Britain offers to slaughter 15,000 cattle a week for the next five years to wipe out BSE more people have fallen ill with a stomach bug that's thought to have been caused by drinking contaminated water the number of suspected food poisoning cases in central Scotland has risen to one hundred and eighty one ninety one of these are confirmed why do government make laws about things that affect our health today government controls the safety of the food we eat the water we drink and the houses we live in the government sees our health as an important part
of its job but in the past government did not see health as their responsibility why did things change I wish it how do you feel honey it's just had seven she was fine at dawn she's sweating but she's cold is this what she's past it's why this Susan look at it what what do you think it is do you know what a drop to swap she's quitting it's nothing you tell him he'll never speak to you oh my have my girl going that Vangie way me and eyes well put her in a hearse hope her
in a box half naked with the blankets left from the last one she goes in that van she's never coming back do you want me to stay just keep the kids out I tell my the river just keep them out - it's over in the cellar of number 23 back ERK Street on Hana eight-year-old daughter of an unemployed Weaver was dying because of the cholera epidemic that had hit the poorest parts of the city we know about um because of a local doctor Henry Coulter he wrote a book about the cholera epidemic which gave us
a detailed picture of working life in Manchester in 1832 we had known the disease was coming it had swept across Europe like a like an enemy no army could hold back it was in London Belfast Liverpool Glasgow we knew it would not pass us by so two months ago our Board of Health inspected the poorest parts of the ton and what we found there such scenes of Filth crowding disgusting habits drunkenness and in some districts such wretchedness Honda so much that when the report was finally published many of our more comfortable citizens said that we'd
slurred the good name of the city painting a picture quite so grim as the epidemic spread Gault er plotted the first 200 cases on a map and he visited the families involved to question them to try to pin down the cause of the disease in you that cholera affected poor people more than it affected rich people in back irk Street three days after the death of an Hana he found a younger sister Margaret was sick - Margaret Hannah aged four very delicate half famished seized Monday July 23rd 7:00 a.m. I'm sorry to ask these questions
at such a time do you understand no she'd not been with her sister not when I was sick no it were too quick Margaret were out playing at the time then in the afternoon they came for a for an to go to the hospital don't know who told them it was for the best so margarett never saw her sister again no contact then has she eaten Margaret my husband's not worked these two months if I have food it goes to me eldest I gave van porridge the night before she went and buttermilk and now I
see that were wasted Margaret said nothing no one at this stage knew exactly what caused the cholera some people thought it was contagious he caught it from other people but people like Galt er had made the connection between cholera and the poor conditions in which these people live their lives the poor quality of the food they ate the overcrowded housing and the bad sanitation many of the streets goal to found cholera victims in were streets and back-to-back houses many doctors believe these houses were the cause of diseases like cholera because they believed bad air was
trapped in them in fact the real problem was the lack of roaming water drains lavatories and refuse collection this house for instance number six Jordan Street it's blocked in from the side and the rear there's only one source of air and light the rubbish they have to carry through the house to the front but because the streets are so narrow the rubbish cars can't fit so the filth just sits there the distance yeah look between two facing houses it's just fourteen foot each house had just two rooms one up one down and the salars some
of which were as small as 12 foot by 14 the landlords rented out separately to make even more money I have seen whole families six seven eight sleeping on the floor no furniture in one cell the children half naked half starved the smells it's indescribable where is the Privy now my the bridge and how many people use it eighty a hundred what sort is it is a hole in the ground or does it overhang the river the hole and how often do they come up to take away the filth does it overflow the problem was
that until 1830 in Manchester builders could build what they liked there were no building regulations workers were flooding in from the countryside to the towns and they needed somewhere to live the builders wanted to make maximum profits so they built back-to-backs to grab more and more people into less and less space these local maps show the speed of development in 1794 black irk Street didn't exist the area was mainly fields over the next 40 years by 1831 the fields have become narrow streets and courts how long have you been here two months our our village
will being cleared the gave us free passage on a barge once it left the pull down our cottage did you know what to expect work and did you find work Susan took me to the foreman I am lucky I've got small hands you know the spindles so you stay here with Susan she as husband and the children it would not be right I am in lodgings across the way first it scared me not sleeping with strangers but now that all seems a strange men and women no no I it is a decent house oh not
like summer mrs. Hopkins are seven men and women in the one room and not the same surname between him you have done well throughout Britain over 31,000 people died in this cholera epidemic 900 of them in Manchester most of them lived in houses like this milk makes the stables slaughterhouses factories because there were no Building Regulations builders weren't forced to provide sewers toilets or water supplies many poorer families had to collect water from canals or rivers people eat install water from private water pumps then used it so sparingly but it became even dirtier over 30
years later by 1867 it was accepted that the cholera germ was in the water something Henry gold sir never knew but his work helped to prove the link between disease and poor living conditions it seems to me when you examine the conditions of our working poor but the truly remarkable question is why so few should have died walk down back arrghh Street for instance and note how outside the very door of number 23 in which house Ann and Margaret Hannah died the sewer bubbles up through the crumbling masonry flooding the street in a stinking mass
of extra wood is this not the perfect soil in which disease would grow frankly I can see no reason all things considered why we should have escaped quite so lightly do any government help to make us lead healthy lives this question was argued over for most of the 19th century some people believed that things would sort themselves out it was up to individuals to look after themselves others believed that the government had to take more control of health matters this drawing was made in 1840 and shows one person's view of life for poor children at
the time the medical problems were serious in 1842 a report by Edwin Chadwick showed that death rates were extremely high the average life expectancy for the working classes in Manchester was 17 a rich person could expect to live twice as long Manchester had been one of the first places to bring in local acts to improve things all streets ought to be at least 24 feet wide and paved and drained by their owners of course it didn't affect the many streets already built like Bacharach Street it could only affect new building back to back housing was
cheap to build because only one thin wall of brick separated any two houses in 1844 building back-to-backs was maybe legal in Manchester but we know they were still being built 10 years later this report was made by visiting inspectors from the Manchester and Salford sanitary Association they were looking at the street next back ERK Street there is new property at the top of silver Street in no better condition the houses are newly built and back to back in these records the name of the owner has been crossed through but we can still see it says
the property belongs to alderman pilling alderman pilling was a member of the local council it looks as if someone was trying to prevent this information from being made public in 1848 the government responded to public and official pressure by passing a Public Health Act but most of its provisions were not compulsory so many councils didn't do anything magazines of the time printed cartoons like this one showing the local councillors as pigs ignoring the government's orders out of greed many of the middle class's believe that the poor people were responsible for the diseases they caught they
didn't accept that the local councils should try to improve the health of the poor in 1853 Manchester Council tried to make it illegal to have people living in salad dwellings but the landlord's appalls the measure this would mean closing nearly all the cellar dwellings and would cause many of us to lose a great deal of income some of us would be ruined also it would be very bad for the tenants as they would have nowhere else to live the landlords were right closing slums did cause problems around back yoke Street some of the houses were
demolished when the railway line came through is we can see from this map of 1839 the housing left got even more overcrowded this engraving was made by a Frenchman Gustave doré a who visited Britain in the 19th century and was amazed at the overcrowding he witnessed ten years after the demolitions in 18-49 the morning Chronicle sent a reporter to Manchester his report and these images give us some idea of the conditions the flicker of the candle showed grimy walls reaching with fetid damp which trickled in greasy drops down to the floor beds were huddled in
every corner one man was too drunk to get rid of his trousers and the next seller slept two boys and a man one man was lying dressed and beside him a well-grown calf sitting up on another bed was an old man maudlin drunk with saliva running over his chin and one of the walls was a little Hollow six feet long too deep in one eye the death rates were as high as ever many people agreed that something had to be done the next 11 years was a time of much greater action on health reform in
the later 19th century attitudes changed Britain became more wealthy through trade and industry it seemed possible to do more for the people Manchester finally appointed a medical officer of health in 1867 his name was John Lee he wanted to get rid of salad Wellings get rid of back to backs and get rid of midden privies we can see how successful he was by looking at the documents that still survived from that time the read books for Manchester tell us that sellers were still lived in in 1872 by 1873 all the dwellings are listed as houses
people were no longer living in cellars midden privies were literally holes in the ground the filth had to be dug out which made it very difficult to remove properly John Lee brought in a system of pale closets when people went to the toilets the West now went into a buckets beneath the sate which could be easily removed bad housing could not be cured so quickly these houses were still being lived in in 1944 when this photo was taken but gradually houses were demolished throughout the later part of the nineteenth century all new streets had to
be wide enough so that a cart could get access to the outside toilet in order to take the waste away in 1875 the second major Public Health Act was passed this time it was not voluntary all local authorities were legally obliged to bring in reforms the act was enforced all local authorities in Britain had to appoint medical officers over the next 20 years housing water supplies and drainage improved you but the reforms were not aimed at curing poverty disease and ill health continued to be major problems for the working classes there is very little film
from the beginning of this century but this was shot in 1946 to show the Victorian conditions that still existed seventy-five years after the reforms admitted by the local authorities all over the country poverty meant that people had to carry on living in very unhealthy conditions poverty also meant that people a cheap food t bread and Marjorie were the main foods of the poor poor people could not afford to eat the kind of food that provided vitamins minerals and enough calories to protect them from illness keeping clean was still difficult we're done seventy thousand people are
still living in some condition the effect of poverty on health was still very obvious council records show an increase in death rates amongst very young children in 1840 a hundred and forty four out of every 1000 babies had died by 1899 it had gone up to a hundred and sixty three babies in a thousand who died before the age of 1 by now working people were beginning to get organized into groups which demanded changes there were many different political and workers groups one of these was the women's cooperative guild the guild was set up in
1883 it was one of the first organized women's groups and fought for government action in health matters such as maternity care for pregnant women childcare free school meals for the poor and cleaner streets and housing meetings were held all over the country this is what one member of the guild wrote we were taught about vaccinations and death rates one speaker told us about the public health laws and showed us how the water supply got polluted after this we sent up a list of questions to the local health committee the mayor wasn't very happy about us
asking for information but in the end he was forced to answer our questions the British Empire also needed many more able-bodied people the government wanted to send Fitz healthy man to administer the Empire and the armed forces wanting to see health measures brought in because during the Boer War fought from 1899 to 1900 to many recruits had not been fit for service in Manchester for example out of 9,000 recruits only 1,000 were fit for service as a result of this concern a parliamentary report was published in 1904 this report asked the government to get rid
of overcrowded housing control smoke pollution give school children regular medical inspections set up their nurseries for the children of working mothers and stop selling tobacco to children the massive concern from all sections of society meant that the 1906 Liberal government passed new laws the kinds of laws that had never been passed before to give poor people help 1906 school meals were provided for needy children 1907 schools had to give medicals the children all births had to be notified to the health visitor 1908 old-age pensions were paired 1909 the building of back to back housing was
banned across Britain when the hospice take charge you can really see how rotten these papers are at the beginning of the 19th century there was little government interference in health matters by the beginning of the 20th there was a lot people began to accept that poverty might be the cause of disease they also began to accept that poor people could not be blamed for poverty today the government takes responsibility for the nation's health but the arguments about how much the government should interfere continue how much government intervention do we need to make us lead healthy
lives
