Red Clydeside: A history of the labour movement in Glasgow 1910-1932

Events

Diagram of plans for working class housing in Glasgow, 1899

These diagrams are taken from the booklet 'Housing of the Labouring Classes' by Peter Fyfe published in 1899. As chief sanitary inspector of Glasgow, Fyfe condemned the unsanitary and unhealthy housing conditions in which the majority of Glasgow's labouring classes were forced to live at this time.

These two diagrams are part of the author's plans for improving the housing conditions of Glasgow's poorer citizens. The two key elements to these improvements are providing a greater degree of privacy for tenants and providing each home with its own toilet.

The publication of these findings was seized upon by the Independent Labour Party to highlight the housing conditions of the poorest sections of society and to demand local authority and government action to ensure the provision of better-quality housing for the working classes.