Living conditions were very poor in industrial towns. There were no planning laws when the towns were built and this meant that houses were often built very close together and with little thought for the people who would live in them. They were built using poor quality building materials and as workers needed them quicker than they were being built, people often moved in with relatives and families, which led to overcrowding.

Another consequence of poorly built housing and overcrowding was the fact that diseases could be spread quickly. Diseases like measles and small pox killed many people, especially the very young and the old. The government sent inspectors around the country to investigate the conditions of the new industrial towns because it was very worried about a disease called cholera. In the cholera outbreak of 1849, Merthyr Tydfil had the second highest death rate in the country. Only the English town of Hull saw more deaths.

Study the sources below to find out what living conditions were like for ordinary people living in Merthyr Tydfil in the 1840s and 1850s.

Source 1

"Their houses are ranged round the works in rows, sometimes two to five deep sometimes three stories high. They rarely contain less than from one to six lodgers in addition to the members of the family... it is not unusual to find that 10 individuals of various ages and sex occupy three beds in two small rooms."

(Report of Mr Seymour Tremenhere on the State of Education in the Mining Districts of South Wales, 1840, Volumes XXVI-XLIX)

Source 2

"Gardens are few... due attention to sewerage is overlooked."

(Report of Mr Seymour Tremenhere on the State of Education in the Mining Districts of South Wales, 1840, Volumes XXVI-XLIX)

Source 3

"?This town is in a sad state of neglect... From the poorer inhabitants who constitute the mass of the population, throwing all slops and refuse into the nearest open gutter before their houses... the scarcity of privies, some parts of the town are complete networks of filth, emitting noxious exhalations."

(Report on the Sanitary Condition of Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorganshire by Sir Henry T De La Beche, 1845, volume XVIII)

Source 4

"During the rapid increase of this town no attention seems to have been paid to its drainage, and the streets have been built at random, as it suited the views of those who speculated in them."

(Report on the Sanitary Condition of Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorganshire by Sir Henry T De La Beche, 1845, volume XVIII)

Source 5

"The rarity or privies is one of the marked characteristics of the town. In some localities, a privy was found common to 40 or 50 persons, and even up to 100 persons and more."

(Report on the Sanitary Condition of Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorganshire by Sir Henry T De La Beche, 1845, volume XVIII)

Source 6

"Speculators of various kinds seem to have built courts, alleys, and rows of houses, wherever opportunities presented themselves, in order to meet demand? entirely without regard to any order or system, and without any control as to lines, the forms of streets, or to the arrangements for drainage."

(Report on the Sanitary Condition of Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorganshire by Sir Henry T De La Beche, 1845, volume XVIII)

Study the sources carefully and decide which ones show the following:

• overcrowding - lots of people living in one area, house or room
• poor building - that houses were built poorly with little thought for the people who would live in them
• poor sanitation - that little attention was paid to the health of the people and what they did with any kind of waste
• disease - which sources show that disease could spread easily?