IMPROVEMENTS IN DWELLING HOUSES AND OTHER BUILDINGS
Year: 1881

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Sarah Elizabeth Simpson at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents on the 7th October 1881.
SARAH ELIZABETH SIMPSON, of Birmingham, in the County of Warwick.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN DWELLING HOUSES AND OTHER BUILDINGS.”
My Invention has for its object improvements in dwelling houses and other
buildings requiring effective ventilation, by which I am enabled to economize front
space to a much greater extent than has hitherto been known, while at the same
time the sanitary laws are not violated, and the provisions of the Local Government
Act are met.
While buildings erected according to my Invention might be used for other
purposes than dwelling houses, my Invention is more especially intended to meet
the wants of the poorer classes, such as artisans' dwelling houses. Houses built
back to back without any through ventilation have been very generally condemned,
and thus builders have been obliged to take more front space than formerly. Now
according to my Invention the advantage of through ventillation of single houses
is combined with the economy of space obtained in back to back houses, or very
nearly so.
I will explain my Invention as applied to a block of two houses. We will
consider No. 1 house as facing east, ie, the ground floor sitting room facing east,
and No. 2 house as facing west, i.e., the ground floor sitting room facing west. In
this No. 1 house facing east, the front of the block, would have an entrance direct
into the sitting room or through a passage from the front, and also communication
with the back or west side of the block through a back room or passage. No. 2 house
would have a front entrance by a private passage, but no front ground floor room;
the sitting room for this No. 2 house would face the west or back, where the
garden would usually be. There would be a door communicating with the back
yard or garden of this house also. The stair-case for each of these houses would
commence from the side running across the building, and the stair case of No. 1
house would only be separated from the stair case of No. 2 house by a wall.
This arrangement in combination with the before mentioned back and front
entrances give considerable advantages in producing convenient rooms in a small
space.

page_text: Now in regard to the bed room floor, No. 2 house would be arranged to have one
front bed room facing the east, and one large or two small back bed rooms facing
the west, whereas No. 1 house would only have two bed rooms, the one facing east
and the other west; thus the advantages would be somewhat balanced, but this
could be varied considerably according to the circumstances of each particular case,
so long as the object of the Invention is not destroyed, viz., through ventilation
from east to west or back to front in each of the houses on each floor, in conjunction
with the novel arrangement of the two stair cases crosswise.
It will be thus understood that each house has a front and back entrance to
itself, with only a little more front space, i.e., the width of a passage, more than is
usually occupied by one house.
Such buildings can be arranged between two streets with inside earth closets, or,
as would generally be the case, with a garden or yard at the back of each house and
out-houses. Rows of such dwelling houses of two or more stories high on this new
principle would meet a much felt need, and they would be both economical and
healthy. This particular arrangement is also very convenient in the case of turning
two houses into one, where the No. 1 house could be used as a front shop.