LEGISLATION AND REALITY: THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR SANITATION AND HOUSING QUALITY IN URBAN WORKERS’ HOUSING IN THE ANCOATS AREA OF MANCHESTER BETWEEN 1800 AND 1950

Abstract

This paper will look at some of the excavated material for British urban workers’ housing, built and occupied during the period 1800 to 1950 in the Ancoats area of Manchester: Ancoats was notorious amongst contemporary writers and campaigners for its poor quality and overcrowded housing. This archaeological evidence has emerged as a result of developer-funded excavations and represents part of a growing body of data collected since 1990 from within many of the great industrial cities of Britain (Glasgow, London and Manchester), as well as excavations in the numerous smaller industrial manufacturing towns of the UK. In this study particular attention is given to the impact of national legislation, private acts and local by-laws aimed at improving industrialised living conditions and the build quality of 19th-century workers’ housing occupied into the 20th century. Using excavated examples from more than 50 houses within Ancoats, it will be argued that archaeology can provide a distinctive and unique view of urban domestic life in the 19th and first half of the 20th century, whilst demonstrating continuity in occupation patterns during this period. The evidence for urbanised, industrial living also compliments the more extensive archaeological studies of manufacturing industry from the period.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the excavation staff of the Centre for Applied Archaeology at the University of Salford for their work on Hall’s Court, and members of the former University of Manchester Archaeological Unit for allowing access to the excavation archive for the Loom Street housing. This article has evolved over several years and has benefited greatly from discussions with Paul Bedford, Director of Clwyd and Powys Archaeological Trust, Lee Gregory, former postgraduate student at the Department of Art History and Archaeology at the University of Manchester, Ian Miller of Oxford Archaeology North, Norman Redhead, former head of the Greater Manchester Archaeology Unit, and Professor Emeritus Marilyn Palmer of Leicester University and President of the AIA.