Middle-class idealists wanting to improve the lot of poor folk had better live among them

Toynbee Hall was built in 1884 as a settlement: the first in the East End.

The main 1894 building of Toynbee Hall, Commercial Street, London E1. The frontage bears a Greater London Council blue plaque commemorating Jimmy Mallon (1874-1961).
GrindtXX, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0CC BY-SA 4.0 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Toynbee Hall was not at all as I expected. I knew little more of it than the social work done there by the indefatigable penitent John Profumo.

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