Chukyo University Institute of Economics
Discussion Paper Series
March 2024

No. 2305
Some aspects of the housing debate in England during the 1930s:
government policy changes and the case for flats
Tatsuya Tsubaki

Some aspects of the housing debate in England during the 1930s: government policy changes
and the case for flats

Tatsuya Tsubaki*

School of Economics, Chukyo University, Nagoya, Japan

Abstract
Public housing policy introduced in Britain after the First World War, in the form ofstate-subsidised housing provision, underwent a significant change in the 1930s. This
article uses contemporary sources to trace the ways in which public authorities and various
bodies and individuals concerned with the questions of popular housing provisioncontributed to this process of policy reorientation. It will suggest that there was a growinginterest in flats in the field of public housing. Enthusiasm was fired in the first instance bya shift in government’s housing policy which appeared to emphasise the necessity for‘building upwards’ in its policy for the central redevelopment of towns. Continental
housing, because of its long association with flats, offered a potential model for some local
authorities contemplating large slum clearance schemes. Some took to research to find out
the economic and technical possibilities of flats. At the same time, the results of several
social surveys were pointing to the shortcomings of the conventional form of housingdevelopment. All this was in striking contrast to the situation in the 1920s, when thebuilding of low-density suburban cottage estates had been taken for granted.
Keywords: housing policy; public housing; flats; housing estates; slum clearance; England*E-mail: ttsubaki@mecl.chukyo-u.ac.jp

Introduction
The comparative rarity of flats or apartment houses in the history of English housing is well known.
In contrast with many other European countries on the continent, where flats have come to be
accepted as part and parcel of living in cities, this has never been the case in England. The English
distaste for this form of dwelling type seems to be rooted in her historical tradition. Hence an old
adage, ‘An Englishman’s house is his castle’, with its connotations of privacy and independence,
believed to be seriously compromised if you lived in a flat.
Historically, owing to her unique geographical position and relative political stability, English
towns were allowed to expand outwards. The need did not arise to crowd dwellings within theconfines of ancient/medieval walls. In due course, the leasehold tenure system discouraged intensive
development, as it gave the ground landlord a continuing interest in the site. In the freehold towns, it
was the inertia of centuries which acted against the building of multi-storey residential structures.
And the industrial urban growth, when it came, produced its own high-density accommodation in theform of back-to-back terrace houses and court dwellings.1
In the second half of the nineteenth century, the sheer pressure on urban land and the first efforts
to alleviate the housing problem of the working population did lead to some flat building. So-called
mansion flats were built in place like London and made comfortable homes or pieds-à-terre for theupper and middle classes. For the working class, flats in those days meant either those model
tenements and philanthropic housing, which were drab, austere and barrack-like in appearance with
only basic facilities and inadequate space, or a form of shared occupation of once fashionable, large
terrace houses for the well-off, in which overcrowding was rife and sanitation minimal. The grim
tenement image associated with these living conditions certainly persisted in people’s minds and was
carried into the twentieth century.2 Lacking indigenous equivalent to the continental tradition ofmulti-storey living, modern flats in England were initially taken up in the 1930s by architects ofmodernist inclinations and housing reformers as a conscious, innovative form of dwelling designed
to offer ordinary people decent accommodation with modern amenities within their means. 3
Significantly, the decade coincided with an important shift in national housing policy.
This article uses contemporary sources to look at the views expressed by various public authorities
and interested bodies in the debates surrounding the questions of popular housing provision in
England during the 1930s, and to explore the ways in which they might have contributed to theprocess of policy reorientation in housing. It suggests that there was a growing interest in flats in thefield of public housing. Enthusiasm was fired in the first instance by a shift in government’s housing1policy, especially that of the Conservative National Government, which appeared to emphasise thenecessity for ‘building upwards’ in its policy for the central redevelopment of towns. Continental
housing, because of its long association with flats, offered a potential model for a number of local
authorities contemplating large slum clearance schemes. Some took to research to find out theeconomic and technical possibilities of modern types of flats. At the same time, the results of various
social surveys pointed to the shortcomings of the conventional form of housing development. All
this was in striking contrast to the situation in the 1920s, as the first section of this article will show,
when suburban cottage estates, built twelve houses to the acre, had been taken for granted.

Housing policy in the aftermath of the First World War
In the aftermath of the Fist World War, there was an acute shortage of housing across the board for theworking class. Accordingly, the main purpose of housing policy in the 1920s was to supply a sufficientnumber of new accommodation units in the form of small houses to let. It was decided for the first timethat the state should intervene to take responsibility for providing working-class housing. Under the 1919
Housing and Town Planning Act, the local authorities were made the principal agency responsible forbuilding houses, and subsidies were provided by the Treasury and from local rates. The acceptance of a
new standard in public housing followed the recommendations of the Tudor Walters Committee, set up
during the war to ‘consider questions of building construction’ of dwellings for the working class. The
Committee’s report was largely the work of the architect Raymond Unwin, who, together with Barry
Parker, had designed Rowntree’s industrial village, New Earswick near York and the first garden city at
Letchworth before the First World War. He had also created the Hampstead Garden Suburb. Unwin was
an influential exponent of the garden city movement and the leading force behind the government’s
adoption of the garden city model in its housing programme.4
The Tudor Walters Report thus recommended a maximum of twelve houses to the acre in urban areasand suggested that ‘two-storey cottage is the type which should generally be adopted’, which would bebuilt mainly in blocks of four or in pairs (as in semi-detached houses). The deep, narrow-fronted terrace
house or the bye-law type with back extensions were to be avoided in favour of one having ‘a simple
rectangular form’ with wider frontage, which was more economical and allowed greater amount of airand light into the house. Recommended space standards for a three-bedroom house ranged from 767
square feet (Type I with a bath in the scullery) through 872 square feet (Type II with a separate
downstairs bathroom) to 1,145 square feet (Type IIIA with ‘a parlour’, i.e. a room for sitting in andentertaining visitors, and an upstairs bathroom representing ‘undoubtedly the type desired by the majority2

of the artisan class’). As far as the arrangement of rooms inside was concerned, the Report identified astrongly-marked tendency of working-class families ‘to eliminate from the living-room the dirty workand particularly the cooking of meals’ and sought to cater for this by providing a scullery with copper,
sink and gas cooker or cooking range. The Report also warned of the danger of having a large scullery ‘as
many tenants would live mainly in the scullery and keep the large living-room as a parlour’. There wasindeed a widespread desire among the working class for the best room in the house in the form of aparlour. In view of the likely demand for higher standards of accommodation, the Report suggested that alarge proportion of houses should have parlours in all future schemes. At the same time, it was realised
that, though desirable, the parlour was beyond the means of many of the tenants. Hence the report argued
that it should not be secured ‘by cutting down on the desirable minimum sizes of the living-room, scullery,or other essential parts of the houses’.5

In contrast, the Tudor Walters Report gave short shrift to flats, saying that no advocate appearedfor ‘large blocks of tenements four or five storeys high’ although ‘modified types of such buildings
might be necessary in the centre of areas already developed with this class of dwelling or to meet
special conditions’.6 In the 1920s, the customary development by the self-contained cottages wascommended in all cases and this was set against the experience of ‘those countries and cities whichhave had the misfortune to adopt the tenement system to any great extent’.7
Between 1919 and the early 1930s, over 1.5 million houses were built in England and Wales. Of
these, two thirds were subsidised houses provided under the successive housing acts and directed
towards relief of general housing shortage.8 The majority of them were located on ‘newly developedbuilding estates’9 on the outskirts of towns, built to the density of twelve to the acre. Towards theend of the 1920s, however, there was a growing realisation among housing reformers andgovernment officials that the existing policy was failing to cater for the poorer members of theworking class.10 The process of ‘filtering up’,11 on which some hope had been placed, was notworking, and the slums in the centre of towns had been left almost untouched.12 Grim accounts ofslum conditions were being published.13 In the national campaign for slum clearance and rehousing
which followed flats became relevant for those searching for a solution to the housing problem.

New directions in housing policy

The first step in this direction was the Housing Act of 1930, the so-called Slum Clearance Act,
introduced by the second Labour government. This measure was specifically geared to the clearanceof slums and subsidies were to be given according to the number of those displaced by clearance3

schemes. One of the distinctive features was a higher subsidy provision made for rehousing in urban
areas where this had to be done on expensive sites in flats of more than three storeys.14 But inkeeping with Labour’s commitment to the public provision of working-class housing, this legislation
was initially intended to be worked in combination with the 1924 Wheatley Act, which provided forgeneral-need housing.15 The way in which Arthur Greenwood, Minister of Health, explained thisnew form of subsidy showed that he was still thinking in traditional terms, putting forward the oldarguments which had led to the building of tenements in the nineteenth century:
Much as I would prefer to see the population spreading out rather than rising heavenward in thedwellings, one has to face the fact that for a limited number of our people, who must live, or
who passionately desire to live in the centre of very cities, tenement provision must be made.16
The need for some sections of the working class, such as street traders and casual workers, to live
within walking distance of their jobs had to be catered for. Housing provision on expensive, central
sites required high density in block dwellings, which were known to be costly. Hence a higher
subsidy was justified. In Greenwood’s view, this special provision only applied to a few places, suchas London and Liverpool.17
If anything, Labour’s affinity lay with the conventional type of housing development. The party
had adopted a resolution back in 1918, supporting ‘the establishment of new towns…on garden city
principles’, and pending the full operation of this scheme, it called for ‘the provision of good
self-contained houses with gardens’.18 Some Labour figures continued to express their opposition toflats. Greenwood himself later attacked the Conservative National Government for driving people
into flats.19 When pressed in Parliament, on the second reading of the 1935 Housing Bill, to clarify
Labour’s position on flats, George Hicks, a former builder, responded by saying that he was surenone in his party liked them. He then listed the objections to flats: hardships suffered by manyflights of stairs; the lack of privacy; and the problem of noise.20 In an important statement on
housing policy in 1934, however, the Labour Party equally disapproved of building ‘huge dormitory
estates in outlying districts’. Its preferred solution was ‘small estates which fit in with existingbuilding, and have the initial advantage of any social amenities already available’.21 Where there
was a demand for flats, the statement noted, they should have a spacious layout, with gardens andplaygrounds. But in densely-populated areas, such as London, it might be found desirable to develop
self-contained units on garden city lines, with their own industries.22
The National Conservative Government, which took over in 1931, appeared to push ahead with
the idea of flats in its housing policy. The Conservatives saw municipal housebuilding as an adjunct4

to the work of private enterprise and gave public housing only a residual role. They were clearly
helped by the circumstances of the early 1930s. The sterling crisis, which led to Britain leaving thegold standard for good, had ushered in the economy campaign. The depression was bringing down
the bank rate and with it the cost of borrowing. The Conservative Government first urged local
authorities to take advantage of falling building costs and to economise in space standards. They
were told that adequate accommodation for an ordinary family with children could be provided in athree-bedroom house of the non-parlour type with a superficial area of 760 square feet.23 Then camethe abolition of the general need subsidy in 1933 and local authorities were now instructed to start a
five-year programme of slum clearance. The Government’s new housing policy, as summarised in
the Report of the Departmental Committee on Housing in 1933, wasto concentrate public effort and money on the clearance and improvement of slum conditions,and to rely in the main on competitive private enterprise to provide a supply of accommodation
for the working classes – the provision by private enterprise to be supplemented, whennecessary, by means of unsubsidised building by the Local Authorities.24
The same report made two significant observations, which anticipated the directions of theConservative policy on housing. It spoke of the excessive cost of tenement flats and ‘the urgent needfor further examination of the technical and other problems involved’.25 Drawing on the 1931
Census figures, it also noted the prevalence of small families in many of the large towns and thoughtthat ‘a larger proportion of the smaller type of dwelling should be provided in future than hitherto’.
The report was of the opinion that part of the overcrowding problem, the seriousness of which wasrecognised alongside the issue of slums, was caused by small families ‘unable to obtain alternative
accommodation suitable to their needs and their purse’.26 In the same year, the Association of
Municipal Corporations (AMC), the main body representing the interests of local authorities, passed
a resolution calling for the slum clearance subsidy to be extended for the rehousing of persons‘living under overcrowded conditions’, and the Government was coming round to the view thatsome measure had to be taken to remedy the situation. In particular, it was observed that in larger
towns, the abatement of overcrowding turned on ‘the provision of those houses in a particular locus,
in which custom, industrial or commercial need require accommodation for the working classes’.27
The solution was spelled out by Neville Chamberlain, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the Housing
Policy Committee of the Cabinet:
it was not possible to deal with the problem of the central areas by providing ordinary houses:
the sites were much too expensive. It was therefore necessary to build blocks of flats. The old5objections to accommodation of this kind were no longer valid because developments,
particularly on the Continent had to a large extent overcome the drawbacks from which theolder type of flats undoubtedly suffered. It was obvious that in future recourse would have to be
had to a very large extent to the building of blocks of flats in the central areas.28
The Housing Act of 1935 provided subsidies to help rehouse families living in overcrowded
houses. The Act also introduced the so-called redevelopment areas. The local authorities were
empowered to acquire and redevelop districts in the inner and older areas of towns, provided one
third of dwellings there were deemed to be unfit or overcrowded. As the Conservative Minister of
Health, Hilton Young, explained in Parliament:
you cannot remedy overcrowding unless you are prepared to find means for re-housing a large
proportion of dwellers in these central areas near the scene of their original home…
It is impossible to make use of the central areas to which I have referred, where overcrowding ischaracteristically present, to their full extent without building to some degree upwards in theform of blocks of flats.29
And what was contemplated, in his words, was ‘nothing less than the reconstruction…of the bad oldcores of the inner areas of our great towns’.30 The Minister, mindful of the objections to flats, put
forward a case for modern flats, echoing Neville Chamberlain’s words in Cabinet:
I, myself, believed that prejudice to be based upon the fact that the original blocks of workers’
dwellings and blocks of flats which were first constructed in the slums were thoroughly bad,badly designed, badly laid down and did not make proper provision for air and space and theamenities of life. I find, however, that wherever the good modern flat has been introduced, thatprejudice breaks down. It is impossible for one who has not studied the subject to realise what
enormous strides have been made in the technique of flat construction even in the course of thelast 10 years. I venture to say that today the modern well-equipped flat to many families means
more of a dwelling than does a small house.31
The Conservative National Government’s plans, then, was to target the slums and highlight theovercrowding problem in the centre of large towns, for which redevelopment areas provided the sites
for rehousing in flats.32

Continental influences

The upsurge of interest in flats was also evident in government departments and among a number of
local authorities. As some of the other European countries had greater experience of building flats,

6those involved in public housing started to look to the continent for new ideas. Inside the Ministry of
Health, the officials assiduously gathered information on standards of accommodation andhousebuilding activities from as far afield as South Africa and the United States of America.33 The
Chairman of the London County Council (LCC) Housing Committee felt the ‘the time had come for
British local authorities to study more closely what [was] …being done on the Continent in thebuilding of high tenements’.34 Cities such as London and Birmingham, and the Department of
Health for Scotland, were among those organisations which sent over delegations in the 1930s to getfirst-hand knowledge of housing conditions on the continent.35
The delegations were invariably impressed by the wide range of communal facilities provided aspart of estate development: public gardens; nursery and kindergarten schools; medical clinics;
libraries; community rooms; and communal laundries. Although, in several cases, they found theactual accommodation provided, in terms of space standards and sanitary facilities, to be somewhat
inferior, the communal amenities were thought to ‘form a very substantial addition to the real valueof the accommodation provided within the walls of each individual house’.36 Another point thedelegations agreed about was the higher standard of design and finish seen on many of the estates.
As the LCC delegation put it:
more expense appears to have been allowed in continental housing on the internal finish andappearance of dwellings, particularly as regards flooring and walls of halls and staircases, andthe fitting-up of kitchens with labour-saving appliances. These improvements result in a saving
in maintenance costs, add considerably to the comfort and homelike appearance of thedwellings, and undoubtedly encourage the tenants to take a pride in their homes.37
The importance of having competent architects was pointed out by the Birmingham delegation:
In the design of buildings, many leading architects in addition to the architects of theMunicipality have been entrusted with the preparation of the plans, with distinctive effect.

By

the adoption of this policy, an extraordinarily large amount od variety in design has beenobtained, thus reducing to a minimum the risk of barrack-like monotony.38
This point was echoed by the delegation from the Department of Health for Scotland, who stated thatthe lesson to be learned from the continental schemes was ‘how to combine artistic effects with realutility and real economy’, with the consequence that ‘all those engaged in housing our people must
be convinced that housing design [was]…important creative work which should be entrusted toskilled hands’.39 The delegations were also impressed by ‘the colourful charm and brightness of thecontinental schemes’ and commended ‘the value of a bright and colourful environment’.40

7

On matters of actual design of flats, the delegations noted that the most common type on thecontinent was a four- or five-storey block, over which height they felt lifts should be provided.41
Staircase access was preferred to a common balcony because it gave greater privacy to the tenants.
The reports also recommended the provision of private balconies which was a prominent feature of
the continental schemes, enabling the tenants to obtain sunlight and fresh air.42 In layout, the latest
practice of siting a series of parallel blocks on the north-south axis (the Zeilenbau plan) was
mentioned, bur as an alternative, a modified form of the courtyard plan – ‘a somewhat quadrangulararrangement, with the southern end of the quadrangular generally open’ – was commended for
adoption.43 The Birmingham delegation showed its appreciation of modern housing, presumably
from Frankfurt, which were amply illustrated:
Architecture generally follows the lines of modern development. It is somewhat severe in style
but relieved by the fine curves of balconies or verandahs; and the breaking of the monotony of
the huge straight surface by the bringing forward of parts of the frontage of the buildings, withthe use of boldly drawn horizontal lines along the whole frontage.44
Similarly, the Scottish delegation, after commenting on the variety of architectural design seen on
the continent, remarked:
The architecture generally reveals a much greater susceptibility to modern influences than does
ours. The beauties of straight lines and plain surfaces are commonly used in domestic
architecture instead of being confined to new shop fronts and cinemas, as they are here.45
Yet, during the 1930s in England, among the most celebrated examples of continental housing
were the municipal estates of Vienna. These estates were on the itinerary of all three delegations
mentioned here, and many others involved in public housing of the period made their pilgrimage toVienna. Most famous of all, the Karl Marx Hof, consisted of massive blocks forming a series ofquadrangles and enclosing garden courtyards. They were of traditional brick construction withcoloured stucco finish. The centre portion rose above the rest of the estate and was crowned by thesix tower-like projections. The estate was accentuated by continuous lines of balconies and by fourlarge archways. It had the appearance of a massive fortress giving an impression of monumentality.
The individual flats were small in size, but like many other estates built by the Viennese Corporation,
it was planned as a residential community with a comprehensive range of social facilities:
kindergartens, communal laundries with bathing accommodation, a school, dental and maternity
clinics, a post office and a host of shops.46 These Viennese estates had an added attraction for those8

on the left of the political spectrum because they were built and managed by the progressive, social
democratic administration.47
In Germany by contrast, the Nazis had assumed political power by the time the LCC and theDepartment of Health for Scotland sent their delegations in 1935. It led to changes in the direction ofGermany’s housing policy, particularly with regard to the type of house to be provided, and this wasnoted by the Scottish delegation:
At the time of our visit there was no provision in any part of Germany for State assistance forhouses of more than three storeys. The new policy is directed mainly to the provision of“Siedlungen” – i.e. colonies of cottage houses, chiefly for unemployed men, which are being
built on the outskirts of cities throughout Germany.
The general lay-out of these “Siedlungen” calls to mind the simplest of our pre-war garden
village schemes. The houses are simple in construction and in the majority of cases withoutarchitectural merit.48
Taken as a whole, the principal message of these delegations seemed to be that on the continentmuch more attention was being paid to the social and aesthetic aspects of housing estates.
Birmingham, with little experience of building flats, was a prime example of those local authorities
which realised the implications of rehousing people in the central areas and was one of the firstpublic authorities to look to the continent for new ideas.49 The Birmingham delegation, upon its
return, recommended the City Council to proceed with the erection of model estate of flats up to
1,000 dwellings as part of the programme to rehouse people from the slums under the terms of the1930 Housing Act. Its report to the City Council concluded:
our investigations have satisfied us that both adults and young children, can be housed quitesatisfactorily, comfortably and happily in flat or tenement dwellings under perfectly healthy
conditions, provided the necessary amenities are included within the scope of the scheme. For
financial and constructional reasons, these amenities can only be justified when the colony offlats is sufficiently large. I our opinion this must be within the figure of from 500 to 1,000
dwellings.50
As an addendum to the general recommendations for a large estate of flats, the Chairman of theEstates Committee presented a minority recommendation, calling for small blocks of flats ‘dispersedin convenient areas’, which he felt would better serve the needs of those people who must live in thecentral areas.51

9

Research on constructional methods

At the same time as the knowledge of continental housing was expanding in England, someorganisations were carrying out research into the technical and economic problems of building flats.
The Council for Research on Housing Construction was set up in 1933, as ‘a body of individuals,
severally experienced in some part or other of the housing field, and united by a common desire toassist in fulfilling the nation’s housing needs’.52 Its first report of 1934 dealt extensively with the
problem of providing alternative accommodation for people living in slums and overcrowded
conditions. The report firmly stated that as the majority of people were tied to central areas by theiroccupation, a great deal of rehousing would have to be done in inner city areas, which could only bepossible by the use of multi-storey flats. A major obstacle here was the cost. The Ministry of Healthreturns consistently showed flats to be 30 to 50 per cent more expensive than ordinary non-parlour
houses. So, with the cost of building in 1934 at its lowest in years, houses cost £300 to build,
whereas flats were between £400 and £450 (See table below).
The average cost of newly-built local authority dwellings, 1931-1939 (England and Wales)Year ending 31st March

Ordinary non-parlour
houses (£)

Dwellings in buildings of 3 ormore storeys (£)

1930-31342

489

1931-32

327

562

1932-33300

509

1933-34

290

453

1934-35

294

437

1935-36304

465

1936-37

323

492

1937-38364

574

1938-39370

544

Source: Compiled from Annual Reports of the Ministry of Health, 1930-1939 (London: HMSO,
1931-1940)
The main reason why flats had cost more to build than cottages of corresponding type, the reportargued, was that their design and construction had not been adequately studied. And thisinexperience stemmed from a persistent prejudice against flats, formed by the grim image ofnineteenth-century tenements:

10It should be added that the British idea of a tenement has and still is coloured by the existenceof quantities of old-fashioned, unsatisfactory block dwellings. Most of these buildings havebeen converted from large single houses; others have been built as tenements, but of out-dated
type; both kinds have proved a favourite breeding-ground for slum conditions. With suchtenement slums as a warning example, a prejudice against further tenement building is notunnatural.53
The fact was that, in the Council’s view, flats of modern design and construction could makesatisfactory homes. Accordingly, its investigation pointed to standardisation and the updating ofbuilding bye-laws as key components in any new housing programme:
15 The basis of progress and cost-reduction in tenement building is to be found in theapplication of modern and rationalized building technique, based on the principles ofstandardization, mass production, large-scale operation, organized assembly to strict
time-schedules, a maximum working-face and a maximum speed of throughput. Of theseprinciples standardization is the most fundamental, while the use of frame construction is theessential means whereby all may be applied.
18 All bye-laws should be periodically revised, in accord with all relevant British Standard
Specifications. New and improved materials and methods which have passed suitable tests
should be incorporated without delay.54
The report produced model plans and estimates of five-storey blocks, and of ten-storey blocks
equipped with lifts. By using these blocks of steel frame construction, it was demonstrated that flats,having satisfactory standards of light, air and space, could be built within the terms of the 1930 Act
subsidies and be let at 10s per week.55
Similarly, a departmental committee of the Ministry of Health took up the questions of thematerials and methods of construction suitable for the building of flats for the working class.56 The
National Government was particularly anxious to find out how the building cost of flats could be
brought down. The committee’s task was mainly a technical one. In response to its plea, a number offirms and individuals submitted estimates for a unit block of five-storey flats, using various new
types of construction. The committee, then, taking the estimate cost for a block of normal brickconstruction as a standard, examined in detail the comparative costs and advantages of different
building systems. The final report of the committee was somewhat inconclusive and refrained frommaking a definite choice. Nonetheless, it noted that, apart from traditional brick construction which
held ‘an established place’, some other building systems had ‘distinct promise’, and recommended

11that ‘several of the steel framed and reinforced framed systems’ should be given ‘an opportunity oftendering for actual blocks of flats’.57 The report also called for a relaxation of fire regulations undercertain conditions to allow the use of new structural elements.58

Shortcomings of suburban housing estates

While increasing attention was being paid to the slums and the problem of overcrowding in thecentral parts of towns, there were also signs that all was not well in many of the new municipal
housing estates, which had sprung up after the war. Social surveys and middle-class reforming
opinion played a supporting role in favour of flats, by pointing out the hardship incurred by tenantsrehoused on suburban estates.
The Becontree estate in east London, once described as the largest council estate in the world, was
one of the out-county estates developed by the LCC. Terence Young, Secretary of the Becontree
Social Survey Committee, in his study of its social conditions in the early 1930s recorded a high rateof turnover among the tenants, which was in striking contrast to the removal rates of other estates
built within the area of the County of London. A large number of tenants moving into large council
houses from poor neighbourhoods had to contend with higher costs of living which consisted ofincreased rents and rates, furniture payments and increased travel expenses.59 In Stockton-on-Tees,
an industrial town in the North East, research into the health of the local population found that,among the tenants who had been transferred from slum dwellings to a self-contained municipal
estate, the death rate increased by 46 per cent. This was in stark contrast to the equivalent figure for
a comparable population that continued to reside in slum houses which actually went down. The
investigations of the Medical Officer of Health for the town threw light on the link between theincreased mortality and serious dietary deficiencies found among the tenants on the new housing
estate, who incurred higher rentals and had less money available for the purchase of food.60 Thesesurvey results became widely known in reformists’ circles and prompted the socialist thinkers G.D.H.
and Margaret Cole to write:
the consequences of moving low-paid working-class families into better houses may be to
reduce their food budgets well below what is indispensable for a healthy life, so that most ofthem will drift back to overcrowded slums if they get half a chance.61
Voluntary societies, like the Charity Organisation Society, were also apprehensive about the‘compulsory removal of families’ to new housing estates, as it resulted in the uprooting of people
who had long association with one place and destroyed their social and industrial ties. 62 A Liverpool

12

survey carried out among the inhabitants in areas of poor housing appeared to confirm the view of
the Charity Organisation Society. Of those families interviewed, 84 per cent said they were willingto leave their houses for better accommodation, but only 38 per cent were prepared to move out of
their familiar surroundings altogether. Many expressed a strong attachment to the neighbourhood inwhich they had lived for years. The survey also found that, although the ‘workman’s cottage type ofdwelling’ was preferred by many, there was no general antipathy to flats.63 Likewise, there wereindications that religious institutions might be disinclined towards rehousing tenants from central
areas to suburbs. Of Liverpool, it was said:
we have people of two different religions and those who require denominational religion in theschools must pay for their own school buildings (not for teaching). They have built their schools
and churches and removal to the outskirts would involve building new ones.64
The suburban housing estates themselves, too, came in for criticism, for their lack of social
facilities and scope for communal life and for their depressing uniformity in layout and design,
which in turn reflected their class composition.65 In the case of the Becontree estate studied byYoung, the LCC only provided houses at first, and the local authorities responsible for the area inwhich the estate was situated (Essex County Council and the three urban district councils – Ilford,
Barking and Dagenham) all struggled to provide public services for the huge influx of population
into what was formerly fields used for market gardening. Shopping facilities remained inadequate
for many years. Local employment opportunities did not keep up with the growth of population,
until the automobile industry began its operation, led by Ford’s huge plant at Dagenham. Moreover,
the one-class nature of the estate made it extremely difficult to raise money from the local people tostart various social and religious institutions. In the end, Young questioned the virtue ofconcentrating a large uniform population in one area at a low density. He suggested on the one handthat an estate built at higher density, perhaps in the form of flats, might lead to s greater number andvariety of shops, public services and social facilities because higher density of population would
give the necessary financial support. On the other hand, he seemed to favour smaller estates,intermixed with private middle-class housing estates or in the form of an addition to neighbouring
towns so that pre-existing public services and social amenities would be available for the new area in
the first place.66
Ruth Durant, a German émigré and one of the pioneers of urban sociology in Britain, studying
another LCC out-county estate at Watling later in the decade,67 came across a similar set ofproblems as that described by Young at Becontree. In particular, she highlighted the shortage of13

small accommodation units. The great majority of houses on the Watling estate were built forworking class families on good wages with a number of children living at home. Out of a total of
4,000 dwellings, only 110 were two-room flats. There was hardly any provision for young couples orold retired people. Watling, in Durant’s view, catered only for certain phases of working life and did
not allow its population to settle.68 An obvious lesson she drew was that ‘various types of dwellings
should be built to accommodate families in the different stages of their existence’.69

Arguments for the preservation of the countryside

Another important issue in the discussion of the role played by the reforming opinion was that of thepreservation of the countryside, which may have influenced the way people thought about thedesirable types of housing development. It was estimated in 1940 that ‘an area equal in size to thecounties of Buckingham and Bedford combined’ had been covered with brick and mortar since 1900,
with good agricultural land being lost in the process.70 The Council for the Preservation of Rural
England (CPRE), a propagandist body, had been formed in 1926, to act as a clearinghouse on
countryside issues and to coordinate the efforts of various bodies and associations, mainly concernedwith protecting the rural amenities from the danger of haphazard development.71
The destruction of the countryside increasingly became a serious issue during the 1930s. The
decade saw a great housing boom in the private sector. A total of 2.5 million new houses were built
between 1931 and 1939. Of these, 1.9 million were provided by private enterprise, which built wellover 200.000 houses annually from 1934 onwards.72 Encouraged by the Conservative National
Government and facilitated by the expansion of building societies providing cheap mortgages toprospective home owners, private enterprise was actively engaged in suburban housebuilding. The
manner in which this housing boom appeared to be devouring rural land sometimes invited vitriolic
criticism. For instance, a Labour M.P. in Parliament called it ‘the nasty rash of what masquerades as
new Tudor palaces in the beautiful countryside of Southern England’.73 The Restriction of Ribbon
Development Act of 1935 was an attempt to check the building of houses strung out along the trunk
roads, which was a device often used by private builders to avoid road making charges and theprovision of services.74 In 1937, the architect, Clough Williams-Ellis edited a book entitled Britianand the Beast, with contributions from twenty-five individuals including J.M. Keynes (economist),
E.M. Forster (novelist), Patrick Abercrombie (town planner) and G.M. Trevelyan (historian), writing
on some particular part or aspect of the countryside. The book was admittedly a motley collection of
essays, yet the contributors all agreed that the countryside, as a source of valuable agricultural land

14and a place of rural beauty, was being destroyed by uncontrolled development. C.E.M. Joad, aphilosopher and social commentator, set a characteristic tone:
To thousands, nature, newly discovered, has been a will-o’-the -wisp…building to live in a field
and to look at a wood, a man discovers before a year has gone by that he is living in a row withan unhampered vision of next-door’s garage. Thus the towns are throwing their everlengthening tentacles of brick and mortar over the country; round every corner pops up a perky
new villa, and the green face of England’s landscape comes out in an inflamed rash of angry
pink. In fifty years’ time there will, in southern England, be neither town nor country, but only asingle dispersed suburb, sprawling unendingly from Watford to the coast.75
The keynote of the book, as to remedies, was to press for some form of central control of land use
and greater coordination of the efforts on the lines pursued by the CPRE. Some preservationists
appeared to be exclusively concerned with the plight of the countryside, but their case was echoed in
the housing debate. Certainly, the modern architects and other advocates of flats made much of thedamage done by suburban building and ribbon development of houses and posed the alternative ofcentral development of towns with flats. For them, the solution lay in making the centre of towns
more habitable and attractive.

Debates in Parliament

The housing debate and the move towards the adoption of flats in public housing provision brought
out various responses in the House of Commons. Some politicians, particularly those from large
urban constituencies, expressed their interest in flats. Often continental examples were cited as thekind of thing that they should be looking for. Thus, a Conservative M.P. for Newcaslte-upon-Tyne
found in Budapest, Berlin, Cologne and even Naples, marvellous flats with three or four rooms, bathand every convenience, and for a rent which, in their money, is equivalent to about 7s per week’. 76
A Labour M.P. from Liverpool urged his fellow member to go to the continent to and get a better
vision of what to be done:
I have visited certain areas where there is light and beauty - beautiful landscapes and gardens,
bathed in God’s sunshine, and where you have the best housing in the world.77
A Liberal M.P. from Bethnal Green, London, joined in the praise:
In Vienna, too, there are some of the finest examples of well-planned block dwellings. An
immense amount has been done in connection with the design, planning and construction of15

block dwellings. They are humanised, and are not the barrack squares that they used to be 20 or
30 years ago.78
Another M.P., a Labour from Hammersmith, believed that blocks of flats were the only solution forthe problem of overcrowding in central London, and of those flats he said:
Of course the whole point is that these modern flats must have modern amenities. That means
modern lifts, central heating, and that in most cases the blocks of flats shall not occupy morethan from a quarter to a third of the total land upon which they are erected.79
Against this, there was frequent reference from all sides to the small house as the rightful place for
their citizens. This was sometimes coupled with the wholesale denigration of flats, as in the case of aConservative M.P. from rural Suffolk:
All flats are soulless and soul-devouring…It may be all well in Paris, Vienna or Berlin, where
people are brought up in flats, but here people are accustomed to look upon a house as theirhome.80
A Labour M.P. from Wednesbury, a market town in Staffordshire, felt that flats were something for
London, not for ‘provincial people’ and emphasised the value of people living in houses tothemselves:
The front door and the back door are their own, and when they are in the house it is indeed theircastle. It would be a bad day if this new fashion for flats were to spread.81

Concluding comments

Whether ‘this new fashion for flats’ was desirable or not, it is clear that the question of flats becamea major talking point in the 1930s for all those who took any interest in the problem of working-classhousing. During the 1930s, the housing debate increasingly came to be focussed on the problem ofslums and overcrowding in the centre of towns. Public authorities as well as interested bodies andindividuals contributed to a shift in government’s housing policy by exploring the potential of flats
in slum clearance and redevelopment schemes, as well as highlighting the problems associated withsuburban forms of development. The estates of flats at such places as Frankfurt and Vienna came tobe widely known in England, at a time when the nineteenth century legacy of block dwellings was
still alive in people’s memory and the grim realities of sharing tenements were still very muchpresent. In these circumstances, the recent achievements in continental housing acted as a means ofdispelling the negative image of flats, signifying a new departure in public housing. As such, they16

were readily taken up by their advocates, who saw in them the possibility of offering a new andimproved way of life for the working-class people.

17

Notes and references

1

Anthony Sutcliffe, ‘Introduction’, in Anthony Sutcliffe (ed.), Multi-Storey Living: The British Working-Class Experience (London: Croom Helm, 1974), 11-4.
2See, e.g. John Nelson Tarn, Five Percent Philanthropy: An account of housing in urban areas between

1840 and 1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973); Anthony S. Wohl, The Eternal Slum:
Housing and Social Policy in Victorian London (London: Edward Arnold, 1977); Richard Rodger,
Housing in Urban Britain 1780-1914: Class, Capitalism and Construction (London: Macmillan, 1989),
Richard Dennis, ‘Residential Flats: Densification in Victorian and Early Twentieth Century London’, inPeter Guillery and David Kroll (eds), Mobilising Housing Histories: Learning from London’s Past
(London: RIBA Publishing, 2017).
3

See, e.g. John R Gold, The Experience of Modernism: Modern architects and the future city, 1928-53(London: E & FN Spon, 1997); Elizabeth Darling, Re-forming Britian: Narratives of modernity before
reconstruction (London: Routledge, 2007); Alexandra Harris, Romantic Moderns: English Writers,
Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper (London: Thames & Hudson, 2010).
4Mark Swenarton, Homes Fit for Heroes: The Politics and Architecture of Early State Housing in

Britain (London: Heinemann, 1981), especially chaps.1, 5.
5Report of the Committee appointed by the President of the Local Government Board and the Secretaryfor Scotland to consider questions of building construction in connection with the provision of dwellings
for the working classes in England and Wales, and Scotland, Cd. 9191 (London: HMSO, 1918), paras 58,
85-89, 98-100, 144. The committee takes the name from its chairman, John Tudor Walters, an architect,surveyor and Liberal M.P., who was influenced by the garden city movement and had interest in housingreform.
6

Ibid., para. 84.

7

Ministry of Health, Manual on Unfit Houses and Unhealthy Areas. Volume 1 Policy and Practice(London: HMSO, 1919), chap. IX – Rehousing, paras 1, 3.
8Marian Bowley, Housing and the State 1919-1944 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1945), 271.

9

Ministry of Health, Eleventh Annual Report of the Ministry of Health 1929-30, Cmd. 3667 (London:

HMSO, 1930), 82.
10See, e.g. E.D. Simon, How to Abolish Slums (London: Longmans, 1929), 52-61; Ministry of Health,Eleventh Annual Report of the Ministry of Health 1929-30, 76-7, 81-2.
11

The concept of ‘filtering up’ or simply ‘filtering’ in housing referred to the functions of the housing

market, by which it was assumed that a fresh supply of new and better housing would induce people totrade up and move house, thereby leading to the ‘trickling down’ of vacated dwellings to lower income
groups in society. J.B. Cullingworth, Essays on Housing Policy: The British Scene (London: George
Allen & Unwin, 1979), 35. The argument was that the process would bring about an overall improvement18

in national housing standards. Writing of the situation in the late nineteenth century, Alison Ravetz notes:‘as the more fortunate gradually decanted themselves into new and better housing, those beneath them
could move up the scale by taking over their vacated homes. The theory was to be crucial for theinauguration of council housing, and to the extent that it corresponded to some real patterns of mobility it
could not easily be contradicted’. Alison Ravetz, Council Housing and Culture: The History of a Social
Experiment (London: Routledge, 2001), 10. It was still the prevailing doctrine in the 1920s.
12

Up to March 1930, only some 10,650 houses had been provided to rehouse persons displaced by slum

clearance. See Ministry of Health, Twelfth Annual Report of the Ministry of Health 1930-31, Cmd. 3937
(London: HMSO, 1931), 107.
13

See, e.g. Howard Marshall and Avice Trevelyan, Slum (London: William Heinemann, 1933); E.D.

Simon, The Anti-Slum Campaign (London: Longmans, 1933); Harry Barnes, The Slum: Its Story andSolution (Hempstead: Mill Press, 1934). In February, the Daily Herald, an organ of the Labour Party,
carried a series of articles by the well-known journalist, H.V. Morton, on his ‘tour round the slums of ourgreat industrial cities’, later published as a pamphlet by the Labour Party. H.V. Morton, What I Saw in the
Slums (London: Labour Party, 1933).
14

Bowley, Housing and the State 1919-1944, 135-6.

15Ibid., 140.

16

Hansard, Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th Series, 237, 7 April 1930, cols 1819-20.

17‘It was futile, for example, to expect London Dockers to live in Becontree. Broadly the tenement

proposals would only apply in London and Liverpool’, was the reply Greenwood gave to the deputationof the building workers, who raised their objection to the extra subsidy, which they felt ‘would encourage
local authorities in this unsatisfactory method of building’. The National Archives (hereafter TNA):
HLG52/850, ‘Housing Bill – Deputation from NFBTO’ (National Federation of Building Trades
Operatives), 3 April 1930.
18

Labour Party, Report of the 1918 Annual Conference of the Labour Party (London: Labour Party,

1918), 126-7.
19

Hansard, Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th Series, 297, 30 January 1935, cols 391-2.

20

Ibid., 31 January 1935, col. 644.

21

Labour Party, Up with the Houses, Down with the Slums (London: Labour Party,1934), 6,7.

22

Ibid., 5,6.

23

Ministry of Health, Thirteenth Annual Report of the Ministry of Health 1931-32, Cmd. 4113 (London:

HMSO, 1932), 97; Ministry of Health, Housing Act 1930. Rehousing Operations. Typical Plans ofTenement and Other Dwellings (London: HMSO, 1933).
24

Ministry of Health, Report of the Departmental Committee on Housing, Cmd. 4397 (London: HMSO,

1933), para. 5.

19

25

Ibid., para.61.

26

Ibid., para. 97.

27

TNA: HLG68/30, ‘Notes for preliminary and informal discussion on the proposal of the Association of

Municipal Corporations’, n.d. but c. December 1933.
28

TNA: CAB27/565, Conclusions of the Meeting of the Cabinet Housing Policy Committee, 13

February 1934, 2.
29

Hansard, Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th Series, 297, 30 January 1935, cols 362, 368.

30

Ibid., col. 368.

31

Ibid., col. 366.

32

J.A. Yelling, ‘The origins of British redevelopment areas’, Planning Perspectives 3, no. 3 (September

1988), 282.
33

TNA: HLG52/788, Ministry of Health memoranda on ‘Standards of Accommodation in Foreign

Countries’ and ‘Continental Housing Comparison’, n.d. but c. 1935.
34

The Times, 16 August 1933.

35

Reports were published of their visits: City of Birmingham, Report of the Estates and Public Works

and Town Planning Committees respectively of the Deputation visiting Germany, Czecho-Slovakia andAustria in August, 1930 (hereafter Birmingham Report) (Birmingham: Council House, 1930); Department
of Health for Scotland, Working-Class Housing on the Continent. Report by Mr. John E. Highton, C.B.,
Secretary to the Department of Health for Scotland, on a Visit to examine Recent Developments in
Working-Class Housing in the Cities of Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Prague,
Vienna and Paris (hereafter Department of Health for Scotland Report) (Edinburgh: HMSO, 1935);
London County Council, Working-Class Housing on the Continent and the Application of Continental
Ideas to the Housing Problem in the County of London. Report by the Chairman, Mr. Lewis Silkin, M.P.,
as the result of a visit to Continental Housing Estates in September and October, 1935 (hereafter LCC
Report) (London: LCC, 1936). The places visited by these delegations were as follows: Holland Rotterdam and Amsterdam; Germany - Hamburg, Cologne, Frankfurt am Main, Munich, Berlin andLeipzig; Austria - Vienna; Czechoslovakia - Prague; France - Paris; and the Scandinavian countries Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Oslo. Local authorities in Leeds and Liverpool also sentdelegations to continental cities in the 1930s. Alison Ravetz, ‘From Working Class Tenements to Modern
Flat: local authorities and multi-storey housing between the wars’, in Sutcliffe (ed.), Multi-Storey Living,
148, footnote 16.
36

Department of Health for Scotland Report, 16.

37

LCC Report, 29-30.

38

Birmingham Report, 64.

39

Department of Health for Scotland Report, 17.

20

40

Ibid., 19-20.

41

Birmingham Report, 70; LCC Report, 27.

42

LCC Report, 28.

43

Ibid., 6, 26.

44

Birmingham Report, 66.

45

Department of Health for Scotland Report, 19.

46

Donald Brooke, ‘The Karl Marx Hof, Vienna’, Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 3rdSeries, 38, no.18, 8 August 1931, 670-7.
47

A booklet called The New Vienna (4th Revised Editon, London: Labour Party, 1931), written by the

President of the Vienna City Council, Robert Danneberg, was published by the Labour Party. It included
an elaborate section on housing policy, with impressive illustrations of these estates. See also Eve Blau,
The Architecture of Red Vienna 1919-1934 (Cambridge Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1999).
48

Department of Health for Scotland Report, 32. See also Barbara Miller Lane, Architecture and Politics

in Germany, 1918-1945 (Cambridge Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1985), 205-12; Stephen V.
Ward, ‘What did the Germans ever do for us? A century of British learning about and imaging modern
town planning’, Planning Perspectives 25, no.2 (April 2010), 123-4.
49

Howard Robertson, ‘Birmingham Visits the Continent: The March, 1931, Report of the Housing

Deputation’, Architect & Building News 126, 19 June 1931, 398-401.
50

Birmingham Report, 70.

51

Ibid., 73.

52

Council for Research on Housing Construction, Slum Clearance and Rehousing. The First Report(London: P.S. King & Sons, 1934), 9. The Council was chaired by the Third Earl of Dudley, a landed
aristocrat with interests in the iron, steel and coal industries. He went on to chair an important
government committee during the Second World War, whose report (Ministry of Health, Design ofDwellings. Report of the Design of Dwellings Sub-Committee of the Central Housing Advisory Committee(London: HMSO, 1944)) established the basis of official design guidance for post-war housing. The
Council also included the following local authority architects as consultant members: W.G. Davies (City
Architect, Sheffield); G. Topham Forrest (Superintending Architect, LCC); Leonard Heyward (Directorof Housing, Manchester); and L.H. Keay (Director of Housing, Liverpool).
53

Ibid., 75-6.

54

Ibid., 137.

55

Ibid., 137-8. The Council, after examining available published data, took a weekly rent of 10s. 0d.

(inclusive of local rates) as the maximum an average family of four could afford and set out to provide forpeople in this category.

21

56

Ministry of Health, Construction of Flats for the Working Classes. Interim Report of the Departmental

Committee (London: HMSO, 1935) and Construction of Flats for the Working Classes. Final Report of
the Departmental Committee (London: HMSO, 1937). This Committee also included prominent local
authority architects and engineers on its membership, including G. Topham Forrest (LCC) and L.H. Keay
(Liverpool).
57

Ministry of Health, Construction of Flats for the Working Classes. Final Report of the Departmental

Committee, 21.
58

Ibid., 31.

59

Terence Young, Becontree and Dagenham: The Story of the Growth of a Housing Estate. A Report

made for the Pilgrim Trust (London: Becontree Social Survey Committee, 1934), chaps 22, 23 andAppendix 4. See also Andrzej Olechnowicz, Working-Class Housing in England between the Wars: The
Becontree Estate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
60

The findings were first published in the medical journal The Lancet, 4 March 1933, under the title of‘Removal of a Slum Population to Modern Dwellings’, and later incorporated in G.C.M. M’Gonigle and J.
Kirby, Poverty and Public Health (London: Gollancz, 1936), chap. 7.
61

G.D.H. Cole and M.I. Cole, The Condition of Britain (London: Gollancz, 1937), 160. The Coles were

fully aware that at its root the problem of poverty had to be tackled – ‘If we are to remedy overcrowding
we must not merely build more houses but also ensure that families which are now living underovercrowded conditions shall be able to afford the improved accommodation without substituting one
form of privation for another. That, however, cannot possibly be done except by raising the real incomesof the overcrowded families’ (ibid., 160-1).
62

TNA: HLG68/30, ‘Notes of a deputation from the Charity Organisation Society to the Minister of

Health’, 27 May 1935.
63

Liverpool University Settlement, Housing Problems in Liverpool: A Survey of Six Areas of Bad

Housing, with special reference to the Housing Act, 1930 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Settlement,
1931), 29.
64Comment of Hugo Rutherford from Liverpool in, International Federation for Housing and Town

Planning (IFHTP), 12th International Housing and Town Planning Congress, Roma 1929: Part III
Report (London: IFHTP, 1929), 67.
65See, e.g. New Estates Community Committee of the National Council of Social Service, New Housing

Estates and Their Social Problems (London: National Council of Social Service, 1935); Norman
Williams (University of Liverpool Social Science Department: Statistics Division), Population Problemsof New Estates, with special reference to Norris Green（Liverpool: University Press of Liverpool, 1939）.
66

Young, Becontree and Dagenham, chap. 32 and passim.

22

67

Ruth Durant, Watling: A Survey of Social Life on a New Housing Estate (London: P.S. King, 1939). As

Ruth Glass, in the 1960s, she invented the term ‘gentrification’ in her study of social and residential
transformation of inner London after the Second World War, which has since influenced generations ofurban scholars. Ruth Glass, ‘Introduction: Aspects of Change’, in Centre for Urban Studies (ed.),London: Aspects of Change (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1964), xviii-xix.
68

Durant, Watling, chap. 1. Young local couples from Watling were, in any case, ineligible to apply forhouses on the estate, since the London County Council, as a rule, only accepted tenants from the London
area under its jurisdiction. Another important point which stood in the way of the estate becoming ‘a realcommunity, the traditional residence of successive families’ was the limited nature of local employment.
Though Watling was well placed in relation to neighbouring industries, these newly installed factories
almost exclusively employed semi-skilled labour. This meant that the estate’s younger generations were
offered only ‘blind-alley employment’ and had to look further afield to learn a trade (ibid., 12-5).
69

Ibid., xii.

70

Report of the Royal Commission on the Distribution of the Industrial Population, Cmd. 6153 (London:

HMSO, 1940), para. 36.
71

Gordon E. Cherry, The Politics of Town Planning (London: Longman, 1982), 25, 35; David Matless,Landscape and Englishness (London: Reaktion Books, 1998), chap. 1.
72

Bowley, Housing and the State 1919-1944, 271.

73

Hansard, Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th Series, 297, 31 January 1935, col. 577. See also

John Carey, The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice among the Literary Intelligentsia,
1880-1939 (London: Faber and Faber, 1992), chap. 3.
74

Gordon E. Cherry, Town Planning in Britain since 1900: The Rise and Fall of the Planning Ideal(Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 71-2.
75

C.E.M. Joad, ‘The People’s Claim’, in Clough Williams-Ellis (ed.), Britain and the Beast (London:

J.M. Dent, 1938), 81.
76

Hansard, Parliamentary Debates (Commons), 5th Series, 297, 30 January 1935, col. 443.

77

Ibid., 5th Series, 273, 15 December 1932, col. 629.

78

Ibid., col. 584.

79

Ibid., 5th Series, 297, 30 January 1935, col. 445.

80

Ibid., 31 January 1935, cols 593-4.

81

Ibid., 30 January 1935, col. 435.

23