Victorian realism

These photographs were taken by Charles Spurgeon in Greenwich in the 1880s. Spurgeon was an evangelising priest who had just moved to a church in Deptford. He photographed some local tradespeople for the purpose of making a slideshow to show to his audience.
These pictures fascinate me, because they show the sought of people my ancestors would have come across, in familiar places both to them and to myself. They may have even known them.
A word of warning: You may be forgiven for thinking that the photos portray a match-seller and a milkman at work. They do not. What they actually portray are a match-seller posing with his wares, and a milkman posing with his wares and a customer.