WORKING-CLASS HOUSING IN THE SMALLER INDUSTRIAL TOWN OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: STOURBRIDGE – A CASE STUDY

Abstract

AbstractIn recent years studies of working-class housing in cities and larger towns have become increasingly plentiful, and earlier accounts of urban sanitary conditions in the 19th century have given way to more detailed investigation of the kind of working-class accommodation which became available as the pace of industrialisation quickened. Such matters as the leasing procedures employed when estates were developed in London and elsewhere, the operation of building clubs and land societies, and the results of railway building for Victorian cities, have all corne under review in the past few years. Nevertheless, much of this newer information is provided in broad general terms; it is not always related to the precise sizes of houses, nor does it necessarily form part of a wider examination of housing development in an area taken as a whole. This kind of detailed study is generally possible only in the smaller industrial town which hither to has received very little attention. The study on which this art...