone begs, they are asking for more than casual charity. They are asking to be seen even just briefly, even just sidelong. Begging asks not for a lingering and considered gaze, but rather for mere acknowledgement: they are here, human, suffering, and real. To work at all, begging must be visible, not just in the everyday sense of sight but also socially, so that others may see the person begging be relieved, or spurned, and in turn feel drawn themselves. This short chapter charts the experiences of Charles McGee, an elderly Black man who swept 'Waithman's Crossing' at Ludgate in Regency London. Well-known enough to have his likeness drawn, McGee's biography shows how the echoes of mendicity, race, and visibility can pass through intervening centuries.