What was Manchester, England like in the Victorian times?
Despite the growing wealth due to trade and commerce, prosperity lay in the hands of very few of Manchester’s residents. The working people, who actually produced the wealth, lived, worked and died in conditions of the most desperate poverty and degradation. Innumerable reports and surveys were carried out during the 19th century, and they all told much the same story : poor wages, impossibly long working hours, dangerous and unsanitary working conditions, even more unsanitary dwellings, little or no health provisions, high infant mortality and a short life expectancy. A map of Manchester showing age of death figures in the mid-nineteenth century revealed that life expectancy was directly related to wealth. Put simply, the poor died younger and the rich lived longer. At that time, Ancoats was the death black spot of Manchester. Records show that by 1830 there were over 560 cotton mills in Lancashire, employing more than 110,000 workers, of which 35,000 were children – some as young as
