Looking at housing in towns in Victorian England, focusing on back to back dwellings in slum areas

1. What does this map show? Who created it? Why was it created?

2. Charles
Booth
Charles Booth, a successful businessman, created this map in the
late 1800s. Booth believed that social reformers and newspapers
had exaggerated London's poverty levels - studies made at the
time estimated that a quarter of the population lived in
unacceptable conditions.
In 1886, Booth decided to find out the truth of the matter, and
began work on a new study of London's poor. His research
revealed that the reality was even worse than official figures
suggested: as many as one third of Londoners lived in poverty.

3. Booth's study was called 'Life and Labour of the
People in London‘ and using a colour code he
created a map that represents varying levels of
poverty: for example, dark blue stands for 'Very
poor. Casual, chronic want', while black stands for
'Lowest class. Vicious, semi criminal.’
Booth's study took into account a wide variety of
subjects: working conditions, education, wage
levels, workhouses, religion, and police, to name
a few. As part of his research Booth lived with
working-class families for several weeks at a time.
He wrote of the many happy yet poor children he
met who were free from servants and
governesses that wealthier children had.
However, he recognised that for poor families
disease, hunger and death were a real danger.

4. Why were living conditions like for the
poor in Victorian England?
WALT
• To develop an understanding of what
living conditions were like in the
industrial towns of the 19th century
• To investigate what housing was like
for the poor and the options available
to those who were destitute.
WILF
Grade D/F – Identify & describe some of the key problems facing the poor in 19th century towns
Grade C/B – Use a range of sources to explain why conditions were so bad
Grade A/A* Analyse the use and reliability of the sources when considering living conditions

5. What can you see in this picture?
What does this suggest about the living conditions?

7. What were living conditions
like for the poor?
• During the Industrial Revolution, more people
moved into the growing industrial towns to
find work in factories.
• Factory owners built houses for them to live
in. However, there were no planning
regulations to follow, so they would build
them as cheaply and as quickly as possible.
• Land cost money, so landlords would build
as many houses as possible in one area.
• Houses were built back-to-back in long rows.
There were no gardens and few windows.

8. In hard times people
would rent one room in a
house. Sometimes two
families shared the room.
In Liverpool in 1847, 40
people were found to be
sharing the same room!

9. • Very few workers’ houses had running
water so people had to fetch it from a
pipe at the end of the street.
• There were also no toilets in the
houses. Whole streets (200-300
people) would often have to share.
• The toilet was known as the ‘privy’
and would consist of a wooden seat
over a hole called a ‘cesspit’.
• The cesspits were emptied at night by
Nightsoilmen, but would often go
weeks without being cleaned,
meaning they overflowed and sewage
ran down the street

10. Common Lodging
Houses
For those who were destitute,
common lodging house offered a bed
and some food for 4-6d a night.
In 1839, London had around 220
lodging houses with a total
population of around 2,500.
This number increased massively in
1847-8 by refugees from Ireland
escaping the potato famine.
In 1854, the number of registered
houses was 1,441, providing 30,000
places. A further 50,000 people lived
in unregistered lodging houses.

11. Common Lodging Houses were notorious for their overcrowding. Bed-sharing was
common. Some places operated a two-relay system where a bed was occupied by one
person during the day, and another by night.
“It is by no means unusual to find eighteen or
twenty in one small room, the heat and horrid
smell from which are insufferable... If they have
linen, they take it off to escape vermin... The
amiable and deservedly popular minister of a
district church, built among lodging houses, has
stated that he has found twenty-nine human
beings in one apartment; and that, having with
difficulty knelt down between two beds to pray
with a dying woman, his legs became so jammed
that he could hardly get up again”

12. WWhhaat tw weerere l ilviviningg c oconndditiitoionns sl ilkikee f ofor rt hthee P Poooor r
Read the sources on the sheet that tell you about living conditions for the poor
in the 19th century. Feel free to highlight any interesting information.
On lined paper, answer the questions that follow

13. Why were living conditions like for the
poor in Victorian England?
WALT
• To develop an understanding of what
living conditions were like in the
industrial towns of the 19th century
• To investigate what housing was like
for the poor and the options available
to those who were destitute.
WILF
Grade D/F – Identify & describe some of the key problems facing the poor in 19th century towns
Grade C/B – Use a range of sources to explain why conditions were so bad
Grade A/A* Analyse the use and reliability of the sources when considering living conditions

14. If pictures could talk…