Living Conditions

Abstract

The factor which above all dictated the condition of life in the towns and cities of industrial Britain in the nineteenth century was their domination purely and simply by the demands of business and of work. The biblical text ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread’ acquired a new dimension in these industrial communities; owner and operative alike lived their lives in an environment which reflected the inescapable need to produce and to earn. New technologies, underpinned by the structures of capitalist economics, created new rigidities and re-defined the relationships between employers and employed. New disciplines of work evolved as time literally became money: the working day came to be measured not by the tasks to be fulfilled, but by the hours to be served. These new conditions were reflected in the disposition of housing for all classes, and thus in the physical development of the towns and cities themselves. As we shall see, different situations created different conditions, and here, as always in our consideration of the Victorian cities, we need to keep firmly in mind the particular characteristics of individual localities.