Bye-law housing
The Public Health Act of 1875 required local authorities to implement building regulations, or bye-laws, which insisted that each house should be self-contained, with its own sanitation and water. This change in the design of housing complemented the public investment in sewers and water supply.
At the same time, the income of most working-class people started to rise at an unprecedented rate. In 1873, the price of food started to drop with the ready availability of cheap imports from across the Atlantic - and much of the drop in the cost of feeding a family was taken in higher spending on housing. In the last quarter of the 19th century, huge numbers of new bye-law houses were built in English cities, with long rows of terraced housing, in grids of streets, easily cleaned and inspected.
'The result was a great improvement in urban health. '
In Scotland, most residents of the great cities lived in high-rise tenements, but even so the amenities improved and the level of overcrowding fell. The result was a great improvement in urban health. These bye-law houses and tenements were themselves attacked by the end of the century, for their monotony, and reformers argued for a more imaginative form of 'garden suburb' - an architectural style which came to dominate the new suburban council houses of the 1920s and 1930s.
Published: 2004-11-04
