Housing of the Working Classes Act 1885

The Housing of the Working Classes Act 1885 (48 & 49 Vict. c. 72) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Sections 7 to 10 of this Act are amongst the enactments which may be cited as the Public Health Acts.

In the November 1883 issue of National Review Conservative Party leader Lord Salisbury wrote an article titled "Labourers' and Artisans' Dwellings" in which he argued that the poor conditions of working class housing were injurious to morality and health. "Laissez-faire is an admirable doctrine but it must be applied on both sides", Salisbury argued, as Parliament had enacted new building projects (such as the Thames Embankment) which had displaced working-class people and was responsible for "packing the people tighter":

...thousands of families have only a single room to dwell in, where they sleep and eat, multiply, and die... It is difficult to exaggerate the misery which such conditions of life must cause, or the impulse they must give to vice. The depression of body and mind which they create is an almost insuperable obstacle to the action of any elevating or refining agencies.

In response to this article the Pall Mall Gazette argued that Salisbury had sailed into "the turbid waters of State Socialism"; the Manchester Guardian said his article was "State socialism pure and simple" and The Times claimed Salisbury was "in favour of state socialism".

On 4 March 1884 a Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes was set up under the leadership of Sir Charles Dilke, including Salisbury, the Prince of Wales, Cardinal Manning, Henry Broadhurst, George Goschen, Jesse Collings, Bishop of Bedford, and Richard Cross as members. It held 51 meetings, met twice a week in spring and summer of 1884, heard from witnesses, asked 18,000 questions, toured the slums and interviewed doctors, policemen, Poor Law Board officials, clergymen, government officials and vestry sanitary committee chairmen. Its Report was published in 1885 and contained a mixture of Salisbury's proposals for government loans and subsidies and the more collectivist Dilke-Chamberlain ideas of increasing the local councils' powers. Salisbury dissented from the majority Report because he considered it too reminiscent of Chamberlainite "expropriation" and produced his own minority Report.

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