Living conditions in Carlisle in the late half of the 1800's

[freddie999]

Living conditions in Carlisle.

As was typical in the early half of the 1800’s, in most towns and cities across England, living standards were not unlike; the shanty town we currently see in Bombay, and the town ships of Southern Africa. Disease had taken its toll on the working class population. Parliament had become aware of this situation, and decided that this is unacceptable in England, and established legislation that the problems should be addressed locally. A report was prepared to the General Board of Health, on the City of Carlisle. Carlisle archives indy copied pages for me from that report, and sent it to me (at a charge!!) )Following is a summary of that report (about 4 pages):

Caldewgate ward

Many of the streets and smaller thorough fares in this ward are imperfectly paved and unswept. The lanes and the courts are in a most objectionable state, containing almost invariably pigsties, with open privies, dunghills, stagnant pools, the receptacle of every kind of filth; and all which nuisances remains unheeded for weeks and months together. Some properties in this ward call for special notice – where most intolerable nuisances exist – with damp miserable cellars, and dwellings above and on each side of most fearfully dirty privies. Everything in this range of building, containing more than 200 people, betokens the greatest filth and physical degradation: and fever commits sad ravages during the autumn.

Caldcoats

Caldecoats presents dilapidated premises, numerous pigsties, and disgusting necessaries; and between the canal gates and Bread Street there are overflowing cesspools and stagnant ditches. In Bridge-Street the lanes are in a deplorable state of filth; in one of these eight pigsties, cow houses, and large pool of stagnant noxious fluid; there is only one privy for 20 families, and this has not been cleaned out since it was built; the premises are in a filthy state, great complaints are made of the offensive effluvia and frequency of sickness. At the west end, where 57 families (306 people in all) reside in whitewashed and otherwise clean houses, which are carefully inspected by the proprietor twice a year, only one case of fever in occurred a year.

St. Cuthbert ward

Here a drain runs from a slaughterhouse; there is an open cellar, a receptacle for filth, which hasn’t been empty for the last three years. In a yard in King’s arm lane is a covered pit, into which is thrown offal from an adjoining slaughterhouse.

Rickergate Ward

General: The working classes live almost entirely in “lanes” or passages between the principal streets. Their entrances would usually be covered, and they would usually end in a cul-de-sac. They are generally only a few yards in width. In some the doors are opposite and not more that three feet apart. In many ways, the layout obstructs light and free ventilation.

The committee can hardly find words to express the amount of filth, or to depict the abominable nuisances existing in this ward. Fever has found East Tower –street and Drover’s lane, and the adjacent lanes, there is only one privy for 28 families, other properties are without convenience at all, and in some lodging-houses more than 20 people are living in one room, and that adjacent to the filthiest privies and dunghill.
There are open drains, being the receptacles of all kinds of filth which are stagnant, which render the air most unwholesome.
Typhus fever and other diseases, which constituted an epidemic across Carlisle through these overcrowded dwellings; where attention needs to be paid to cleanliness and ventilation.

If you would like to see a copy of the full report, I am happy to copy the pags I have and send them to you. (it doesn't mention mant streets,and isn't specific.)

[lynnegreen05]

Thanks for the information - my grandfathers family came over from Ireland and he was born in Carlisle - I would love to see the rest of the information you refer to.
Thank you
Lynne

[freddie999]

Hi Lynne, I dont know how we arrange how I could send the copy of the report. It would be unwise to put your address on an open message. I have tried to send you a private message to suggest how we could get around this, but it would appear you have set your account to refuse private messages. We cannot put e_mail address on an open message, how would you like me to get the reoprt to you?

Craig

[Procat]

Hy Lynne,

If you want to enable the Private Message facility click on User CP (in the bar just below "B-G Forums sponsored by Parish Chest Ltd." towards the top of the page).

Go to "Settings and options" on the left menu then click on "Edit Options".

In the middle of the page go to "Messaging & Notification" then "Private Messaging" then select "Enable Private Messaging" and any other options that you desire.

[arthurk]

The BBC's "Who Do You Think You Are?" programme on Sue Johnston included pictures and information on the slums in Carlisle - somewhere her great-grandfather lived. There's a precis of the episode on the BBC website, and shows are sometimes repeated.

Arthur