The Growth of Towns, Living Conditions & Public Health

Population Growth Britain’s population

doubled in the 50 years between 1801 & 1851, from 10.5 to 21 Million

By 1901 it had doubled again to 42 Million

There had been nothing like this before

The Growth of Towns

This growing population crowded into expanding industrial towns

This process is called Urbanisation

People were driven away from the countryside because of Enclosure

They were drawn to the towns to find work in the new factories

Urbanisation Places like Manchester,

Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, Bradford, Glasgow and Sheffield grew into huge cities in a few years

This growth was unplanned

It was also unregulated- there were no laws about planning, building or sanitation

The main political belief of the time – Laissez-faire – government should not interfere

19th C. Attitudes Laissez-faire- most

politicians believed that things would work out better if government didn’t interfere

They believed it was wrong to interfere with the rights of landlords

They felt that the poor were to blame for their own living conditions

There was little understanding of what caused disease

Living Conditions Housing for the poor was Jerry-Built (badly built) Poor foundations, damp walls,leaky roofs, poor

ventilation Massive overcrowding, thousands lived in filthy

cellars Back-to-backs took up less space and crowded

more people in Courts were accessed by narrow alleys – little

sunlight penetrated

Back-to-backs

Back-to-backs could crowd more people in, more cheaply

They were built next factories

Families often shared with other workers

Cooking facilities were minimal

Sewage, Sanitation and Refuse This picture of Jacob’s Island,

East London, is typical The privvies(toilets) emptied

straight into the river Elsewhere sewerage was simply

left in cess pits or open sewers Sometimes the cess pit was

emptied by Night Men who made a living selling manure to local farmers

In rain, the filth washed through the alleys and into the cellars

Animal dung added to the stench

Other refuse was not collected

Water Supply

Water was drawn from rivers or wells Raw sewerage leaked from un-lined cess-pits

and contaminated the wells Most towns used the rivers as a vast sewer Water pumps were shared by hundreds of

people Water was dirty and carried many germs

Dangers to Health The cartoon of 1858 shows

the Thames bringing 3 deadly diseases to London

Smoke form factories and chimneys caused lung disorders

Uncooked meat and impure water caused diarrhoea and dysentery

People had lice because they couldn’t keep clean – the lice spread Typhus

Rats spread disease Diseases like TB spread

easily in overcrowded conditions

Cholera There were serious cholera

epidemics in 1831-2, 1848, & 1854, killing thousands

Cholera was terrifying. It was unknown in Britain before 1831. The symptoms were frightening – diarrhoea and vomiting, dehydration, pain, fever. Patients turned blue!

No-one knew the cause No-one knew how to treat it It killed the rich as well as

the poor

Edwin Chadwick’s Report 1842

Chadwick’s Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population, 1842, was deeply shocking

It was a thorough, statistical survey of living conditions throughout Britain

The most startling evidence was on average life expectancies

In Manchester 50% of babies died before they were 5

The average age of death in Manchester was 17 for a labourer, and only 38 for a well-off middle class professional

The Public Health Act 1848

Shocked by Cholera and Chadwick’s Report Parliament passed the first Public Health Act in 1848

The Act set up a General Board of Health with the power to create local Boards of Health

BUT, the act did not compel towns to take responsibility for drainage, sewerage, refuse and water

The “Great Stink” in London in 1858, led to London’s sewage being dumped downstream, instead of in the middle of the Thames!

Slow Progress 1848-1875 The so-called Dirty Party

continued to argue that government should follow “laissez-faire” principles

The poor were blamed for their living conditions, but Chadwick argued that poor living conditions caused poverty

Edwin Chadwick quarreled with the doctors and was unpopular

The problem seemed too vast to cope with and still no-one knew what caused disease till Pasteur discovered germs in 1861

The Public Health Acts of 1875

Primeminister Benjamin Disraeli (1874-80) passed two important reforms:-

1. The Public Health Act 1875 which compelled towns to provide clean water, drains and sewers

2. The Artizans Dwellings Act 1875 which allowed Local authorities to take over and pull down slums

There was still a lot to do!

Joseph Chamberlain Mayor of Birmingham 1872-6

Chamberlain used the new legal powers (1875) to pull down 40 acres of slums in the middle of Birmingham. He replaced them with Corporation Street

But, Chamberlain took no steps to re-house the poor who simply moved into even more over-crowded districts

Other Improvers Titus Salt moved his workers

out of Bradford and built the model town of Saltaire (picture)

George Cadbury built model village of Bournville for his Birmingham workers

William Lever built model town of Port Sunlight for his “Sunlight Soap” workers

George Peabody founded the Peabody Trust which built good apartment blocks for working people

Octavia Hill bought and repaired slums in London

Conclusions

The problems of poor living conditions and public health were not solved in the 19thC.

The problem was very big There was ignorance about the causes of disease The Government was reluctant to move away

from “Laissez-faire” Local government had few powers Politicians did not want to put up rates and taxes

to pay for drains, water, paving, etc… The problem was closely linked to POVERTY, and

there was no 19thC solution to this