ABSTRACT
The main problems of the time continued from the earlier years of industrialisation, that is, problems arising from public health and housing, from working conditions and trade unionism, from poverty and unemployment, and from working-class education. In 1870 the lack of any national system of public health regulation remained perhaps the most urgent social problem. Thus, in the space of three years, the country was provided with a national grid of public health agencies, each with its own officers, and with a revised and reorganised body of law to be implemented. The improvement in working-class housing was another aspect of public health reform after 1870. In Stourbridge, a public enquiry was held into the need for more housing, and into a plan for building small numbers of working-class homes. The Public Health Act, 1872, divided the country into sanitary districts, each to have a single public health authority.
