population, occupations and means of the people, public opinion and municipal energy. The first three chiefly determine the difficulty and extent of the problem, the last two influence its treatment. The difficulty is greatest in towns which are old, have large populations and a high percentage of poor. Such pre-eminently are the large seaports, where much casual labour is employed. London, Liverpool, Glasgow, the Tyne, Hull, Sunderland are examples. Old inland towns having a large trading as well as an industrial element present the same features. Such are Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford. In all these, and some others like them, the past has left a heavy legacy of bad housing by malconstruction and dilapidation, which has been increased by growth of population and overcrowding. They have attacked it with varying degrees of energy according to the prevalent local spirit and with varying results.
Overcrowding.—The one condition which permits of precise and comprehensive statement is overcrowding. A standard has been officially adopted in England based on the number of persons to a room in each dwelling; and the facts in relation to this standard are embodied in the census returns. It is a much better criterion than that of “density” or number of persons per acre, which is very deceptive; for an apparently low density may conceal much overcrowding within walls and an apparently high one may be comparatively guiltless. The room-density is the important thing in actual life. Some light is also thrown on this question by the number of rooms contained in each dwelling, and that is also given in the census. The standard of overcrowding is more than two persons to a room. In 1901 there were in England and Wales 2,667,506 persons or 8.2% of the population living in a state of overcrowding according to this definition. Their distribution is extremely irregular and capricious. In rural districts the proportion was only 5.8%, in urban districts 8.9%; but these summary figures give no idea of the actual state of things in different localities. In both rural districts and in towns the proportion of overcrowding varies in different localities from less than 1% to over 30% of the population. The towns are the most important and we shall confine attention chiefly to them. A list of 84 having a population of 50,000 and upwards, exclusive of London, is given by Mr Dewsnup. The overcrowding ranges from 34.54% in Gateshead and 32.42% in South Shields to 0.97% in Northampton and 0.62% in Bournemouth. Of the whole number exactly one-half have less than 5%; 15 have less than 2% and 22 have 10% or more. Neither size nor character has much to do with the variation. Bournemouth, at the bottom of the list with 0.62%, is a residential place and health resort with a population of about 50,000; so is Tynemouth, which is nearly at the top, with 30.71%. The two largest towns, Liverpool and Manchester, are 26th and 32nd on the list, with only 7.94% and 6.28% respectively, or considerably less than the average; and on the other hand none of the first 17 towns with the highest proportion of overcrowding are of the largest size. Again, with regard to character, Leicester and Northampton, which are almost at the bottom of the list, with 1.04% and 0.97% respectively, are both purely industrial towns. The most striking facts are that the six towns, which alone have more than 20% of overcrowding, namely Gateshead (34.5), South Shields (32.4), Tynemouth (30.7), Newcastle (30.4), Sunderland (30.10), Plymouth (20.1) are all old seaports, that four of them at the head of the list are on the Tyne and the fifth on the Wear. This points strongly to special local conditions and it is borne out by the facts with regard to rural districts. Northumberland and Durham show a great excess of overcrowding over other counties; and some of their rural districts even surpass any of the towns. The highest of all is the district of Tynemouth, with 38.18% of overcrowding. The explanation lies in a special combination of large families and small houses prevalent in this area. All the rural districts are seats of coal-mining, and miners are the most prolific section of the population. They also live in small houses of a traditional and antiquated character, often of one storey only or built back to back. Many are built by colliery proprietors. Large families and small houses also prevail in the towns. Some of them contain coal-pits and the rest of their industrial population is engaged chiefly in engineering and shipbuilding works, occupations also usually associated with a high birth-rate. The men live as near their work as possible and the practice of living in flats or occupying part of a house prevails extensively.
In London the number of persons living in overcrowded conditions in 1901 was 726,096 or 16.0% of the population. The proportion varied from 2.6% in Lewisham to 35.2% in Finsbury, but in 23 out of the 29 boroughs into which the county is divided it exceeded the urban mean for the whole country, and in 9 boroughs having an aggregate population of 1,430,000 it was more than double the mean. Conditions in London are evidently untypical of English towns.
In the light of the census figures it is clear that no large proportion of the English industrial population is living under conditions of serious overcrowding, outside the special districts mentioned and that the expression “house famine” cannot be properly applied to England or English towns in general. In the House of Commons, on the 16th of August 1909, the president of the Local Government Board, Mr John Burns, gave a list of the number of unoccupied houses and tenements in each of the London boroughs and in the eight largest provincial towns, including Glasgow; the total was 104,107. By a further analysis of the census returns Mr Dewsnup shows that a great deal of the overcrowding is of a comparatively mild character and that it is due to a relatively small excess of population. Bradford, for instance, is credited with 40,896 overcrowded persons, representing the high percentage of 14.61 of the population; but in the case of nearly 20,000 the excess over the standard is very slight, and the proportion of gross overcrowding comes down to 7.55%. Moreover, this serious overcrowding is produced by no more than 2.79 of the population, so that its cure presents no insuperable difficulty. The argument is confirmed by the very substantial diminution which actually took place between 1891 and 1901. The facts are so striking that they deserve to be presented in tabular form:—
| 1891 | 1901 | |
| England and Wales | 11.23 | 8.20 |
| Gateshead | 40.78 | 34.54 |
| Newcastle | 35.08 | 30.47 |
| Sunderland | 32.85 | 30.10 |
| Plymouth | 26.27 | 20.19 |
| Halifax | 21.31 | 14.49 |
| Bradford | 20.61 | 14.61 |
| Huddersfield | 19.89 | 12.88 |
| London | 19.70 | 16.01 |
| Leeds | 16.46 | 10.08 |
| St Helens | 15.72 | 10.86 |
| Birmingham | 14.27 | 10.32 |
| Burnley | 12.74 | 7.14 |
| Sheffield | 11.58 | 9.50 |
| Bolton | 11.22 | 6.50 |
| Liverpool | 10.96 | 7.94 |
| Oldham | 10.13 | 7.42 |
| Salford | 9.39 | 7.54 |
| West Ham | 9.34 | 9.27 |
| Wolverhampton | 9.31 | 4.67 |
| Swansea | 9.25 | 5.57 |
| Stockport | 8.50 | 4.98 |
| Manchester | 8.25 | 6.28 |
| Bristol | 8.03 | 3.55 |
| Hull | 7.86 | 6.12 |
| Blackburn | 7.05 | 3.92 |
| Birkenhead | 6.80 | 5.02 |
| Norwich | 4.91 | 3.34 |
| Brighton | 4.56 | 3.07 |
| Cardiff | 4.31 | 2.92 |
| Preston | 4.13 | 2.64 |
| Nottingham | 3.62 | 3.65 |
| Croydon | 2.76 | 2.74 |
| Derby | 2.69 | 1.18 |
| Leicester | 2.22 | 1.04 |
| Portsmouth | 1.74 | 1.19 |
