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TRP 133 WEEK 21 (b) The Development of Intervention in the Nineteenth…
TRP 133 WEEK 21 (b)
The Development of Intervention in the Nineteenth Century
Introduction
A society which at the start of nineteenth century with a
minimal
inherited institutional framework for
intervention
.
Shocked by the
sanitary conditions
of the working class, but wanting to maintain a
laissez faire
ideal and belief in the power of
individual philanthropy
to solve such issues.
Social and Economic Change 1780 - 1850
The Emergence of an Urban Manufacturing Economy
Factory organisation
Urban proletariat
The Emergence of a Major Urban Housing Problem
involving
Land problem
Concentration of population
Inadequate infrastructure
Locational economies: railways
Increase in per capita rent payments
The Emergence of a Group of Entrepreneurs
Speculative Builders producing the built environment
Constrained by land supply, labour and capital
Problem of building houses which would command a level of rent
Decent workers housing not created on a sufficient scale
Pressure for workers housing subordinate to pressure for commercial space, and housing for the rich
Causing public health difficulties and threat of disorder
Reason as a New Kind of State
New police
Implementation of a metropolitan police to deal with immoral behaviour
New poor law
(1834)
Based on reason but reason not always positive
Utilitarianism - right thing to do is to seek greatest happiness of greatest number
Underlying idea manipulating fact that people seek pleasure and try to avoid pain
Feeling of old poor laws - too many scroungers exploiting the system
Keeping people alive but only the poorest will come if they need to un-attract scroungers
Separation of genders into different quarters in workhouses – ostracising them to prevent pleasure
New partial democracy
(1832)
Middle class – people who owned things (capitalists)
New type of class meant a new framework of governance was formed to manage a new type of society
New framework of municipal Government
Accommodating the Population Growth
Refusal to expand
outwards into open fields
Urban
growth inwards
meaning high density
Back-to-back
subdivided dwellings
Area with
no proper sanitation
– squalid conditions
Population grew quicker than housing
1831-1842:
Manchester population growth = 47%
Housing growth = 15%
1801-1851 Manchester grew fourfold
Edwin Chadwick
Chadwick and Sewers
A man fascinated by sewers
Collected evidence on sanitary conditions
Produced and documented report detailing how many privies etc and the effect of so
Persuaded Whig Government to listen to his findings 1830-41
Talked about the need and benefit of sewers
Assembled Evidence
Produced Conditions for 1848 Public Health Act
Experience of Cholera epidemics in the 1830's, together with the labours of Edwin Chadwick provided the basis for the development of public health legislation .
Chadwick's Argument
Dependant women and children on men
If the male dies, women and children become poor and rely on the state
They become a burden to the state, meaning increased efforts to keep males alive
Chadwick's argument for sewers needed to fit to the middle class as they paid majority of taxes (funding for health intervention)
Cheaper to put in sewers than letting people die and rely on the poor law
Poor rate paid by middle class not poor
Used a combination of fear, self interest and goodwill to present his argument
Hard-headed Humanitarianism
Utilitarianism
Policies coming from the accumulation of evidence and facts
Publish reports about sanitary conditions then demand policy action
Lever political power by applying reason to a mixture of:
fear
self-interest
goodwill
Local Government Reform
History
Previously, little local public management of urban environment
Provision and maintenance of small scale things like thoroughfares and smoke control
Beginning of 19 Century: clear distinction between boroughs with specific urban form of government and elsewhere with townships, lordships and manorial courts
Improvements to towns had to be achieved through obtaining private local acts from central government
Progress
Recognition for need of new institutions
1833 Whig Government Established a Review of Municipal Corporations
The Whig's set up a Royal Commission was to investigate the working of local councils
Whig a political party whose opposition was the Tories
Later transitioned as the liberal party
Legislation
Led to
1835 Municipal Corporations Act
It reformed 178 existing corporations and allowed new boroughs to be created
Enfranchised middle class
Permitted the transfer of powers from Improvement Commissioners to corporations
Significance as local corporations now could take action on
public health
by installation of sewers
Public Health Intervention
History
Cholera: water borne disease at time which killed many
Typhoid: contaminated in food
Typhus: spread through faeces
Intervention in public health stemming from fear and self interest and goodwill
Action against avoidable disease ceases as an act of God but consequences from mismanagement
Progress
1838 Poor Law Commission takes 3 doctors to examine preventable disease
1842 Commission Report on Sanitary Condition of Labouring Classes - Edwin Chadwick
Legislation
1848 Public Health Act
Made extensive powers available to new authorities called Local Boards of Health
Boroughs could apply to become Local Boards of Health
Provided a framework of powers allowing local institutions ability to apply environmental strategies, but did not force municipalities to act. Its practical effects were thus limited due to laissez-faire
1875 Public Health Act
Provided a complete sanitary code for local administrations by urban authorities
Model set of building byelaws for a particular form of townscape
But pressures from land market combined with regulations
Local authorities controlling urban form
Housing Reforms
History
Rather than avoid avoidable disease, why not construct good quality housing initially?
Problem as the working class
couldn't afford good quality housing
Due to
land-use competition
(Ricardo)
Health problem
emerged from housing problem
Individual Philanthropy:
belief that the wealthy could provide housing for the poor
Model Dwellings
Owen’s New Lanark
Sir Titus Salt Saltaire
Prince Consort’s Model Duellings 1851 Great Exhibition
Individual Philanthropic Attempts:
Peabody Trust 1862
Progress
Laissez-faire vs Intervention
Repeated success in securing demolition of unfit property but a repeated failure to ensure construction and replacement of housing stock
When the state tries to create action they do so through legislation allowing local authorities power to address housing conditions
Legislation
Torrens Act 1866
Compulsory powers for acquisition and clearance
A permissive act which allowed local powers to acquire unfit dwellings and evict tenants but did not provide the powers for rebuilding
The Cross Act of 1875 (Artisans and Labourers Dwellings Improvement Act)
Piece of permissive legislation which allowed local councils to buy up areas of slum dwellings, demolish them and the construction of replacement dwellings but whose financial provisions limited its practical effectiveness
Housing of the Working Classes Act 1890
Provided a legal basis (though not subsidy) for the construction of municipal housing