There's an interesting contemporary description of Great Wild Street, including this bit:
"The population of the district, amounting to some 6000, is mostly composed of the poorest of the poor-costermongers, bricklayers' labourers, scavengers, dealers in rags and bones, sandwich- men, chimney-sweeps, odd men from Covent Garden Market, scene-shifters and hangers-on of the theatre, artisans who are always out of work, women and girls who earn a poor living in all sorts of ways, and a migratory people without visible means of living.
In this category, however, I do not include the people who live in the Peabody Buildings. These are, for the most part, of a far more respectable class, such as police constables, postmen, commissionaires, servants in government offices, club servants, and industrious artisans. But even in the Peabody Buildings there are some very poor people, who find it a hard matter to pay the weekly rent and to get bread enough to keep body and soul together."
http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications6/slums-01.htmThere's a photo of Peabody Buildings in Great Wild Street on page 11 of this PDF:
https://www.peabody.org.uk/media/2598/islington-archaeological-report-final-2012.pdf
