The author examines the health problems of cities in Britain and Ireland in the first half of the XIX century. Historical-genetic and comparative research expands modern ideas about the main orientations of social reforms, the health of cities and the rise of public health in Britain. The emergence of the new state government systems, the growth of social costs and the rise of public health and health of cities in Britain and Ireland became the basis of social policy, officially proclaimed by Queen Victoria in Parliament in 1844