A tour of Bristol and its Densely populated Poor Areas by a sanitary reformer.
The sanitary reformers used the literary techniques of Victorian novelists to create a sense of crisis. Edwin Chadwick, the author of the report on the sanitary conditions of British towns, consulted Dickens over his descriptions of the sanitary conditions of the great towns - and Dickens's himself obtained graphic accounts of the vile conditions of reeking graveyards from his brother in law, a leading sanitary reformer. The imaginative force of their writings made people aware of the need for action.
The cry of 'Improved dwellings for the poor' with more perfect sanitary arrangements for the houses of the working classes, is directing attention to the densely populated areas of large cities to an extent never before experienced even in this age of sanitary and educational progress.
It was raised in Bristol, had gathered force, and led to practical results years before it went forth with the startling energy now causing it to be heard throughout the kingdom. The opening of Lewins Mead has got rid of many of the worst tenements. By the widening of Back Street, there disappeared the 'Rookery', the celebrated Rackhay, Coronation Place, the 'Cockpit', and Gun Yard, and its stifling courts, where 80 persons died of cholera in two days in 1849.
New Baldwin Street has done away with Maiden Tavern Lane, one of the places which it was positively dangerous to pass through at night. In Marsh Street dilapidated dwellings crammed with human beings, ten families in a house, one to each room, and nine persons of all ages, sleeping together, have been swept away.
Similar houses in Host Street and Rupert Street, and Lewins Mead have made way for large warehouses
It was in Lewins Mend where the Inspector of Nuisances found nine persons, men, women and children, sleeping on one bed. Similarly, Fox Court in the Pithay, and the alleys in St. James’s Back, where 16 beings were found herding in one small room, have fallen before street improvements.
Some of the courts in Redcross Street are also disappearing; hovels in Pile Street have been supplanted by the Harbour Railway, and alleys in Old Temple Street have given way to the new broad thoroughfare, Victoria Street.
But the population is still very dense in the Dings, St. Jude’s; Barton Hill; Catherine Mend Street, Essex Street, Still House Lane, Philip Street, and Mill Lane, Bedminster; Little James Street, Earl Street, and Eugene Street, St. James’s.
When the sanitary officers first began (1865) they found in some instances as many as fifty or sixty persons in a court using one closet. No instance of that kind probably could be found now.
'These unfortunates had no need to read Dickens, for it was
the likes of they who provided the master with his material'
The Artisans and Labourers Dwellings Act of 1868, was the first act to give local authorities the power to compel owners to pull down, or repair, insanitary houses. In spite of this power, very little appears to have been done to use it effectively. The Artisans and Labourers Dwellings Improvement Act followed in 1875, giving Local Authorities power of compulsory purchase of slum areas considered unfit for human habitation. Few councils, however, took advantage of this Act as they had to pay high compensation to property owners. Greater powers were available to Local Councils, under the 1890 Housing of the Working Classes Act, but as the cost of such houses came from the rates, few houses were built in the years immediately following the act.
In Bedminster, as in similar working class areas, the failure to put into effect the above acts curtailed improvements in housing conditions in the late 19th century. When the population of the City of Bristol overflowed, due to slum clearance, road-making and the building of railways, many hundreds of poor people, displaced from their homes, crossed over the Cut into Bedminster. Scores of these impoverished families had seen better days and, having lost their homes from the above reasons, or loss of a job because of the industrial depression, found their way to small tenements in the maze of narrow streets and courts of north Bedminster.
Some stagnated in a despairing existance of over-crowding and near starvation. Others somehow found the will to fight to overcome their adverse situation. It was a time, when the hitherto employed workforce of Bedminster, was sorely affected by the falling off of the shipping, tanning and sugar refining industries.
The following extracts from the 'Homes of the Bristol Poor' - published by the Bristol Mercury in 1884 - are first hand accounts of conditions prevailing in the mean streets of the time.
The great army of the poor has increased, and none but those who are constantly in their homes can have any conception of the hopeless lot of many with empty rooms, blank firesides, bare cupboards and hungry children, whose bodies are scarcely covered by the few rags drawn over them.
There is a wholesome horror of the workhouse
A shoemaker, with wife and five children under 13, has done no work since Christmas - until last week. He is living in Stillhouse Lane in a dingy house where the paper is rotting off the walls and all the furniture is sold except a broken chair. He earned 6/- last week, but nothing this. His wife is chopping sticks in the kitchen, the children are poorly clad and the parents say they have had to sell the little one’s clothes for food, but the house is in a shocking condition. There is a wholesome horror of the workhouse and the relief table in a parish where, amongst the poor more than in any parish we have entered, there is an impression that the relief even in deserving cases, is drawn as hard as possible. Rather than apply for school fees to the Bedminster Guardians, or their representatives, the parents will send their children a mile and a half to a Board school, where the fees can, if deemed necessary, be remitted by the School Board Itself.
The cases mentioned are by no means untypical; again and again there occurred the selling of clothes, beds and furniture, with the family making do with makeshift beds of straw mattresses, or rags, on the floor. To obtain a few shillings by casual labour was a stroke of luck; to be given a ticket, for a bowl of soup and a loaf of bread, was a godsend.
In some instances the husband may have aggravated the family's reduced circumstances by drinking heavily. But, whatever reasons may be given, wherever the fault might lie, the brutal facts remain that men, women and children, lived in wretched conditions. Cold, empty rooms, scarcely heated by miserable fires; old boxes used as seats until finally used as fuel to heat up water for tea, or to dry out clothes soaked through by rain.
There was no change of clothing to be had; wet boots enclosed ill-stockinged, chilblained feet; bodies remained unwashed through lack of basic facilities, or from sheer tiredness. Who really could blame those who sought some solace in beer and gin as a temporary relief from reality? These unfortunates had no need to read Dickens, for it was the likes of they who provided the master with his material.
Was the fear expressed by the shoemaker and his wife of the workhouse justified? Without a doubt, to many, it was a matter of natural pride. Having to admit, by applying for admission, or for parish relief, that one was not capable of supporting oneself, or family, had a psychological effect. The average man needs some degree of independence so that he does not have to rely, entirely, upon others.
During the Middle Ages those in need were usually supported by their family, neighbours, or the church. This simple yet effective system, which catered for the old, the very young, the crippled, blind and insane was, in 1536, disrupted by the growth of towns and the dissolution of the monastries. From 1547 onwards new laws affecting some section of the poor were passed every few years. One of the earliest, in 1552, instructed the clergy to preach fund raising sermons to aid the condition of the poor.
Those physically fit were assumed, by law, to be idle through choice and it was said:
'If any man or woman, able to work, should refuse to labour and live idly for three days, he or she should be branded with a red-hot iron on the breast with a letter ‘V’ and should be judged the slave for two years of any person who should inform against such idler'
An Act of 1572 made it an offence, punishable by the burning of the gristle of the right ear, for anyone soliciting alms without a magistrate’s licence to beg, or if he came from another parish, or who failed to wear some easily seen badge, or token, on the breast and on the back of his outermost garment.
In 1576, the justices were empowered to buy or hire buildings and equip them with wool, hemp, flax or iron, so that youths could be accustomed to labour and also would not have the excuse that they were unable to obtain work. This idea seems to have nurtured the seed of the idea of the later workhouse, although these ‘houses of industry’ do not appear to have been residential.
And whereas there are many persons in the said parish who take in inmates or lodgers being with child, and not belonging to said parish, this is to give them notice that in future any person or persons being guilty of such an offence shall be prosecuted with the utmost severity of the law and five shillings reward will be given for every information of any person or persons so offending.
And for apprehending the above Philip Taylor, George Williams and Michael Yeates, so that they may be served in any of His Majesty’s Gaols, two guineas reward for each will be given by applying to: William Blannin - Overseer.
It is not hard to imagine the hunted existance of pregnant girls and women who were obliged to hide their condition, on arrival in the parish, and then themselves until their child was born. Without a doubt, many of them were ill-used by unscrupulous lodging-house keepers, demanding both money and their services in payment for providing a temporary illegal home.
In 1846 the law was amended to prevent the removal of a widow within twelve months of her husband’s death, but at times even this small concession was evaded.
In 1883 people were still being removed back to their own parish if they became chargeable on the common fund of another Union. This is illustrated by the case of William Wedlake, aged 86 years, being sick and, at the time, living with his son at No 3 Gwilliam Street, Windmill Hill, Bedminster, (Somerset Record Office).
In 1833 an alphabetical list of persons and families who received weekly relief from the parish of Bedminster gave the names of 99 widows among the 701 on relief. Of the others, there were 217 dependents under 9 years of age. A section of the list is shown.
