Urbanisation

Question 1

What were the main reasons for such a huge increase in population (9 million to 18 million) between 1801 and 1851?

Answer 1

The agricultural and industrial revolutions. By 1850, half of all British people lived in cities.

Question 2

Why was overcrowding an issue in industrialised cities?

Answer 2

• As the amount of people needed in agricultural work declined they moved to cities as factories needed lots of workers.
• No public transport meant that this huge No. of people had to live close to work.
• Low wages meant that rents were low which meant cheap houses built.
• These had no clean water supply or any good sewage system.

Birmingham increased from 71K people to 233K people between 1801 and 1851. Liverpool, 82K to 376K.

Question 3

What was so bad about living conditions?

Answer 3

• Cheap to house armies of workers.
• Built quickly and jammed close together to save space and costs.
• Back to back house was common
• Builders used cheapest materials, no concern for health/safety.
• Decent homes = less profit.
• Many slums emerged with slum landlords reaping profits.

Question 4

Why were living conditions so bad?

Answer 4

• Wages low
• In Liverpool, a cellar could be shared by 38 people!!! A cellar!
• No effective light, sanitation, facilities to prepare food.

Question 5

How many people might share a privy(toilet)?

Answer 5

• 100 or more.
• Buckets with crap emptied on streets
• Little provision for disposal of sewage.
• Houses had no sewerage built
• Dirty water caused typhus, typhoid, cholera

Question 6

Where could you find sewage?

Answer 6

•	Everywhere:
o	Overflowed from cess-pits into cellars
o	Contaminated water supply
o	Dung heaps
o	Streets (unpaved) covered in animal and other waste. Provided a home for vermin and disease.

Question 7

Why did governments not do much?

Answer 7

• They did not know the scale of the problem
• Did not understand how to deal with it
• Saw it was slum landlords problem