ABSTRACT
Urbanisation, health and town planning have a long and complex relationship. Across nineteenth-century northern and central Europe and the northern states of the USA, industrialisation sent a siren call to those working on farms and in forests. Jobs, money, opportunities; an escape from dependence on fickle harvests, the prospect of gainful employment all the year round (Griffin 2014). Millions made the momentous move, but death and disease stalked the ‘dreadful habitations’ of the world’s early industrial cities. Manchester, the archetypal city of the age, grew from 77,000 people in 1801 to over 316,000 in 1851. Only 45 per cent of the 401,000 inhabitants of the Manchester-Salford city at mid-century had been born locally (Douglas et al. 2002 p. 237).
