The impact of industrialisation
The late 18th and early 19th centuries were a period of industrial revolution. There was a huge migration of people to the new industrial towns and cities, drawn there by the prospect of better wages. However, as these towns grew rapidly, they became over-crowded.
Living conditions for working families deteriorated and life expectancy probably fell. The Government’s attitude was one of Translated as 'leave well alone' or 'let the people choose'. A government policy of interfering as little as possible in the economy. . They believed that it was not their job to pass laws about things like housing, sewage and water supply, or to try to regulate working conditions.
In Wales, Merthyr Tydfil was an example of all that was bad about industrial towns. From a village of just 40 houses in 1760, it grew into a town of 8,000 inhabitants by 1801. It became the largest town in Wales in 1851 with 46,000 people, but only 25 per cent of them had been born there.
The iron industry used water from the River Taff to power the wheels of its great furnaces. The water then passed through various ponds before returning, black and filthy, to the river again.
This rapid expansion created major problems for public health. There was much overcrowding in low quality housing and insanitary conditions, making the town a breeding ground for diseases like cholera, typhus and TB.
Between 1846 and 1855, the death rate from all causes in Merthyr was 332 per 10,000 inhabitants. The chances of survival for young children were poor, and two in every five children born during the years 1848–1853 could expect to die before reaching the age of five, with many dying before they reached their first birthday.
Bad working conditions also took their toll on its inhabitants as did the pollution from the iron works. The reputation of Merthyr Tydfil was so bad that, in one of Anthony Trollope’s novels, when a young curate (assistant to a vicar) is told he is being sent to Merthyr Tydfil he faints in fear.
'China'
The most deprived area of Merthyr Tydfil was the slum area called 'China' – also known as 'Little Hell'. Its 1,500 inhabitants had some of the most squalid living conditions in Britain. The slum was based around narrow streets, badly ventilated and full of crowded houses.
In his report on the state of Bristol, Bath, Frome, Swansea, Merthyr Tydfil and Brecon in 1845, Sir Henry de la Beche noted that because there were no A toilet located in a small shed outside a house or other building. in Merthyr Tydfil, the inhabitants threw their slops into the streets which were like open sewers. The very poorest slum dwellers lived in cellars, in the worst conditions of all.
By the 1840s, Merthyr Tydfil had the highest The number of deaths in a place (or group) compared with the total number of people in that place (or group). of all Welsh towns, and the third highest in the UK. Young children were particularly vulnerable to disease. In the first half of the 19th century, over 60 per cent of all burials in Merthyr Tydfil were of children under the age of five.
Lack of sympathy or practical intervention from the rich
In the early part of the 19th century there was little sympathy for people living in poverty. The Government believed that living and working conditions were not their responsibility. Many wealthy people thought that the people living in poverty themselves were to blame for the conditions in which they lived.
The wealthy had the vote and it was their views which influenced governments. They could afford people like Men who worked through the night to remove the contents of chamber pots (portable toilets) from Britain’s towns. and did not want to pay extra taxes to provide the poor with better living conditions.
