The Rev J C Atkinson, a local historian, describes visiting local cottages just after this time:-

'We then went to two cottage dwellings in the main street …As entering from the street or roadside, we had to bow our heads, even although some of the yard-thick thatch had been cut away about and above the upper part of the door, in order to obtain an entrance.
We entered on a totally dark and unflagged passage. On our left was an enclosure partitioned off from the passage by a boarded screen between four and five feet high, and which no long time before had served the purpose originally intended, namely that of a calves' pen.
Farther still on the same side was another dark enclosure similarly constructed, which even yet served the purpose of a henhouse.
On the other side of the passage opposite this was a door, which on being opened gave admission to the living room, the only one in the dwelling.
The floor was of clay and in holes, and around on two sides were the cubicles, or sleeping boxes - even less desirable than the box beds of Berwickshire as I knew them fifty years ago - or the entire family. There was no loft above, much less any attempt at a 'chamber' ; only odds and ends of old garments, bundles of fodder and things of that sort and in this den the occupants of the house were living'.

'What I found was one long low room, partitioned off into four compartments nearly equal in size. But the partitions were in their construction and character merely such as those between the stalls in a stable, except that no gentleman who cared for his horses would have tolerated them in his hunting or coaching stable.
These four partitioned spaces were no more closed in the rear than the stalls in an ordinary stable, and the partitions were not seven feet, hardly six and a half in height, while the general gangway for all the occupants was along the open back.
The poor woman said to me, as she showed me the first partition, allotted to her husband and herself and their two youngest children, the next to their children growing rapidly up to puberty, the third to the farm girls, and the fourth to the man and farm lad,

There were on average 274 infant deaths per 1000 births due to the lack of sanitation, medical care and public health measures.

[ In city slums the figure was 509 per 1000.]

Over half of all children of farmers, labourers, artisans and servants died before reaching their fifth birthday, compared to one in eleven among the landed gentry.
[Mitchell, Victorian Britain 142].

With no vaccinations for diseases, no water treatment and only primitive methods of food preservation, children suffered from multiple influenza outbreaks, diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles, whooping cough, food poisoning, polio, tetanus and typhoid.

It had always been this way, or much worse, and it was only in the second half of the nineteenth century that improvements in living conditions began.
And the population explosion, the final results of which have yet to be experienced.

1842 - Offenders from the Skelton area who were sentenced to imprisonment were taken to the House of Correction at Northallerton.
The Chaplain there states this year - "The discipline is very different from what it was, one year's imprisonment seems quite sufficient.
After that there is a marked alteration in the men. The conduct of the females is bad. Last week they burnt one of the books, and made pipes of one of the Tracts to smoke with."
[Source: From PP 1842 Vol XX Vol 6 of 11 Volumes, Seventh Report of the Inspectors of Prisons].
"The punishment for breaches of discipline are now restricted to close confinement in dark cells for periods not exceeding 3 days. Whipping, by order of the Court is generally inflicted on the day of discharge. The number of lashes is from 13 to 21, the higher number is given to those who are sentenced to be severely whipped. I examined the scourge used." Report on Yorkshire Houses of Correction.

1843 - 29 May in Westminster Rd, Lambeth, John Wharton of Skelton Castle died in his 78th year. For the last 14 years he had remained a prisoner for debt "within the rules of the Queens Bench" a debtor in the Fleet Prison, London. An inquest was held when it appeared he had for many years suffered from a painful disease of the bladder and returned a verdict of natural death. He had two daughters who both predeceased him without issue.

1845 - The Enclosure Acts were gradually brought into force and areas that had been common land were sectioned off.
The village green in Skelton which had been rectangular and bounded by the present North, South, East, West Terraces and probably used for centuries as free grazing land was reduced to its present size.
Many other wayside grazing sites used for the essential family cow were fenced off. See map.

6th January - The Cleveland Hounds met at Skelton Castle.
There in the good old English Style was breakfast for all and a more magnificent set out I never beheld. About 20 of us sat down and after doing ample justice to the good things set before us, we were conducted into an adjoining room, where we partook of various sorts of jumping powder. Time being called, we mounted our steeds and the first event worthy of notice which befell us afterwards was the sudden disappearance of Mr Trevor and his Horse into a hole underneath the carriage drive to the Castle, which it appears had been caused by the run of water from the Fish ponds. Fortunately for Mr Trevor assistance was at hand and he and his nag were speedily rescued from a premature grave. We then proceeded to try for a Fox; Hob Hill and Hazlegrove blank. Had a magnificent find in Saltburn Gill; broke away towards Skelton; turned away past Merry Lockwood's and right away to Liverton."
The Cleveland Hounds by A E Pease.

1846 - The "Anglo Saxon", stone coffins now in Skelton's Old Church were found in this year in the Church yard.

1846 - 5th February. London Gazette. The Court for Relief of Insolvent Debtors.
Orders have been made vesting in the Provisional Assignee the Estates and Effects of the following Person on their own Petitions. John Bulmer, late of Skelton, near Guisborough, Yorkshire. Stone Mason. In the Gaol of York.