living conditions

• Appalling living conditions

  • Houses were shared by several families
  • Rents were high
  • Lack of privies meant waste often ended up on the streets
  • Killer diseases like tuberculosis, smallpox and typhoid were common in these damp, overcrowded homes
• Laissez Faire

  • Richer people who ran towns did not want to see taxes raised 
  • Many believed it was not the government’s job to interfere
  • The poor were left to struggle
• No free healthcare

  • Most poor people could not afford to pay for a doctor if they got sick
• private water companies

  • Water companies provided water from streams and rivers
  • The water was often dirty and carried diseases like cholera
• disease was common

  • Many people had to drink dirty water
  • Disease spread quickly
  • Infant mortality was high around 30% died before their first birthday
  • Average age of death in Ancoats, Manchester was just 15 in 1848
  • 1861 discovery of Germ Theory meant scientists started to make improvements later in the 1800s
• human waste

  • Cesspits and sewers often overflowed 
  • Better sewers were built but emptied waste into rivers
  • Contaminated water caused diarrhoea which was a main cause of infant death
• Poor diet caused weakened immune system and poor health

  • Poor people lived off bread and butter, potatoes beer and tea
  • Fresh fruit and veg were difficult to get hold of
  • Food was often poor quality – e.g. water and chalk added to milk
  • Cheap meat from diseased animals was sold to the poor – e.g. tapeworms