1. Standard Grade Revision Britain 1830-1930
Housing and Health

2. Town Housing

3. New Towns in Scotland
After 1760 new towns developed and expanded. e.g.:
Glasgow,
Greenock
Motherwell
Dundee
By 1851 as many people lived in the towns as in the countryside.
High demand for housing – every spare room rented out.
Wealthy abandoned the town centre and moved to better housing in the outskirts or suburbs.

4. With this movement came problems:
Overcrowding
Shoddily built houses
Irresponsible landlords
Bad sanitation
Lack of running water
Lack of windows and ventilation

5. Tenement buildings
Tenement buildings were built since it was cheaper to bu8ild upwards than outwards.
Usually three of four stories, with flats leading off the stairway.
Closes or wynds ran through the tenements providing access to a courtyard at the rear where washing was dried, rubbish thrown and dry toilets situated.
Most families lived in one room. These houses with one room became known in Glasgow as “single ends”.
Many single ends had no windows.

6. In 1840 30,000 Highlanders were forced to move to Glasgow
In ,000 Highlanders were forced to move to Glasgow. None of them spoke English (they spoke the Gaelic tongue), they had never seen a city. The only work they had ever done was to tend to a few animals and a small bit of land.
They were forced overnight into factory work. In 100 years Glasgow's population swelled from 42,000 to 477,700.
Work to be found in the textile mills, on the railways, in coal mines and in ship building. The cities grew so quickly that it was impossible to build decent homes fast enough. Conditions in the three and four story tenements were very bad.
The immigrant areas were the poorest in the city. There was little sanitation, no proper water supply and rubbish lay in the street. Two or three families often had to share one or two rooms.
These areas were known as slums. Rents were not always cheap and people were put out on the street if they could not pay on time.

7. Single Ends People had no privacy Germs spread easily Damp
Furniture was basic – bed in a recess with a curtain, children often slept on floor.
Tables and chairs were luxury items.
Water carried in from outside.
No proper system of sanitation – sometimes cesspools next to water supply.

8. Government
Policy of “laissez-faire” – no laws to protect tenants – often tied housing
1833 Burgh Reform Act – money from rates to clean streets.

9. Other town housing
Better-off working class families lived in house with two rooms upstairs and two rooms downstairs.
Middle-class housing ranged from large mansions to terraced houses with gardens, indoor toilets and piped water.
Servants
Did not live in same part of town as working classes.

10. Upper classes lived apart from middle classes
Large town house and country dwellings
Large gardens, running water, baths, rooms for servants.
Like middle classes, unaware of how bad housing was for poorer people.

11. After the First World War
As the war continued politicians promises a better life after the war.
1924 Wheatley Act gave more money to councils to provide housing.
More than 75,000 houses built in Scotland
Electricity, indoor toilets & gardens
By 1920s an improvement in housing.

12. Health

13. Disease in towns in the 1800s
1842 “Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain” by Edwin Chadwick.
Killer diseases: Smallpox, typhoid, tuberculosis (TB) & cholera.
Cholera: ,000 dead ,000 dead ,000 dead ,000 dead
Symptoms = severe diarrhoea & dehydration leading to shock & death
Thought to be bad air.

14. Edwin Chadwick Fought to get government to take action.
1842 “Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain” – proved life expectancy much lower in towns than countryside.
He argued government should bring about reform, as a healthier population would be able to work harder, and cost less to support.

15. Public Health Act 1875
Local authorities had to appoint a Medical Officer
Authorities had to:
Cover and maintain sewers properly
Provide clean water
Pave and clean streets.
Local officers were appointed to check up on slaughterhouses and take responsibility to make sure contaminated food was properly destroyed.

16. Other factors that improved health:
Better diet: due to better transport, fresh food reached the cities
Cheap new materials: soap and disinfectant reduced infections
Cheap cotton clothes – easy to clean and launder
Better medicines and hospitals
1864 Louis Pasteur discovered germs
1867 Joseph Lister used antiseptics in surgery
1928 Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin.
Rise in earnings meant people could afford better clothing and food.