“The Metropolis Management Act (1855) repeated the prohibition of 1844, and in defence of the public health the Board have lately put this statute in force. This has been done without compromise. As separate habitations for occupation by human beings at night ‘a cellar in St. Giles’’ is no longer to exist.”
This was written in 1858, but in the following year he wrote:—
“The profit derived from letting the basement of these houses as dwelling-rooms was too strong a temptation for their owners, and many of the kitchens were let again as soon as the Inspector had reported them emptied.”
In the Strand (1856) underground rooms and kitchens were inhabited “notwithstanding that District Surveyors are numerous, and that the Metropolitan Building Act is in operation.”
In Westminster, “an examination of various portions of the parishes shows that large numbers of the poor occupy premises whereby they are not only deprived of the required quantity of air, but being situated below the level of the street, the ventilation is insufficient, the rooms generally damp, and when closed for the night the atmosphere is perfectly insufferable—mostly kitchens and cellars, evidently never intended to be used as sleeping rooms” (1858–9).
The causes of the dreadful overcrowding which existed so extensively were many and deep-seated—springing from the very roots of the social and economic system. And they were of great force and widespread in effect.
The cause to which the various authorities and Medical Officers of Health directly attributed it was the one immediately before their eyes—namely, the pulling down of houses which hitherto had afforded shelter, of a sort, to the people.
As the Medical Officer of Health for St. Olave, Southwark, said (1860–1):—
“To effect street improvements—to build warehouses, or for some other purpose—the habitations of the working classes are broken up without any provision being made for them elsewhere. They are therefore driven by necessity to crowd into other houses in the same neighbourhood perhaps already overcrowded.”