A Brief History Of Life In Victorian Britain - Plot & Excerpts
Though her realm saw a vast increase in wealth during the course of her reign, with the already-comfortable becoming better off and social mobility greater than it had ever been – the middle class quintupled in size – this still left many millions who were impoverished, barely able to earn a living or destitute. The problem of mass poverty was exacerbated by the steady increase in numbers of people (the population of London, for instance, increased fourfold between 1800 and 1900; Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds and Birmingham all doubled in size during the century’s first decades) and the strain this put on resources. The supply of housing could not keep up with the demand, and led to intense overcrowding in the cities, which in turn brought higher mortality from disease. Funding from charities and from local authorities had to be stretched further. The workhouses that provided relief for the homeless and workless might be overwhelmed if there were a succession of bad harvests or some equivalent disaster.
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