Public Health: Bad Housing

Housing:

During the mid-nineteenth century housing in England was near unbearable. Houses were made terribly, and people living in them were cramped and uncomfortable. Furnishings were bad and sanitation was definitely no better. Several accounts show this problem of sanitation. Bath Chronicle 17 June 1852 shows just how terrible things could get, "I swept maggots from under the bed with a broom, while with the handle of the broom I stirred up maggots from the bed itself." Such infestations were common during the time and had an obvious effect on the people which lived there. The same source states, "... on the bed was lying a little boy, naked except for a piece of cloth round its neck, thin and emaciated, evidently ill and apparently struggling for breath." Sickness plagued the poor which lived in such housing. In the Parliamentary Papers of 1842 there is a statement which says, "...the wife hungry - almost crying with hunger in rags."

The poor faced the worst of the housing situation. Some managed to escape from this fate, however. In Andrew Ure's The Philosophy of Manufactures, 1835, he talks about "Mr. T. Ashton's work people," whom he found to live, "... more richly furnished than any common workpeople's dwelling which i had ever seen before." These people were in small numbers though. "In Manchester, more than 57% die before they attain 5 years of age." (Source C) Many were cramped into very small spaces. Chadwick's Sanitary Report states "... each room is about three yards wide and four long. In one of these houses there are nine persons belonging to one family." This causes people to be, "four persons in one bed." Life in this sort of housing was very tough and peoples conditions were "borne down by the conditions of the house."

The thing that made housing so bad was the way they were built during the time. To avoid high costs many constructed so-called houses which were done fast and shabby. "In one place we saw a whole street following the course of a ditch, in order to have deeper cellars without the cost of excavations." Also many were, "built back to back without ventilation or drainage." Most were built of "rough stones and covered with ragged thatch," to make more affordable housing. However affordable it was, there was absolutely no safety involved. They were, "dilapidated" and badly done. Houses generally contained two rooms, which were a bedroom and a living room. Many lived in just one room and others lived in cellars. The style of housing during mid-nineteenth century England lead to sickness and death, due to the way in which they were built. Housing in general was quite intolerable for many of England's working class citizens.