Mr. Dodd's dust-yard

An illustration of Mr. Dodd's dust-yard from the book 'Journeys through London, or, byways of modern Babylon' by James Greenwood, undated, c.1873. Greenwood describes the dust-yard as being 'as near as I could guess, about a hundred and fifty feet wide and seventy broad, one end opening on to the main street and the other to the Regent's Canal. Flanking one side of the yard were a score or so of upreared dustcarts, and on the other side, extending almost from the outer gate to the water's brink, were great mounds of ordinary dustbin muck; and in the midst of the mounds - literally, so that in many cases part only of their bodies were visible - were thirty or forty women and girls'. Each woman was sifting through the rubbish, and most of them 'wore coarse, fingerless gloves, and all of them had great lace-up boots, such as carmen wear, and great sackcloth aprons, such as few carmen would care to be burdened with'.

Henry Dodd is believed to have been the model for the character of Mr Boffin in 'Our Mutual Friend' by Charles Dickens. In a Post Office directory for 1846 he is listed as: Dodd, Henry, scavenger, carter & road contractor, City wharf, Eagle wharf road, New North road, Hoxton.