Living in the industrial city: Housing quality, land ownership and the archaeological evidence from industrial Manchester, 1740-1850

Nevell, MD

Abstract

This paper looks at the recent archaeological evidence for industrial housing in Manchester, United Kingdom. The paper argues that a fragmented land-holding pattern developed in a number of city-centre areas during the second half of the eighteenth century. That this land-holding pattern made these areas susceptible to overcrowding through the domestic redevelopment of back yard plots and the conversion of older housing to tenements. This redevelopment was at its most acute during the peak decades of population growth in the city, 1800-40, and this led to the slum conditions of poverty, disease and overcrowding recorded in contemporary accounts from the mid-nineteenth century.

Citation

Nevell, M. (2011). Living in the industrial city: Housing quality, land ownership and the archaeological evidence from industrial Manchester, 1740-1850. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 15(4), 594-606. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-011-0159-5

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Sep 1, 2011
• Deposit Date: Jan 13, 2012
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 5, 2016
• Journal: International Journal for Historical Archaeology
• Print ISSN: 1092-7697
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 15
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 594-606
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-011-0159-5
• Keywords: Back-to-backs; Cellar dwellings; Land-holding; Manchester; Workshop dwellings
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10761-011-0159-5