Health in the towns

Before 1830, the government did not think that the state of the towns was its business. Local councils could improve things or not, as they wished. In fact, some did so. Birmingham and Manchester had some paved streets by 1800. Glasgow and London had gas street-lights by 1815.

The first big change was an act to reform the councils in 1835. It said that they had to be elected by the men who paid the rates. And it gave them the power to provide water supplies and systems of sewers if they wished. In some places, big improvements followed. In others they did not - rate-payers did not like councillors who spent a lot of money.

By the 1840s, people knew that there was a connection between bad sanitation and disease. And the government in London was growing more and more alarmed about people's health in towns. From 1848, it passed a string of acts urging the councils to take action. In the end, it said that they had to pave and light their streets, provide sewers, and see that new houses had proper water supplies.

The nation's health slowly improved. But there was not much change in housing. An act passed in 1875 said that councils could buy slums, pull them down, and build new houses for the people. Birmingham council made good use of the act, but not many others followed its lead. In 1900 far too many working people still lived in slums.

Walter Robson: Britain 1750 – 1900; Oxford University Press, 1993/2002, page 47 f.