Byelaw terraced house

A byelaw terraced house is a type of dwelling built to comply with the 1875 Public Health Act. It is a type of British terraced house at the opposite end of the social scale from the aristocratic townhouse, but a marked improvement on the pre-regulation house built as cheap accommodation for the urban poor of the Industrial Revolution. The term usually refers to houses built between 1875 and 1918.

The 1875 Act imposed a duty on local authorities to regulate housing by the use of byelaws, and subsequently all byelaw terraced housing was required to have its own privy (outhouse), with rear access for the collection of the night soil. The houses had to meet minimum standards of build quality, ventilation, sanitation and population density.

Despite a century of slum clearances, byelaw terraced houses made up over 15% of the United Kingdom's housing stock in 2011.

Between 1801 and 1901 the UK's population increased fourfold, and during this period there was a migration from the land into towns, as the nature of work changed. The urban population increased tenfold, and and they needed housing. Employers built rows of back-to-back and through houses (i.e. with front and back doors) on the ground available. In older towns they were constrained by the mediaeval street patterns, and the need to fit as many houses as possible on the traditional long plots. The less fortunate lived in single roomed houses facing onto a communal courtyard where there were privies, a cesspit, a standpipe, high infant mortality, typhus and cholera. Edwin Chadwick's report on The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population (1842), researched and published at his own expense, highlighted the problems.

Action was taken to introduce building control regulations. Specific boards of health were given the power to regulate housing standard in the 1848 Public Health Act and the 1858 Local government Act. These culminated in the 1875 Public Health Act. This Act remained in force until 1919 when they were superseded by the Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1919 with its aim of fulfilling the promise to returning soldiers, Homes fit for heroes.

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