Title: Great Wild Street
Subtitle: the redevelopment of a slum in Victorian London, 1875-1888
Description: This work considers the clearance of a well-established London slum by the Metropolitan Board of Works under the Artisans and Labourers Dwellings Improvement Act, 1875 and the amendment in 1879 (otherwise and better known as the 'Cross Acts').
The area that the work focuses on is Great Wild Street (which would have been locatd between the current locations of the Kingsway, Holborn and Covent Garden). It formed part of the St.Giles South sub-district of that part of London that was administered by the St. Giles-in-the-Fields District Board of Works. The redevelopment was undertaken by the Peabody Donation Trust in the early 1880s. 

The principal line of argument of the work is that the main causes of the dishousing of the working classes in London before 1875 and the attempts to ameliorate this, were of limited value in terms of rehousing in substantial numbers, those who were in need of accommodation and had occupied the sites prior to them being cleared of the dwellings, for whatever reason.

The author further contends that the Cross Act was flawed in its conception, particularly with regard to the rehousing responsibilities which it gave to the Metropolitan Board of Works and which did not explicitly require the same people who were dispossessed to be rehoused. The compensation arrangements of the Act, also allowed owners of houses which were required for redevelopment to obtain the full market value for their property even though it could be unfit for human habitation and in structural disrepair.

The author also seeks to show that the Peabody Trust, by way of its tenants selection policy, management approach and design of the Great Wild Street Estate, led to it being ‘overbuilt’ with a high density of people to the acre and in such a way that it was not only criticized for suffering from a want of sun, light and air, but that notwithstanding that its facilities were superior to what had been found in the slums, the Trust visibly failed to rehouse the dominant occupational group of the area before the site was cleared, namely costermongers, and to offer little incentive or encouragement for them to do so.

The author also provides early evidence which suggested that the design and layout of the estate, including its radical six storey height, contributed towards the continuing unhealthiness of the St. Giles South sub-district, as evidenced by the high death rate on the estate especially amongst children aged under five years (although there was also a markedly higher birth rate for the estate when compared to the average for both the Metropolis and the Peabody Estates as a whole).

Although the Trust obtained the author's permission to retain a copy of the work for information in 1999, it should be clarified that it had denied the author access to its' own records as primary source material at the time of it being written in 1988.
Places: London, Covent Garden
Time periods: 1875-1888