Nottingham
is situated on the River Trent. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon
settlement of Snotingham (the village of Snot's people). Occupied
by the Danes in the 9th century and became their most important centre.
The Normans also recognised the strategic importance of Nottingham
and built a castle here.
In the 18th century Nottingham became an important centre for the
lace and hosiery industry. The town grew rapidly in the 1780s with
the boom in cotton spinning and the increased
demand for hosiery products. Local framework-knitters received high-wages
and this led to an increase in the number of people moving to the
town. By 1845 the population of Nottingham had reached 52,000. However,
by this time there was a decline in the demand for framework-knitters
and the town was experiencing considerable poverty.
(1)
Daniel Defoe, A Tour Through the Whole
Island of Great Britain (1724)
Nottingham is one of the most pleasant and
beautiful towns in England. It is seated on the side of a hill overlooking
a fine range of meadows about a mile broads, a little rivulet running
on the north side of the meadows, almost close to the town; and the
noble River Trent parallel with both. The beauties of Nottingham,
next to the situation, are the castle, the market-place, and the gardens
of Count Tallard.
Nottingham is a town of great trade. The chief manufacture carried
on here is frame-work knitting for stockings, the same as at Leicester,
and some glass, and earthen ware; the latter much increased since
the increase of tea-drinking. As they brew a good liquor here, they
send it by land-carriage to Derby, through as far as Manchester and
to other towns in Lancashire, Cheshire, and even into Yorkshire.
(2)
Angus
Reach, The Morning Chronicle
(1849)
About three-fourths of the housing in Nottingham are constructed for
and occupied by the working-classes, and as a rule they are built
in courts and back-to-back. The general plan of construction divides
them into three clear stories, of one room each - singularly inconvenient
and defective arrangement. The staircases are very steep, dark and
narrow.
The lower room is in general the living apartment. It is almost floored
with brick, or, if boarded, as it may be in rare cases, sand supplies
the place of carpeting. The street door is invariably the room door.
In point of furniture, I should say that that the living apartments
of the Nottingham operatives, particularly those of the framework
knitters, are decidedly inferior to the dwellings of the mass of the
work people in the cotton, woollen, and northern coal districts. I
have been frequently struck with the bare appearance of the rooms,
and this even in the houses of middlemen in the hosiery trade, who
had perhaps a dozen or score of knitting frames at work. An inferior
sort of sofa, however, and a clock are common. The lace-workers' houses
are somewhat better furnished. A few of the latter belonging to operatives
earning the higher class of wages. The apartment on the first floor
is invariably a bedroom; that above it either a bedroom or a workshop,
in which the knitting machines and occasionally warp-lace frames are
set.
In the late cholera visitation Nottingham got off almost scot-free.
There occurred but eight cases of which six resulted in death. One
of the causes of this comparative immunity may no doubt be found in
the sanitary improvements effected since 1832. The water supply subsequent
to that year has been, and is, most abundant; and the work of sewer-making
and pavement-making has been steadily progressive. A sanitary committee
was appointed and thirty-four dwellings erected over the privies and
ash-pits have been removed, the change in many instances throwing
open hitherto unventilated courts and noisome alleys. A great number
of foul nuisances of a similar class, including 21 pig-sties and 24
cess-pools containing "dangerous collections of manure",
have been got rid of, and many courts and small streets paved and
drained.
Available
from Amazon Books (order below)
