... overflowing and at the start of the 19th century about 1/5 of Britain's population were living in cities. For example, London was particularly bad because by 1851 half the population of the country had set up home in there. People crowded into already crowded houses. Rooms were rented to whole families or perhaps several families. If there was no rooms, people stayed in lodging houses. The worker's houses were usually near to the factories so that people could walk to work. They were built really quickly and cheaply. The houses were cheap, most had between 2-4 rooms. Victorian families were big with 4 or 5 children. There was no running water or toilet and a whole street would have to share an outdoor pump and a couple of outside toilets. Most houses in the North of England were "back to backs", which means that they were built in double rows with ...

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