This is Adelaide Springett. She was born in 1893 into deep poverty in Victorian London.
Her parents were street hawkers, struggling to make ends meet by selling goods door to door. Life was harsh from the start—Adelaide’s twin sisters, Ellen and Margaret, died at birth. Another sister, Susannah, passed away at just 4 years old.
By the time this photograph was taken around 1901, Adelaide was only 8. She and her mother lived in a Salvation Army shelter in London’s East End. The man behind the camera was Horace Warner, who spent years photographing the forgotten children of Spitalfields—capturing lives history might have otherwise forgotten.
Before the shutter clicked, Adelaide quietly took off her boots. Not because she didn’t have them—but because they were in such poor condition that she felt ashamed to wear them.
This small act says everything about her world.
What happened to Adelaide afterward is unknown. Her last recorded address dates from that year—just a child caught in the harsh edges of a city rushing into the 20th century.
But in this single image, she lives on.
A child who had lost almost everything—yet still wanted to be seen with dignity.