Living Conditions

• Lodging houses until families found somewhere to live.
• Through houses had their own back yards but most people lived in back to back houses.
• Lots of food eaten by the poor was unadulterated e.g butter was adulterated with copper to improve colour
• water pumps were the main source of water in working class areas
• night soil men emptied cesspools under privies, privies were often shared
• waste and water was a real issue, typhoid and choler
• population grew from around 6 million in 1750 to 21 million in 1850 and to 37 million in 1900
• In 1870 an education act provided schools for all children under the age of ten
• Industrialisation of the country
• shift to scientific beliefs - charles darwin
• By 1900 the british empire covered around 1/5 of the world
• Towns overcrowded and huge public health issues with epidemics
• Germ Theory 1861
• From 1867 all working class men could vote
• Reformers such as chadwick highlighted the conditions many poor people were living in
• Miasma was still a thing
• The urban poor had a terrible diet: potatoes, bread and butter
• Water companies controlled access to water and charged high prices
• Most rich families had flushing toilets which futher contaminated water
• The 1848 public health act allowed local authorities to set up boards of health in order to build sewers and provide clean water. but, impact was limited because this was not compulsory
• The 1875 public health act forced local authorities to take responsibility for sewers and water supply
• The government abandoned laissez-faire attitude in the 19th century because:

  • Edwin chadwick put pressure on the government to act by publishing the shocking research into public health in 'The sanitary condition of the labouring poor'
  • 1861, louis pasteur published his germ theory, confirming that disease is bacteria
  • By the 1880s all working class men had the right to vote. the government now had to listen to the concerns of the poor.
• Britain was transformed from an agricultural to an industrial country (steam engines were used to power vast factories)
• The government followed laissez faire policies
• overcrowded cities
• population skyrocketed ( 21 million in 1850 to 37 million in 1900)