SO you think times are hard today? Spare a thought for the slum dwellers of Victorian York.

We all know about poverty in the city in the Victorian era thanks to the groundbreaking work of Seebohm Rowntree. But a page on the new History Of York website reveals just how grim life was for many.

Behind York's genteel main streets lay a teeming mass of slum dwellings in areas like Bedern, Hungate, Walmgate and Skeldergate.

“The poor areas of York were filthy and stalked by disease,” the website reports. “Human waste was left to accumulate in the alleys until there was enough to be collected and added to huge dunghills like those at Layerthorpe Bridge and behind St Margaret’s Church in Walmgate. Animal manure was added to the stinking heap.”

Water supplies came from contaminated wells, the polluted Ouse and the stagnant Foss. In 1844, County Hospital surgeon Dr Thomas Laycock reported on the strong link between poverty, ill-health and lifespan. Those living in low-lying, poorly drained areas of the city near the river fared worst.

“Almost 80 per cent of the people in All Saints’, North Street, down by the Ouse, were from the labouring classes,” the website reports. “The mean age of death was under 20.” In Holy Trinity parish, higher up Micklegate, that rose to 43.

One of the worst areas for slum housing was Bedern, where “large houses had been converted into miserable tenements. Hundreds of people were crammed into this small space: most had only one room for the whole family.” Elsewhere, particularly in Walmgate, Irish immigrants swelled the ranks of the poor. For the truly destitute, the last resort was the workhouse.

The Marygate workhouse could take 90 paupers. Then a new building housing 607 inmates was built on Huntington Road. It had separate areas for men, women, boys and girls. Inmates had a bed in a dormitory and were forced to wear a rough uniform.


* The History of York website historyofyork.org.uk covers more than 2000 years of history in more than 70 “chapters”, ranging from prehistoric and Roman York to the Vikings, Elizabethan York, industrialisation and the coming of the railways. The site is run by a partnership involving the city council, York Museums Trust, Yorkshire Forward, the York Archaeological Trust and other museums and organisations in the city