1. Write down five words to describe housing in cities during the Industrial revolution

2. Life in an Industrial Town
Lesson Objectives
To understand what life was like for people living in an Industrial Town.

3. Problems in Industrial towns
population
Overcrowding
Poor housing
Poor hygiene
Dirty drinking water
Pollution
Sewage

4. What can you see happening in this image?

5. The problem of public health shown here is …….

6. The problem of public health shown here is …….
Overcrowded buildings.
Many people often had to share the same small and dirty rooms and the same beds. This meant diseases would spread quickly and easily.
The problem of public health shown here is …….public lodging houses. Here many people, often strangers, would share dirty and cramped rooms. This meant that diseases could spread quickly and as people moved around the country they would spread the disease further.
The problem of public health shown here is ……. Dirty streets with rubbish heaps. A woman is dressed in ragged clothing and is searching through a heap of rubbish in the street, you can also see a child playing in the rubbish. The waste was not removed from the streets which shows that people lived in filthy conditions and this could have led to diseases spreading.
The problem of public health shown here is ……. Death. A coffin is being carried among the crowded streets. This shows that people were around dying or dead people which would have made it easier for them to catch diseases.
The problem of public health shown here is …….
child poverty A young boy is holding a broom used for cleaning chimneys which tells us he works. The boy is dressed in rags which shows he is poor. Many children did dangerous jobs and worked for long hours for little pay and could afford not much food or clothing. This meant that they would be under-nourished and unhealthy, which made them more likely to die from diseases.

7. Problems in towns
In the 18th and 19th centuries, anyone who owned land could build whatever they wanted on it.
There were no laws governing the quality of building
Houses were built poorly and towns were not looked after.
People lived in horrible conditions

8. Task – Choice Activity
What do you think was the most significant problem facing Public Health in the towns?
Make a Diamond 5 - what was the most significant threat? What was the least significant threat?
STRETCH AND CHALLENGE;
How would you overcome these problems?

9. Why was public health such a problem?
Teacher’s Notes
The hotspots are, from left to right:
Privy: Lack of adequate hygiene – people could not clean properly
Cess pit: Lack of adequate sewerage – cess pits were used
Cellar window: Poor ventilation, especially in attic and cellar dwellings
Rubbish pile: Rubbish on the streets encouraged vermin
Thin, damp walls: Houses were often damp; walls were very thin and the floors were often earth
Standpipe: Drinking water was poor and often contaminated

10. Types of housing Cellar dwellings Back to back housing
Built in a court grid system
The rows of houses were literally built 'back to back' one room deep.
One-room cellars below ground level.
They were damp and poorly ventilated

11. Half a brick thin

13. “There is one privy, which has a cesspool in common with another privy attached to another house. The cesspool is nearly full; the wood-work of the privy can scarcely hold together, and is dangerous to use. Not long ago the landlady of some houses fell into a cesspool and was suffocated.”
London 1848

14. Problems of overcrowding
The shortage of housing often meant that one house accommodated several families, each having one room:
‘On the second floor lived a widow. In her room lived her grown-up son, two daughters, and two or three children of one of these daughters. Above on the third floor lived a market porter, his wife and four children.’ Charles Booth, 1889.
Think!
What problems would overcrowding like this have brought?
10 people

15. Healthy housing
Most of these slum housing had little in the way of furniture. Many had just a table, a few chairs and a bed.
A bed would be shared by several family members, and if some did shift work the bed could be used night and day.

16. Problems with the water supply
Task:
What does this source suggest about how people caught diseases?
Water supply was a massive problem.
Sewage contaminated water as privies and rubbish were left to overflow and fester.

17. Diseases Diseases & killer conditions Think! Cholera Typhoid Influenza
Tuberculosis
Pneumonia
Think!
How often do these diseases kill in the UK today?

18. What was life like in industrial towns?
Robert Southey wrote:
"The dwellings of the labouring manufacturers are in narrow streets, blocked up from light and air, crowded together because every inch of land is of such value that room for light and air cannot be afforded them.
Here in Manchester, a great proportion of the poor lodge in cellars, damp and dark, where every kind of filth is left to accumulate.
Friedrich Engels wrote:
‘The irregular cramming together of dwellings in ways which defy all rational plan. They are crowded literally one upon the other.
At the end of the court passage is a privy without a door, so dirty that the inhabitants can pass into and out of the court only by passing through foul pools of stagnant urine and excrement.

19. Your task You must include the following....
Is to write a detailed report about an industrial town about what life is like for the people who lived there.
You must include the following....
Number of people living in that area/ number of people to a house
Types of houses and what the houses were like inside and out.
Conditions in that area (sewage, drinking water and privies)
The spread of Cholera
Extension- Draw a picture of the area you have investigated

20. Write a list of as many reasons as you can why diseases were common in nineteenth century towns.

21. Extension Task Design a poster warning people about
diseases in the towns, particularly cholera,
and telling them what they must do to avoid them!
(Explain in as much detail as you can how they must change the towns)

22. HEAD-something that has made you think
HEART- something that you have felt
BIN-something you did not find interesting
BAG- something you will remember and take away
Bin