William Wordsworth's Composed Upon Westminster Bridge and William Blake's London

William Wordsworth's Composed Upon Westminster Bridge and William Blake's London

In London during the 1800s most poor young children used to get

diseases by drinking water from the river Thames. This was because the

people of London would throw there waste into it. Many poor children

died of a disease called cholera that made them turn blue and spotty;

it was carried through infected drinking water in the public water

pumps. The lower classes were too poor to buy medicine from the

doctors to cure themselves, so many died from illnesses that would not

be serious today. There were no medicines given to children to stop

them getting diseases like measles, mumps, whooping cough and polio. A

large percentage of children died from these diseases. In poor areas

of the inner cities, up to half the children born were dead before the

age of five years.

The poor people lived in terraced housing; this type of housing was

usually very cramped for the large families. They did not have back

gardens, and the streets between the houses were cobbled, with waste

channels running along them. There was no water supply in the houses,

so they had to walk to the local pump every day to collect water for

their washing, cooking and cleaning. Also at the end of the alley was

a communal "privy" which was the only toilet facilities for the

families to share. About Hundred and eighty people used the same

toilet every day, so it was very smelly and unhealthy. The children

had to share beds: four people usually lay top to tail in the same

bed. They often had to take it in turns to sleep in the beds or on

mattresses. Families owned tin baths which they filled with water,

usually once a week. The family members all used the same water, one

after the other. Houses were warmed by coal fires, which made the area

very smelly and smoky in the winter.

Many poor children had to work in factories making cloth or household

goods.