Housing

Purpose-built buildings appeared for the first time. Previously, basic forms were houses, shops, offices or lodging-houses. Now office buildings arrived, along with model dwellings for the poor.

In the 1840s, towns competed to be ahead in health legislation. Liverpool’s was passed in 1842-6, Nottingham’s in 1845, but Birmingham not until 1876. The Metropolitan Building Act (1844) set a standard for London – for drainage, cellar dwellings, height of buildings and width of streets. 


Gas lighting had arrived in the 1820s, and by 1841 many urban middle-class houses had some gas, although mainly for difficult-to-light areas such as the front hall and kitchen, with candles and oil lamps elsewhere.

Price’s Candles, set up in 1830, opened two factories in the following decade, almost cornering the upper end of the market.

The Swiss scientist Argand’s patent oil lamp, which had a brighter light inside its glass tube, was deservedly popular.

Water was problematic. London had eight private water companies, all equally inefficient and unscrupulous. Many houses had no water whatsoever, instead using public wells oozing with sewage, or stand-pipes that only ran for about an hour a day, three days a week. Even those with running water were mostly still cooking in their kitchens over what was, in effect, an open fire.

More modern households were only just beginning to fit a ‘close’ range or Kitchener, which for the first time was more stove than fire. The firebox could be completely shut in front, and the chimney sealed. Some even had boilers at the back which were filled by hand.