History of housing in Liverpool

Built some time around the late 18th century, the house was Grade II listed in December 2008 due to its rarity and retention of some original features, such as narrow timber winder stair and lath and plaster ceilings.

[4] Early in the Victorian era, the Select Committee on the Health of Towns reported in 1840 that Liverpool's court housing were unventilated, had minimal sanitary provisions and were filthy.

[5] Construction of court housing expanded between 1820–1840, responding to the rapid population growth of largely poor and unskilled workers.

[12] By the mid 1800s, many people working in the city were employed on a casual basis with no fixed or guaranteed income, meaning a higher likelihood of experiencing poverty.

Liverpool was notorious during this time for squalor[13] and was the first city in the country to build public housing, starting in 1869 with St Martin's Cottages, which were four-storey, self-contained tenements although considered bleak in appearance.

[17] In 1919, Liverpool contained some of the worst slum housing in the country, with severe overcrowding that meant 11,000 families, representing 6.4% of the population, resided in single-room dwellings.

[18] Liverpool had consistently ranked the highest of major cities where families lived in a single room throughout the first 30 years of the 20th century.

[20] The city is recognised as being the first in the country to build council houses following World War I, typically sized between 80–100 square metres (860–1,080 sq ft), although had above national average figures for families living more than 2 people per room, at nearly 1-in-8 in 1921.

[25] Following the slum clearances of the 1950s and 1960s, the succeeding two decades became a period of economic decline, as industries collapsed and public funding was cut.

Unemployment in Liverpool was high and people left the city to find work, while remaining residents saw conditions in their housing estates decline through poor management and funding.