A view of the city of Manchester in 1834. Between 1790 and 1831, Manchester's population tripled. The result was terrible living standards for thousands of people.
Image: Science Museum/SSPL
Living conditions
Nineteenth-century factory workers experienced overcrowding, bad housing and poor diet. This was not a new phenomenon, but it happened on a scale never seen before.
In 1835 French traveller Alexis de Tocqueville saw Manchester and recorded how:
'A sort of black smoke covers the city. Under this half-daylight 300,000 human beings are ceaselessly at work. The homes of the poor are scattered haphazard around the factories... In Manchester civilised man is turned back almost into a savage.'
What were working conditions like?
