'It might not be a nuisance in a country cottage': Sanitary conditions and images of health in Victorian rural Wales

Waddington, Keir ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8833-8855 2012. 'It might not be a nuisance in a country cottage': Sanitary conditions and images of health in Victorian rural Wales. Rural History 23 (2) , pp. 185-204. 10.1017/S0956793312000064

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Abstract

Although historians have become increasingly sensitive to the contested nature of public health and the limitations of sanitary reform, studies have concentrated on the urban. In focusing on rural Wales in the period from the creation of rural sanitary authorities in 1872 to the end of the nineteenth century, the essay shifts the focus to ask questions about what the rural means in the context of public health. By making connections between ideas about the Welsh landscape, nationhood and health, and the nature of sanitary problems facing rural communities and how rural sanitary practices came to be viewed, the essay shows how enduring representations of rural healthiness masked a 'long tale of filth, neglect, carelessness and disease' in rural Wales. The essay demonstrates how a bifurcated view of rural Wales as healthy and unhealthy reflected ideas about nationhood and the nature of rural conditions that rendered sanitary problems less visible when they occurred in a rural environment.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	History, Archaeology and Religion
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
Additional Information:	Pdf uploaded in accordance with publisher's policy at http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/0956-7933/ (accessed 25/02/2014).
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
ISSN:	0956-7933
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	09 May 2023 07:50
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/38814

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