Changing Attitudes (Breadth 1)

• Local outbreaks of scarlet fever and typhoid, for example, were reported in local newspapers such as the Leeds Mercury, and occasionally connections were made between poor living conditions and disease.
• National newspapers had a large impact on changing the attitudes of those with the power to bring about change. The Times newspaper, for example, headed a campaign for effective sewerage of London as a result of the 'Great Stink' of 1858.
• Contemporary novels by Charles Dickens created vivid images of working class conditions in mid-Victorian Britain. He focused on London, where he had a first-hand experience of poverty. His books were enormously successful, reaching a wide readership party since they were serialised and therefore more readily available. These books included Oliver Twist (1839).
• George Orwell, in his 1937 novel The Road to Wigan Pier, documented the bleak living conditions of many working class people in Yorkshire and Lancashire.