Urbanisation and its consequences

History · AS: The Industrial Revolution in Britain, 1750-1850 (exams to Nov 2026). The idea in plain words, the rules to remember, the mistake to avoid and a worked example, written and checked by Mega Lecture.

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The idea

Industry drew people into towns such as Manchester and Leeds faster than houses, water supply and drains could be provided. Cheap back-to-back housing, overcrowding, dirty water and no sewers led to disease, above all cholera and typhus, and to high death rates.

In factories and mines, hours were long, pay was low, machines were unguarded and young children worked. Classes were affected differently: the middle class grew in wealth and influence, many landowners profited, and the working class paid most of the human cost.

Government believed in laissez-faire, so regulation came slowly. Early laws were limited and weakly enforced, but they set the principle that the state could act.

Rules to remember

Factory Act 1833: no children under 9 in textile mills, limited hours for those aged 9 to 18, and paid inspectors to enforce the law.
Poor Law Amendment Act 1834: relief in the workhouse; 'less eligibility' meant conditions inside were worse than those of the poorest labourer outside.
Chadwick's Report (1842): linked disease to dirt, bad drainage and poor water; argued that prevention would cost less than poverty caused by illness.
Mines Act 1842: no women or girls, and no boys under 10, to work underground.
Ten Hours Act 1847: women and young people under 18 limited to ten hours a day in textile mills.
Public Health Act 1848: set up a General Board of Health, but it was mostly permissive, so many towns did nothing.
Truck system: wages paid in goods or tokens for the employer's shop instead of money.

Common mistake

Students often say the 1833 Factory Act covered all workers or all industries. It applied to children and young people in textile mills only; adult men were not covered.

Worked example

A law lets town councils set up local health boards but does not force them to. Why would such a law have limited effect?

Improvements such as sewers and clean water were expensive and had to be paid for from local rates.
Ratepayers and councils often disliked higher rates and interference from London.
With no compulsion, the towns that most needed reform could simply choose not to act.

Answer: A permissive law depends on local willingness to pay, so many towns did little. This was the weakness of the Public Health Act of 1848.

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