This Chapter describes the UK housing system as it operated at the beginning of the nineteenth century and emphasises the lack of administrative capacity as well as will for government to intervene at local and national level. Urbanisation increased the concentration of population and the scale of problems associated with unhealthy housing; but government was dominated by interests that were reluctant to see the state infringe land and property rights. The state established and maintained the legal frameworks for land and property ownership but public health and other measures were remarkably slow to emerge and often did little to improve housing. The shortcomings of private landlordism were increasingly apparent and contributed to the growth of owner occupation and demands for new policy approaches. Sanitary policy involving a succession of public health measures to regulate individual dwellings was slowly established. A wider franchise, pressures from the middle and working classes and assertive, well-organised local government institutions also changed the political environment. As political and economic power and influence shifted, demands for more interventionist approaches to provide housing had increasing support at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth.