Poverty In The Victorian Era

The Victorian Era was known as a long period of peace, national self-confidence, and prosperity in Great Britain. Conversely, some of the local citizens that lived during this era, faced intense poverty and did not embrace these jovial characteristics of the time period. The problems with poverty during the Victorian Era were caused mainly by a rapidly increasing population, employment problems, and overall ineffective sanitation of Great Britain. Population growth was a key ingredient to the rise of poverty in the Victorian Era. How the population actually grew is not necessarily clear, but some ideas have been introduced, such as “larger [family size]; more children surviving infancy; people living longer[, and] immigration,” (Daniels).
The migration from Ireland to Great Britain is where most of that population growth came from, due to the potato famine and the unemployment situation in Ireland. The influx of immigrants allowed for the populations of various towns and cities to skyrocket, causing a deficit in jobs and housing. The “low wages and the scramble for jobs meant that people needed to live near to where work was available,” and due to these circumstances, “housing became scarce and… expensive, resulting in extremely overcrowded conditions,” (Daniels). Slum housing also created new problems for London when the population spiked during the Victorian Era. Some houses were “turned into flats and tenements and the landlords who owned them, were not concerned about the upkeep or the condition of these dwellings,” (Daniels). In the wake of the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain, the intense population growth and employment deficit led to the rise of poverty in the Victorian Era. In the search for employment, men, women and children suffered through the Victorian Era as low wage and temporary jobs starved families.
"Large numbers of both skilled and unskilled people were looking for work, so wages were low, barely above subsistence level" (Daniels), low wage was easily implemented during the Victorian Era as the search for jobs was the interest of the whole nation. With not enough money to provide for their families, men and women also exposed children to labor as another way to increase income. Seasonal and Supply & Demand jobs terrorized the nation as skills needed to achieve permanent jobs were unreachable, and families had no savings to lean on. "If a man had enough initiative and energy after a long working day, he could attend evening courses on scientific subjects or Latin or shorthand at a Mechanics’ Institution, or at one of the Working Men’s Colleges founded in 1854" (Picard), after work, courses and classes were offered to those looking to improve their skills and experience, but still having duties at his or her home as a husband or wife and parent, it was almost impossible to find the time and energy to study. " If work dried up, or was seasonal, men were laid off, and because they had hardly enough to live on when they were in work, they had no savings to fall back on" (Daniels), barely making enough to feed themselves and children, being laid off brought families to starve to death unless they could quickly find another job. Employment brought poverty and death to the Victorian Era providing low wage and temporary jobs to both skilled and unskilled
workers.
The sanitation of Great Britain during the Victorian Era was extremely substandard. This poor sanitation is a reason poverty was severely extreme in London. Families moved to the coast of the river Thames about the same time that modern plumbing was becoming widespread in new houses. Due to uneducated workers installing plumbing systems into these houses, many of the newly inserted systems were ineffective, and created unsuitable living conditions, “The cesspools beneath their Thames-side residence were notoriously foul, even by the standards of the day and when, at last, they had a new drainage system installed, the stench from the old cesspools remained and made parts of the dwelling almost uninhabitable” (Wohl). Because of the lack of suitable systems, diseases were able to grow and fester in sewage. Another reason poverty ran amuck was because of this. Disease was able to spread like the plague. Many people fell sick, or terminally ill from the more extreme diseases. Combined together, poor living conditions made from plumbing systems, and disease, caused many to fall into poverty or destitution.
With many great societies, poverty can run amuck. This is especially true for the Victorian era in London, where poverty starved those who couldn’t provide for their families, and sickened those who were exposed to the poor sanitation system daily. Due to low wages combined with seasonal sessions of unemployment, large population booms, and a sanitation system in dire need of a tune up, poverty prevailed. These factors, and many more, contributed to the larger picture shown as poverty.