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How families lived: Background The Fabian Society's journal in the 1884 raised many of the questions about workers' rights and lower class housing. One of the topical issues covered was housing conditions in London. The society highlighted that although a by-law under the London Health Act stated that every person should have 400 cubic feet of space of living space, the reality was much less.
In the East End of London lack of housing was a huge problem. Beds were often rented out on an eight-hour system. Some people started work at 10pm, when they went to work someone else would sleep in their bed. When that person left at 6am the next day, another worker would sleep in the same bed, before the first person returned to sleep in it himself at 2pm. The bed could have three people sleeping continuously in it on a shift system. This happened because of lack of housing and the high cost of renting. Sometimes, the high rent and lack of living space forced a man to put his wife and children into the workhouse.
At this time it was believed that to remain healthy there should be no more than 25 people living in one acre. This was not the case in Victorian cities and so sanitation was a huge problem. There was no proper sewerage system in cities and waste was dumped in open large cesspools that were emptied twice a year. In 1866, the Sanitary Act was passed. Its intention was that all houses be connected to a main sewer.
As the population grew, the Government tried to meet the demand for housing and in 1866 the Labouring Classes Dwelling Houses Act was passed. For the first time, private individuals were allowed to borrow money to build houses. It set out regulations on the construction of a house, room size and stipulated that every household must have its own toilet. The re-building took time and in the meantime overcrowding and associated health problems continued.
The images in this section show the type of living conditions working class people had to endure. The illustration taken from a Victorian book called "London, a pilgrimage" dated 1872 shows how much of the housing conditions involved overcrowding. As a result many people lived out of doors. Click any of the images on this page to see an enlarged version. |
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