This dissertation has been

69-15,967
microfilmed exactly as received

STEFFEL, Richard Vladimir, 1935-

HOUSING F O R THE WORKING CLASSES IN THE
EAST END OF LONDON, 1890-1907.
The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1969
History, modern

University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan

_ Richard Vladimir Steffel 1969

© __________________________________

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 HOUSING FOR THE WORKING CLASSES IN THE

EAST END OF LONDON, 1890-1907

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate
School of The Ohio State University

j By
Rj Vladimir Steffel, A.B., B.Sc. in Ed., M.A.
* * * * * *

The Ohio State University

1969

Approved by

Adviser
Department of History
 PREPACE

The general acceptance of public responsibility

for providing decent housing for the poorer working

classes in England was a slow and recent development,

the major stimulus coming from the Pirst World War.

Attitudes of most Englishmen toward public housing

were the same before and after the war and were largely

determined by a poor law mentality as regards the

indigent, which advocated minimal government action.

Permissive legislation, nevertheless, erected a base

and the amending process strengthened the powers of

local authorities. The objective of this study is to

trace the interaction of various levels of government

and public opinion grappling with the urban crisis.

It is a case study of housing in the East End of

London, with emphasis on the role of the London County

Council from 1889 to 1907.

It has become accepted that the majority of the

working class lived in or near poverty in the 1880s and

1890s, the basic cause being underemployment. Lacking

a steady income casual laborers were forced to live in

overcrowded and substandard houses. Laissez faire and

ii
rugged individualist ideas coupled with paternalism

and philanthropy assumed that housing was outside the

legitimate domain of government. Only gradually did

government, with its more objective and nonmoralizing

attitudes* step in. The national government passed

legislation which was permissive and thus dependent on

local authority initiative. In London the County

Council attacked the slums by trying to prevent large

scale urban decay, which meant that vestries and

district boards had to be made more responsible in

exercising their authority and more responsive to the

needs of the inarticulate segments of their community.

The LCC itself moved to clear away the worst slums and

merely pursued the policy of its predecessor, the

Metropolitan Board of Works. Although the LCC worked

vigorously, its approach was on a similarly limited

scale. The question of rebuilding slum areas presented

the Council with a predicament. The majority party

advocated municipal housing, despite strong public

opposition.

The County Council thus encroached on the area of

private enterprise with its high design and structural

standards both goading and hampering private developers.

Consequently, the Council got its chance to show what

could be attained. The Council, however, soon permitted

iii
its standards to give way under the exigencies of

economics. Moreover, when it realized that slum

clearance and redevelopment scarcely made a dent in

the housing crisis, it redirected its energies to

erecting suburban estates. Finally, the County Council

grappled with other aspects of urban living, such as

transport, parks and social services. But the Council

and allied agencies did all this in piecemeal fashion

without a comprehensive plan.

If this dissertation fails to evoke the struggle

between personalities and parties or the tensions of

party factionalism, this is because this material has

not been found. And it may never be found.

From 1889 to 1899 local government in London was

divided between the London County Council and forty-one

vestries and district boards. The Council maintained

trunk roads, bridges, tunnels, main sewers and parks;

it regulated public health and housing, it supervised

places of entertainment, and established the building

code. The vestries and district boards ministered to

the needs of the poor, constructed and maintained local

sewers and streets, provided street lighting, collected

refuse, maintained parks, and erected bathhouses.

Although parliament replaced the weak Metropolitan

Board of Works in 1889 with the LCC, it omitted the

iv
vestries and district boards from the reform. There

were twenty-nine vestries and twelve district boards.

The vestries varied in population from 19,000 to

199,000 and the boards from 19,000 to almost 86,000.

In 1899 the vestries and district boards of works were

replaced by twenty-eight boroughs which inherited the

same functions. The city of London successfully

defended its freedom.

I wish to thank Prof. Philip Poirier for his

judicious advice and patience. These qualities of the

"enigmatic tsar" were invaluable in preparing the

dissertation. Thanks is due to Pro^. Clayton Roberts

for his deep interest in London housing and willing ear

on our walks around Russell Square; also to Prof.

Robert Bremner who has eclectic interests in Anglo-

American social problems.

I am especially grateful to the staffs of the

Members’ Library and the archives of the Greater London

Council. Their cooperation and extreme kindness made

my work most enjoyable. I am indebted to Mr. C. W.

Baker of the Charlwood Alliance Co. for kindly

permitting me to use the archives of the East End

Dwelling Co. I am grateful to the staffs of the

British Museum, the Public Record Office, and the

v
Institute of Historical Research, University of London.

I am also thankful to the London School of Economics

for making available the Booth Papers, and the Passfield

Trust for permission to read the Passfield Papers.

Finally, Miss Jane Gatliff and her Interlibrary Loan

staff for tracking down minuscule pamphlets and quickly

getting them to The Ohio State University.

Especial thanks go to James Addis for helping

me in the darkroom and to Lyn Shimp for carefully and

patiently typing this dissertation.

vi
 VITA

10 October 1935 Born - New York, New York

1957 A.B., Western Reserve University,

Cleveland, Ohio

1959 .......... M.A., The Ohio State University,

Columbus, Ohio

1961 .......... . B.Sc. in Ed., The Ohio State

University, Columbus, Ohio

1961-1962 . . . . Teacher, Strongsville High School,

Strongsville, Ohio

1962 ........... Graduate Assistant, Department of

Slavic Studies, The Ohio State
University, Columbus, Ohio

1963-1965 . . . . Graduate Assistant, Department of

History, The Ohio State
University, Columbus, Ohio

1965 .......... Instructor, Department of History,

The Ohio State University,
Columbus, Ohio

1966-1967 . . . . Assistant Professor, Department of

History, Dalhousie University,
Halifax, Nova Scotia

1968-1969 . . . . Instructor, Department of History,

The Ohio State University,
Columbus, Ohio

vii
 FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: History

Modern England. Professor Philip P.. Poirier

Tudor-Stuart England. Professor Clayton Roberts

Twentieth Century America. Professor Robert Bremner

United States, 1865-1900. Professor Robert Bremner

Europe, 1648-1815. Professor John Rule

viii
 TABLE OP CONTENTS

P R E F A C E ........................................ ii

V I T A ............................................ vii

LIST OP TABLES.................................. x

LIST OP F I G U R E S ................................ xi

Chapt er

I. PLIGHT OP THE WORKING C L A S S E S .......... 1

II. SLUM CONTROL............................. 29

III. SLUM CLEARANCE........................... 71

IV. MUNICIPAL HOUSING: ATTITUDES AND

ACTION THROUGH 1892 ..................... 126

V. PUBLIC HOUSING POLICY IN FLUX:

1893-1907 ................................ 161

VI. ARCHITECTURAL STANDARDS AND

PLANNING REDEVELOPMENT................... 201

VII. TOWARD COMPREHENSIVE URBAN

REDEVELOPMENT................. 254

BIBLIOGRAPHY.................................... 287

APPENDIX

STANFORD'S LONDON, 1894..................... End

Paper

ix
 LIST OP TABLES

I. Slum Clearances in Greater London,

1875-1907 124

II. Decennial Population Changes in

Metropolitan London and the Tower
Hamlets, 1801-1911 193
III. Decennial Count of Foreign Born in
Metropolitan London and the Tower
Hamlets, 1861-1901 194

IV. New Construction in the Tower Hamlets,

1892-1897 197

x
 LIST OF FIGURES

I. London, 1889 and 1964 2

II. Ann Street Scheme 80

III. Queen Catherine Court Scheme 84

IV. King John’s Court Scheme 85

V. London Terrace Scheme 89

VI. London Terrace 90

VII. Burford's Court, etc., Scheme 109

VIII. Burford's Court, etc., Scheme 110

IX. Slum Clearance in the Tower Hamlets 123

X. Brook Street Scheme 143

XI. Cable Street Scheme 150

XII. Housing in the Tower Hamlets 198

XIII. Lowood Building, Cable Street 218

XIV. Tench Street Scheme 232

XV. Beachcroft Buildings, Brook St. 239

XVI. Cranford Cottages, Brook St. 239

XVII. Dellow Building, Cable St. 240

XVIII. Winnipeg Buildings, Preston's Rd • 240

XIX. St. Lawrence Cottages, Preston's Rd. 241

XX. St. Lawrence Cottages, Preston's Rd. 241

xi
 XXI. Brightlingsea Buildings, Ropemakers
Fields 242

XXII. Boundary Street Estate 242

XXIII. Boundary Street Estate 243

XXIV. Boundary Street Estate 243

XXV. Boundary Street Scheme 245

XXVI. Boundary Street Scheme 246

XXVII. Katharine Buildings, East End

Dwelling Co. 249

XXVIII. Ravenscroft Building, East End

Dwelling Co. 249

xii
 CHAPTER I

PLIGHT OP THE WORKING CLASSES

The East End is bounded on the west by the City of

London, on the south by the river Thames, on the east by

the river Lea, and on the north by Victoria Park. This

area traditionally has been called the Tower Hamlets.

When local government was reorganized in 1964 the London

County Council boroughs of Stepney, Poplar, and Bethnal

Green were combined to form the new Greater London

Council borough of Tower Hamlets.'*' At the beginning of

the 18th century the East End had a population of 143»869.

Most of the inhabitants were clustered near the City in

an area stretching along the Thames. Gradually the people

moved eastward toward the Lea and north from the docks.

Migrants from rural England, Scotland, and Ireland

swelled the population. By mid-century the Tower Hamlets

were fairly developed and had a population of 376,265.

In 1899 fourteen parishes were consolidated to form

Stepney, Poplar was formed from three parishes, and
Bethnal Green parish was reformed as a borough. For a
map of this area in 1894 see "Stanford's Map of the County
of London" in the appendix.

1
 FI G. I

LONDON, 1889 & 1964

GREATER LONDON. 1964

CITY TOWER HAMLETS

LONDON. 1889

N)
Prom the 1840’a to the end of the 1870's migrants poured

in and with natural increase the population grew hy a

quarter of a million— from 309,012 in 1841 to 566,147 in

1881. The high mark was recorded in the 1901 census when

597,102 residents were enumerated. Gradually the popu-

2
lation receded until today there are 202,560 inhabitants.

By the 1890's the East End was over-built and densely

populated. It was partly cut up by canals and railroads.

Vacated middle class homes had been converted into

sweatshops and warehouses introduced to suit the needs of

commerce. There were dwellings in the midst of docks,

and in the shadows of shops, slaughterhouses, warehouses,

and gas works. Here lived the cheap tailors, bootmakers,

sackmakers, matchbox makers, costermongers as well as the

dock laborers. They lived close to their work and close

to the markets. Transportation from the suburbs was

inconvenient and so expensive even on workmen's trains

that few could afford the fares.

Many of the inhabitants tried to live decently and

soberly, but could not get good wages, skilled jobs, or

steady employment. Twenty shillings per week was

considered the absolute minimum for survival. A

2
Population. Decennial Census, 1851-1911, Parliamen-
tary Papers, 1852-53 [1631], LXXXV, 6-8; 1862 [^5'51,‘T ;
196; 1872 [C 676-1], LXVI, Pt. ii, 15; 1883 [C 3563], LXXIX,
3? 1893-94 [C 6948-1], CV, 3; 1902 [Cd 785], CXX, 31;
1912-13 [Cd 6258], CXI, 241. Hereinafter cited as PP.
 4

government study into the condition of the working classes

in London revealed that more than half of the dock

laborers, lightermen, carters, scavengers, navvies, etc.,

employed and unemployed, earned less than twenty-one

shillings, and another 20# were perched on the edge of

poverty earning 21 to 25 shillings a week. At the time

of this study— which appeared in 1887— 45# of these

workers were unemployed; therefore, although statistically

their wages were at the edge of poverty, their average

incomes were below the poverty line. The aristocrats of

labor were lightermen and bargemen; they easily earned up

to 40 shillings a week. The majority lived in one room

or less. Rent for 60# was under 4/- per week, and 40#

paid less than 3/-*

The plight cf the poor working classes cannot be

exaggerated. Overcrowding, insanitary conditions,

substandard or decayed housing, and high rents were the

order of the day. While the average rent per room was

2/6 to 3/- per week, many poor were crowded six to ten

into a room measuring only eight feet by ten feet.

Overcrowding was defined by the Registrar-General as more

than two persons to a room. Even two persons in one euch

room was high by any standard. In this room the family

*5
•'Condition of the Working Classes: Tabulation of
Statements, HP, 1887 [C 5228], LXXI, 332-33, 410-11,
422-23, 426-27.
 5

ate, slept, relaxed, and sometimes worked. How could a

woman keep her house clean in such an environment? She

cooked there, she washed and dried clothes there, and

everyone bathed there. Floors of softwood sometimes laid

directly on the earth v/ere difficult to scrub and if they

were rotten they were impossible. It was inhuman to

expect a woman to fight this losing battle. Add to

this the irregularity and insecurity of their incomes

from which 20 to 25$ went for rent.

Speculative builders were not in business to cater to

the poor. However, not even the housing trusts and the 5$

or semi-philanthropic housing companies alleviated these

conditions * Peabody Trust founded in 1862 and the East

End Dwelling Co. founded in 1883 erected a number of

blocks in the Tower Hamlets, but neither group success­

fully reached the poor. Their strict rules and barrack

buildings kept many for whom the tenements were intended

away. Moreover, they insisted that their tenants have a

steady income and a sober temperament. Even land cleared

by the Metropolitan Board of Works and sold to these

groups at an economic loss was insufficient to keep rents

down. The rents were too high for the original inhabit­

ants and for the poor. The Select Committee on the

Artizans' and Laborers' Dwellings Improvement Acts in

1882 reminded the Peabody Trust that its quasi-public

 6

status obliged it to assist the poorer segments of the

4
working classes.

Slum dwellers were forged from two distinct groups:

those with low incomes and society's less desirable

elements— thieves, prostitutes, and misfits. This last

group was of minor importance for slums were a convenient

haven for them from society, and they can therefore be

omitted from the discussion. It is the poor and those who

hovered at the level of subsistence who are of primary

concern here. True many did not strive to get out of the

slums. This was so because hopelessness or fatalism

became an accepted part of their life. Also many assumed

the slums were merely a temporary stop on their road to

higher standards. But it quickly became permanent due to

precarious employment, and hope gave way to despair.

Originally poverty may or may not have been a cause of

their attitudes. What was fundamental was that poverty

held them back.

The crux of the housing problem, as with most

social problems, was poverty on the one hand and

attitudes toward the poor on the other. These attitudes

changed slowly. Many believed that the source of the

Select Committee on Artizans' and Laborers'

Dwellings Improvement Acts, PP, 1882 (235), VII, x.
Hereinafter cited as SCALDI.
working classes’ misery was ignorence, immorality, and

vicious habits. The poor were improvident and

intemperate and licentious. What many moralists failed

to grasp was that crowded and overcrowded living

conditions drove men to the pub for escape and companion­

ship. As the world weighed heavily, one drink led to

another and the pub became a vice instead of a safety

valve. Insecurity led to drink; drink to poverty. It

was a vicious circle. Beatrice Potter, as a rent

collector for the East End Dwelling Co., understood why

they did not resist: they had nothing else to live for,

and though she did not moralize, she was almost ready to

prohibit drink. "The Drink demon destroys the fittest

and spares the meaner nature," she wrote in her diary in

1886; "undermines the constitution of a family, and

passes on to stronger stuff. There are times when one

loses all faith in laisser-faire [and] would suppress

this poison at all hazards, before it eats the life of

5
the nation."

The 1887 white paper presented a sample of living

conditions and income from selected districts including

St. George in the East. It underlined the uncertain

Beatrice Webb, "Diary of Beatrice Webb," X (7 Nov.

1886), 69-70. (Unpublished typescript in the Passfield
Papers at the British Library of Political and Economic
Science.)
existence of the unskilled who worked on the docks. Yet

the study concluded that earnings were understated and

rent overstated. It assumed the rent to be less than 25$

ZT
of their incomes. At this time Charles Booth was laying

the ground work of his survey which uncovered the depth of

poverty and exposed its economic causes. In spite of

these revelations, attitudes were still mixed in 1908 when

the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of

Distress received as evidence a special report from the

dioceses concluding: "in urban districts economic

conditions are to a large extent responsible for poverty,

in parishes where rural conditions prevail such poverty

7
as exists is due mainly to moral causes." The majority

report of the royal commission acknowledged that poverty

in the towns was serious and that industrial and

Q

commercial instability were the causes. Nevertheless,

^Condition of the Working Classes, PP, 1887 [C 5228],

IX3CI, 314.
7
Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of
Distress, PP, 1909 [Cd 4850], XLII, 321. Hereinafter
cited as r EFL.
Q
Majority report submitted by Lord George Hamilton,
chairman, Sir Samuel B. Provis, permanent secretary to the
Local Government Board, Prank Holdsworth Bentham, A. H.
Downes, MD, senior medical inspector for poor law purposes
to the Local Government Board, kav. Thory Gage Gardiner,
T. Hancock Nunn, Rev. L. R. Phelps, Octavia Hill, and
C. S. Loch.
"the vital issues in the problem," it claimed, were "moral

rather than economic." And the way to cure this was

through personal work, refusal of relief, or treatment in

order to "strengthen and develop self-restraint and

q
independence of character." The minority report did not

moralize,1^ It divided those in poverty into two groups—

the able bodied and the non-able bodied. In analyzing the

causes of destitution among the able bodied it isolated

underemployment as the primary cause for pauperism. Low

wages, insanitary living conditions, excessive working

hours, outdoor relief, drunkenness or excessive expend­

iture on drink were not the main causes. They were all

injurious, but if a man with low wages had steady employ­

ment there was no significant increase in pauperism. The

minority report pointed to "high earnings and short hours

and healthy conditions. . .combined with the method of

casual employment" as the major cause of "demoralization

of character, irregularity of life and a constant

recruiting of the pauper army." It concluded that this

9RCPL, PP, 1909 [Cd 4499], XXXVII, 495-96.

^ Minority report submitted by Rev. H. Russell

Wakefield, alderman and ex-mayor of St. Marylebone,
Francis Chandler, sec. to the Amalgamated Carpenters
and Joiners, George Lansbury, and Beatrice Webb.
 10

system so demoralized a man that it made him unsuited to

employment even if he could obtain i t . ^

Creeds of individualism and economic liberalism

shaped the prevailing climate of opinion for much of the

19th century. Any interference by the state was inter­

preted as compulsion and collectivism. The prevailing

view of poverty in these years was pessimistic. It was

a permanent aspect of society. The state coald not

alter or change the worker's lot. Any change in his

condition had to be personal. This could be assisted by

inculcating in the laboring poor the virtues of self-

reliance, self-discipline, and thrift. If need for

charity arose then it was to be administered on an

individual basis. Only the deserving poor were to

benefit from philanthropy, the undeserving would have

access to the work house. Outstanding exponents of this

view were Octavia Hill, Charles Stewart Loch, and Helen

Bosanquet. To them the source of failure lay in

individual character not in any deficiencies of the

social system. Although they refused to question the

causes of poverty, they were willing to rationalize

the machinery for dispensing aid to those in distress.

During the last quarter of the 19th century this

philosophy came increasingly under attack. The "Great

1:LRCPL, PP, 1909 [Cd 4499], XXXVII, 1173 and 1177.

Depression,” 1873-96, with its recurring business crises,

undermined the optimistic belief in continued economic

progress. Increased competition from industrializing

countries which had been former customers and growing

tariff barriers led to serious doubts about England’s

free trade policy. The matchbox girls' strike in 1888

drew public attention to the evils of sweated labor. The

gas workers' strike of 1888 and the dockers' of 1889 were

a fillip to industrial unionism and reformers.

Collectivist solutions to social and economic problems

now had a more receptive audience. Reformers questioned

the basic assumptions on which capitalism rested and

insisted that new foundations were imperative. Their

position gained strength from continued investigations

into the condition of the working class. As knowledge

of the causes and extent of destitution accumulated

individualism and laissez faire were countered sharply.

Gradually parliament responded to the changing situation

and enacted legislation to ameliorate the workers' lot.

Not only did a more realistic view of the causes of

poverty emerge, but it also had become apparent that bad

housing contributed directly to ill health and poverty.

The condition of the people had been questioned earlier

in the 19th century. Southwood Smith, Edwin Chadwick,

and Lord Shaftesbury struggled for sanitary improvement

and better housing. Smith and Chadwick aimed at improved

 12

public health and administrative efficiency, while

Shaftesbury was moved by Christian charity. Southwood

Smith, a sanitary inspector, in his 1838 and 1839 reports

to the Poor Law Commissioners revealed the filthy and

cramped quarters in which East Enders lived. Together

with Chadwick, secretary to the Poor Law Commissioners,

he argued for sanitary reform for dwelling houses. They

wanted better garbage collection, sewers and surface

draining, and widened and ventilated streets. Only through

better housing conditions, they said, could sickness be

12
reduced and poor law expenditures minimized. The

immediate results of this agitation were the Nuisance

Removal Acts. Local authorities were empowered to deal

with premises, ditches, cesspools, urinals, and

accumulations that were nuisances or injurious to health.

Eighty years after Smith's revelations the connection

between health, housing and poverty was still a subject

of inquiry. One of the key reports submitted to the

Royal Commission on the Poor Law concerned itself with

this problem. Arthur D. Steel-Maitland and Rose E.

Squire, factory inspectors, had studied key industries,

12
S. E. Finer, The Life and Times of Sir Edwin
Chadwick (London, 1952)» pp. 210-11, 224-25; Fourth
Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, PP, 1837-38
[147]» XXVIII, App. A; Fifth Annual Report o f T h e Poor
Law Commissioners, PP, 1839 (239)» XX, App. C.
 13

changing industrial requirements, unemployment, and

housing in the East End. Although they concluded that

slum housing was a secondary cause of pauperism, they

noted that slums were incubators and disseminators of

disease. Lung tuberculosis was the most debilitating

and spread rapidly among the poor in crowded tenements

and sweated workshops, especially in the footwear

13
industry.

Specific housing legislation had been passed in

1851. In that year Lord Shaftesbury pushed through two

acts. The Laboring Classes Lodging Houses Act

empowered local authorities to erect housing for the

working classes, and the Common Lodging House Act

provided for better management and inspection of common

lodging houses. The Shaftesbury acts were rarely

implemented and in metropolitan London they were not

applied at all. Nevertheless, parliament continued to

attack the problem by legislating more permissive

legislation. The Nuisance Removal Acts were consoli­

dated and expanded in 1855, and the Sanitary Act of

1866 designated overcrowding as a nuisance.

Then via the Torrens Act and the Cross Act parliament

legislated against individual substandard dwellings and

13RCPL, PP, 1909 [Cd 4653], XLIII, 7, 23, 181

 14

empowered local authorities to clear and rebuild slums.

Under the Torrens Act of 1868 property owners could be

required to alter structurally or to demolish a dwelling

which was dangerous to the health of its occupants. If

the owner refused to implement an order then the local

authority could do it at his expense. An amending act

in 1879 extended the definition to include buildings

which obstructed courts and alleys, and in 1882 buildings

obstructing other dwellings. Moreover, local authorities

were empowered in 1879 to erect working class dwellings

and in 1882 could deal with small groups of houses.

However, with the Cross Act of 1875, the Torrens

Act fell into abeyance. In London the Cross Act

delegated authority to the Metropolitan Board of Works.

Local medical officers of health and vestry or District

Board of Work officials were required to report to the

MBW any area in need of rearrangement and reconstruction

because the buildings were structurally defective or so

arranged as to be injurious to the health of the

inhabitants. To expedite slum clearance parliament in

1879 permitted other sites to be used for housing, and in

1882 it empowered the Home Secretary to reduce the

Artizans and Laborers Dwelling Act, 1868 (31 & 32

Viet.), c. 76; Artizans and Laborers Dwellings Act (1868)
Amendment Act, 1879 (42 & 43 Viet.), c. 64; Artizans
Dwelling Act, 1882 (45 & 46 Viet.), c. 54, pt. II.
 15

rehousing obligation up to 50$ of the original number of

inhabitants. It also tightened the law's compensation

clauses
In spite of this legislation no substantial gains

were achieved in the East End or in metropolitan London.

Both acts were permissive and most officials were

unwilling to employ them. Deploring the local author­

ities' unwillingness to use the Torrens Act, the Select

Committee on Artizans' and Laborers' Dwellings Improve­

ment Acts cited it as an excellent tool to improve

property without further aggravating overcrowding. The

Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes

in 1884 cited the Metropolitan Board of Yforks for not

exercising its powers when local authorities defaulted

16
in applying the Torrens Act. On the other hand, the

MBW was not as responsive as it could have been because

it represented the vestries and district boards, not the

people.

On the eve of the great waves of immigration from

Eastern Europe the public and parliament began to question

15
'Artizans and Laborers Dwellings Improvement Act,
1875 (38 & 39 Viet.), c. 36; Artizans and Laborers
Dwellings Improvement Act, 1879 (42 & 43 Viet.), c. 63;
Artizans Dwelling Act, 1882 (45 & 46 Viet.), c. 54, pt. I.

16SCALDI, PP, 1882 (235), VII, xi. Royal Commission

on the Housing o? the Working Classes, 1884-85, PP,
[C 4402], XXX, 22. Hereinafter cited as RCHWC.
 16

the efficacy of the Torrens and Cross Acts. Fortnightlies,

daily newspapers, pamphleteers, a select committee, and a

royal commission investigated the housing problem. It

seemed as if overnight the question had become vital.

No longer was there singing praise in unison to private

enterprise and no longer was there unanimous optimism.

Private enterprise was unable to provide housing at

prices laborers could afford. Various philanthropic

17
efforts had tried to fill the gap without success.

Men wanted to know the causes of these failures and the

ineffectiveness of legislation.

It became fashionable for West Bnders to go slumming

in the East End. Toynbee Hall was founded in 1883 and a

number of university settlements followed. Lord

Salisbury, Joseph Chamberlain, and Richard A. Cross, as

prominent contributors to the journals of opinion, all

complained that nothing had been done for the poorest

1 ft
classes. The most influential pamphlet to focus on

slums was "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London.” The

17
William Ashworth, Genesis of Modern British Town
Planning (London, 1954), Chapter IV.
1ft
Lord Salisbury, "Labourers' and Artizans’
Dwellings,” The National Review, II (1883), 301-16;
Joseph Chamberlain, *'Labourers' and Artisans' Dwellings,"
The Fortnightly Review. XXXIV (1883), 761-76; Richard
Assheton Cross* hHomes of the Poor," The Nineteenth
Century. XV (1884), 150-66.
 17

pamphleteer's concern was the lack of religion among

the lowest classes and their drift away from the rest

of society. He summarized and dramatized the conditions

in which the poor lived. The Pall Mall Gazette seized

upon this work and asked: "Is it not Time?" It

reprinted part of the pamphlet and did a serial feature

on slums. Week after week front page articles and

editorials appeared. Just when the issue seemed dead

or lost as in the Egyptian-Sudan crisis, the PMG

19
revived it.

A positive contribution from the PMG’s sensationalism

was the calling of the Royal Commission on the Housing

of the Working Classes, 1884-85. Por newsworthiness

it was no match to Gordon and Khartoum. In spite of

its outstanding membership the RCHWC did not advocate

20
radical solutions or realize great gains. It

retraced many of the steps of the SCALDI and it redram­

atized the plight of the working classes. All members

19Pall Mall Gazette, 16 Oct. 1883-4 Peb. 1884.

20
Membership of the RCHWC: Charles Dilke, chairman,
Prince Edward, Cardinal Manning, Marquess of Salisbury,
George Goschen, Richard A. Cross, E. L. Stanley, William
Torrens, Henry Broadhurst, Jesse Coilings, Samuel Morley,
Earl Brownlaw, Lord Carrington, George Godwin, and
William Walsham, the Bishop of Bedford.
 18

signed the majority report and then submitted memos which

reflected their attitudes toward housing. None questioned

local government's responsibility in slum clearance.

The Marquess of Salisbury thought that owners were

responsible for insanitary property which resulted from

structural defects and that they should be authorized to

re-enter their property and improve it. Goschen, Stanley,

and Morley went further than the report's calling for

reform of London government and pleaded for a new

metropolitan government with powers to inspect and

rigidly enforce the sanitary laws. Salisbury placed

faith in the operation of the laws of supply and demand

end in the expansion of London's suburbs to relieve

pressures on central London. Goschen, Stanley, and

Morley hedged. They firmly believed that private enter­

prise was the source for additional housing, so they did

not want to frighten it. On the other hand, they

admitted that municipal housing had its place when

erected on cleared sites. Their apprehensions were that

municipal housing would create false hopes among

Londoners; it would dry up private capital, and there

would be difficulties in merging public and private

enterprise.

Jesse Collings with Broadhurst, Morley, Cardinal

Manning, Lord Carrington, and the Bishop of Bedford dealt

with the question of rents. They held that rents in

 19

central London were not established by the normal

operation of the law of supply and demand. Force of

circumstance, not choice, determined whether many lived

in the metropolis. The only way to reduce rents was to

21
provide more housing.

The importance of the royal commission was that for

a moment it focused the public's attention on the slum

problem. The dramatic visits by Prince Edward and Dilke

into London’s dark and dank slums moved many consciences.

Regardless, the nation quickly tried to forget its

seamy world and assumed that this social problem would

resolve itself. The public did not want to face up to

the helplessness of the poor.

No one had any conception of the depth and breadth

of urban poverty until Charles Booth made his seminal

study. Charles Booth, skeptical of the speculative

talk of poverty, launched the first impartial study of

life and labor in London. His pilot project covered

the East End districts of today's Stepney and Poplar.

He was astounded by what he discovered, and it took

him time to grasp the full significance. 35$ of east

London's population lived on the edge or in poverty,

and any illness or unemployment could easily increase

21RCHWC, PP, 1884-85 [C 4402], XXX, 60-67

the percentage. He was disturbed with "so much savagery

as there is, and so much abject poverty, and so many

who can never raise their heads much above the level of

actual want." However, Booth was optimistic: the

situation was serious, yet it was "not visibly fraught

with imminent social danger, or leading straight to

revolution." He assured the reader that "we can afford

to be calm, and give to attempts at improvement the

time and patience which are absolutely needed if we are

22
to do any good at all." This pilot study and his 17

volumes convinced the skeptics that poverty and slums

existed on a grand scale. The poorest and most crowded

sections in the East End were Bethnal Green, St. George

in the East, Poplar and Limehouse. The percentage of

poverty in each was 47.0$, 44.8$, and 37.6$ respectively,

and the percentage of crowding— defined as two or more

persons per room— was 55.0$, 53.7$, and 33.5$

23
respectively.

Ten years later B. Seebohm Rowntree carried out a

similar survey in York and revealed that comparable

degree of poverty existed in the provinces. In addition

22
Charles Booth, Condition and Occupations of the
People of the Tower Hamlets, 18b6-b7 (t/ondon, IB87T» P. 6.
23Charles Booth. Life and Labour of the People of
London (London, 1902), 5*inal Volume, p. 25.
to his study, the declining physical standards of

volunteers during the Boer War revived the question of

health, housing, and national interest. Little was

done for housing, however. The issue was raised in the

House of Lords in 1901. The conservative government

was reluctant to propose any bill because of war costs.

Lord Salisbury’s reply to criticism was to cite the

activity of private enterprise and local government in

improving working class housing. He stressed that

parliament must rely mainly on private enterprise rather

than municipalities. He advocated taking more time and

gathering more information rather than "relying too much

upon novel, and you may say illegitimate, methods.

Although almost ten years had passed since the

London County Council embarked on municipal housing and

almost thirty years since major slum clearance had begun,

scarcely enough was achieved. As the Earl of Portsmouth

noted: since the royal commission's inquiry "little or

nothing has been done by Parliament, and whatever has

25
been done. . .has been done by the County Council."

A substantial portion of the public in the 1900s viewed

municipal housing with a "poor law" mentality. Any help

24
House of Lords, Parliamentary Debates, 4th series,
8 March 1901, pp. 1013-15.

25Ibid., p. 998.
 22

to the poor was merely temporary, it was a subsidy of

wages, and it was a sign of personal failure. For

example, Ernest R. Dewsnup, a former Mancunian and

professor of railway economics at the University of

Chicago, staunchly favored slum control and slum

clearance. He repudiated laissez faire arguments

against government participation in these areas. He

maintained that the government’s responsibility was to

promote the general welfare of the community. However,

he refused to support municipal housing because people

did not appreciate it. Furthermore, he claimed it

destroyed self-reliance, it had pauperizing influences,

and it was a subsidy of wages which actually subsidized

26
employers.

Migration to the suburbs was another approach to

the housing problem. While metropolian London struggled

with slum control and slum clearance, parliament in

1883 passed the Cheap Train Act. The select committee

in 1882 had recommended that all railway companies be

regulated by conditions similar to those imposed on the

Great Eastern Railway. Workmen's trains, it was convinced,

would facilitate the flow into the suburbs. The report

of the royal commission in 1885 reiterated those

26
E. R. Dewsnup, The Housing Problem in England
(Manchester, 1907), pp. 2l6, 224-7 243-44.
recommendations. It hoped that substantial migration

would relieve the pressure on land and rooms in central

London. As population pressure diminished, the govern­

ment could ease its insistence on rehousing in central

London, and the cleared land could be used more

economically. There were visions of thousands of

workmen being rushed in and out of London daily. And

there were pictures of healthier and happier working

class families living in a rustic environment.

For those with steady and well paying ;jobs this was

feasible. But for many in the East End it was incon­

ceivable. Temporary employment, irregular hours,

necessity to be on hand when work was available,

domestic workshops, and poor wages made it impossible

to leave. This was true in the docks, footwear,

tailoring, and woodwork industries. Even if transport

were scheduled conveniently, when rail fares were added

to rents, the laborer financially was where he started.

True he got greater value for his money, but he was in

short supply of that commodity, too.

By 1900 public opinion was sure that suburban

development would solve the problem of overcrowding and

cut the costs of slum clearance. Peabody Trust and the

Artisans’, Laborers' and General Dwelling Co., for

example, had already shifted to building on the outskirts.

 24

Even the County Council switched its policy and placed

greater emphasis on erecting new estates. Yet progress

was slow.

In 1905 the Royfcl Commission on London Traffic

reported on the relation of transport to housing. It

concluded that slow and imperfect transport made the

evils affecting social and economic problems quite

serious. It also concluded that "in the interests of

public health and publie convenience, and for the prompt

transaction of business, as well as to render decent

housing possible, that the means of locomotion and

transport. . .should be improved." A large number of

workers did not need to live in the densely populated

areas, but cheap and efficient transport was essential.

It added that if private enterprise did not construct

the needed railways then local authorities should be

authorized to do so, for this would be cheaper and

healthier in the long run. Housing in central London

involved a loss, while suburban estates were self

27' Not everyone on the commission was
supporting.

convinced that suburban housing was cheap and helped

relieve overcrowding. Sir Joseph G. Dimsdale cited

the London County Council estate in Tottenham and noted

27
Royal Commission on London Transport, PP, 1905
[Cd 2597], XXX, 6-11, 103, 104.
 25
that after rents and rates were paid the price was so

high that the poor could not afford them. Neither did

he agree with the testimony of W. E. Riley, LCC architect,

that further rail extention would help the poor. While

Dimsdale denounced the fallacy that suburban housing

would aid the poor, George C. T. Bartley protested

pQ
against subsidizing either housing or transport.

Cheap and efficient transport was an essential

aspect of the housing problem. More crucial, however,

was the question of local government. The enforcement

of legislation fell on the vestries and district boards.

Unfortunately local officials represented only the

affluent segments of society; and they were hesitant and

expected the Metropolitan Board of Works to fulfill

their housing duties. The Metropolitan Board itself

was not very efficient and even less representative of

the public. Its membership was elected by the vestries

and district boards of works and it tended to represent

their individual vested interests. The ineffectiveness

of the Metropolitan Board was condemned by some of the

members of the Royal Commission on Housing the Working

Classes. London, they argued, needed a representative

government which had the public's confidence. Only then

og
Royal Commission on London Transport, PP, 1905
[Cd 2597], XXX, 112, 121; Proceedings of the IToyal
Commission on London Transport, PP, 1906 [Cd 2751],
XL, 262.
would it inspect dwellings and enforce the sanitary

laws.29 Similar arguments were advanced in the

newspapers and fortnightlies. The impetus for reform

came with the exposure of corruption. In 1889 London

was reorganized and the County Council superceded the

Metropolitan Board. While the London County Council

was elected directly by the electorate, it was not

until 1894 that the vestries and district boards were

made more representative, and they were not restructured

until 1899.30
The Council lived up to the expectations of the

reformers. Soon after its creation the LCC launched

a campaign to modify and consolidate the various housing

acts. Slum clearance and rebuilding was scattered under

a half dozen different laws with different objectives,

different definitions, and different obligations.

Areas could be cleared and housing built under the

Torrens Act, the Cross Act, the Street Improvement Acts,

29RCHWC, PP, 1884-85 [C 4402], XXX, 38, 66-67, 80.

30
The structure of London government from 1855, when
the Metropolitan Board of Works was established, was two
tier. The vestries and district boards were closest to
the people and responsible for poor relief, sanitation,
sewage, and streets. Above them was the Metropolitan
Board of Works which was responsible for roads, bridges
sewers, and housing problems that were of metropolitan
importance.
the Laboring Classes Lodging House Act, and special

legislation for the railway companies. In addition,

rehousing obligations were set out in standing orders

of parliament and the London County Council. If the

hope of government was to be fulfilled then consolidation

and modification was imperative. With the passage of the

Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, the County

Council energetically threw itself into slum control and

clearance. It also increased pressure on local

authorities to rely on themselves and to utilize their

powers rather than expect the LCC solely to cope with

insanitary and substandard housing.

There was no single solution to the plight of the

working classes. Higher and steadier wages, regular

employment and regulated hours of work, as well as

improved and cheap transportation would place better

housing within reach of London laborers, especially

East Enders. Legislation limited some of the precar­

iousness of life, but this rarely affected the poor.

Only substantially modified attitudes would permit

direct public aid to hard core poverty.

In the period from 1880 to 1907 Londoners accepted

government involvement in slum control, clearance, and

rehousing, and in the provision of parks, playgrounds,

schools, and social centers. Private enterprise and

philanthropy were not excluded, in fact, they were

continually encouraged, but they lacked financial and

legal resources necessary for urban redevelopment.

Londoners, however, were unwilling to tax themselves

and so restrained the County Council from launching

too many projects. They were convinced that the

national government needed only to legislate and to

lend money. But attitudes were changing faster than

anyone realized and in ten years the treasury was to

accept limited responsibility.

 CHAPTER II

SLUM CONTROL

As thousands of Englishmen herded into the cities,

they put undue pressures on existing housing facilities.

Dwellings originally constructed for single family

occupancy now had multi-tenancy. It was one thing to

live in a one room cottage in the country and another

to occupy one or two rooms of a house where there were

already two or three other families. There were rural

slums; however, in the country sanitation, although

primitive, was not critical; fresh air was in abundance;

and the children had fields to play in. Consider for a

moment how these evils multiplied in the city: single

family houses converted improperly meant there was less

air, less floor space, and fewer sanitary conveniences

per person. Lacking accessible parks the children

turned the streets into playgrounds. The result was

obvious: greater noise and nuisance for adults and a

questionable paradise for the children. Houses were

rarely refitted with sanitary facilities for the

increased numbers. Cesspools overflowed in the backyards.

Sewers were poorly connected, some drained back into the

29
 30

houses; in fact, some street sewers were an engineering

triumph— they ran up hill. And there were the mean

by-law streets, sometimes built on top of incorrectly

settled sewage dumps.

Slum filth was not hidden in a few corners of the

metropolis. It was visible to anyone who looked and a

direct threat to his health and tranquility. Londoners

groped for a means to prevent and clear slums. As they

felt their way they realized that the two essentials

were continuous control and will. Permissive legis­

lation which defined sanitary nuisances had not whisked

them away. Prevention and effective control demanded

inspection, enforcement, and compulsory power to improve

or demolish dwellings. It required money to pay

salaries and to purchase property. And it demanded a

will to act, supported by public opinion. Even private

landlords who had continual control could exercise their

authority only within limits.1

Pioneers in tackling the modern industrial housing

problems were Edwin Chadwick, Southwood Smith, James

Philip Kay-Shuttleworth, and Lord Shaftesbury. They

uncovered the problem, defined it, directed the public's

attention to it. They created the Victorian virtue of

1Donald Olsen, Town Planning in London (New Haven,

1964), Ch. 7.
 31
"cleanliness next to godliness." They took the first

long overdue steps to tackle this serious situation.

Cholera epidemics punctuated the urgency. Once the

immediate crisis passed society quickly returned to its

usual complacency. Legislation was essentially

permissive, local authorities were lax either because

of attitude, interpretation, or costs.

The important work in the '50s, '60s, and '70s

was undertaken by Lady Burdett-Coutts for philanthropic

purposes, by Octavia Hill to prove the feasibility of

improved property management, and by Sydney Waterlow

for profit, and by professional medical officers of

health like John Simon and Hector Gavin. Their firm

conviction that poverty could not be eradicated did

not prevent them from trying to improve the habits and

standards of the poor. They were determined to alleviate

poverty, raise morality, as well as improve housing—

all while making a profit. This was a tall order.

They accomplished it, but only on a limited scale. Their

work demanded individuals with strong personalities

who imposed on the poor the value of cleanliness and

orderliness, and the importance of obeying rules in

urban housing and tenements.

Parliamentarians like Torrens and Cross advanced

on slums with remedial legislation. Their solutions—

 32

abatement, improvement, or demolition— were also based

on voluntary action by vestries and district boards.

Such legislation had no teeth to compel local authorities.

They refused to act so long as it meant spending money

from which the ratepayers received no direct benefit.

And when the Metropolitan Board of Works was delegated

power to act in default of the local authorities it too

shrank from enforcing the law. Prom twenty years'

experience grew the gradual recognition that rigorous

inspection was essential and compulsion a necessity.

The growth of legislation to prevent slums came in

fits of energy and periods of moral atonement inter­

spersed with large stretches of apathy. Its basic

aim was to raise the physical health of the community.

The rules were scattered among a half dozen pieces of

legislation and amendments thereto. The laws placed

permissive powers on the local authorities. The

mechanism of implementation looked simple on paper yet

was difficult to carry out. Local civic pride, more

often than not, was the chief reason for implementing

legislation.

The foundations for improving the working class

environment were the Nuisance Eemoval and Sanitary

Acts, the Torrens Acts, and the Cross Acts. The

Nuisance Removal Act of 1855 defined a nuisance as

 33

premises injurious to health; the Sanitary Act of 1866

added overcrowding. The Torrens Acts, 1868 to 1882,

were concerned with houses that were dangerous to health

due to structural defects. If individual buildings were

repaired then they could be inhabited, but if alterations

and improvements were impossible then the buildings had

to be demolished. The Cross Acts, 1875-82, dealt with

slum clearance rather than control. These laws aimed at

getting minimum structural standards: they specified

that dwellings be repaired, stable, and free from

dampness; that they have sufficient natural light and

ventilation; and that there be proper drainage and

removal of wastes and garbage. They insisted that the

neighborhood did not have an undue number of offensive

trades and that factories did not belch soot into the

air. They even recognized the detriment of over­

crowding though avoided the question of crowding. In

1875 parliament consolidated the sanitary and nuisance

removal acts into the Public Health Act for England

and Wales. It judiciously omitted London which did not

get a consolidating act until 1891. The confusion,

consequently, enabled the vestries and district boards

to dodge their duties adroitly.

Excitement and hope rang through the air in the

1880s. Important blue books on the state of working

 34

class housing were produced. The 1890s followed with

intensive administration, and with more active government

participation in slum problems. Action replaced words.

Action focused on specific evils which had been so

grimly depicted in the bluebooks.

Both the select committee of 1881 and 1882 and the

royal commission on housing pinpointed the evils:

cumbersome laws, outrageously expensive compulsory

purchases of condemned property, complicated legal

procedures, and failure of authorities to act. The

1885 law cheapened costs. In the late 1880s the Home

Office investigated the sanitary conditions in Mile

End Old Town and in Bethnal Green. That Bethnal Green

had some of the worst properties in the East End and

that it refused to take action can not be denied. Long

before the LGB inquiry the inhuman conditions were

exposed. Back in 1838 Southwood Smith and again in

1848 Hector Gavin depicted the insanitary dwellings

in Old Nichol and adjacent streets. Then the Eastern

Argus reported that children slept in a lean-to on the

bare earth in the Mount Street area; and to get to the

top floor of some dwellings one had to descend into the

basement first. Thi3 condition was well known to the

vestry, nevertheless, the sanitary committee did not

act because as Mr. Norris, a vestryman, said, "they

 35
2
seemed afraid of giving offence to the owners." At the

inquiry into the sanitary condition of Bethnal Green,

Norris disgusted some investigators with his testimony.

He had the audacity to assure them that the buildings

in Old Nichol Street were still in "fair condition"

considering their type. Norris continually frustrated

the sanitary work of the vestry’s sanitary committee.

When Bethnal Green finally did resolve to institute

periodic house inspections, he first demanded proof of

insanitary property and neglect. Curiously, in another

instance, after successful action had been taken, Norris

4
charged that the delay was caused by interests. Thus,

one person like Norris, in a powerful position, could

frustrate any activity. It is surprising that there

was any progress.

Fifty years after Chadwick's work, London once

again became the center for ideas in urban problems.

During the interval provincial cities had blazed the

path. In part London’s ineffectiveness can be blamed

on its government. Metropolitan London had no

^Eastern Argus, 20 Oct. 1883.

3
The Sanitary Condition of Bethnal Green. Verbatim
Report of 'the Government Inquiry. 7 Nov. 1807# P. 75.

^Eastern Argus, 30 Nov. 1889 and 9 June 1894.

self-government and was not united. It was governed by

self styled urban squires. The Metropolitan Board of

Works, created in 1855, was purposely limited in power

and protected vested local interests. Only in the late

eighties did it get a reformed and vibrant central

government which willingly faced modern urban growth.

Another part of the blame falls squarely on local

officials. Vestries and district boards consistently

refused to enforce the law beyond token levels and

rarely took advantage of the permissive powers to write

stringent by-laws. They lacked will even when their

vigorous medical officers of health and sanitary

inspectors reported appalling cases. Moreover, even

public spirited inspectors could not do the job

thoroughly, properly or frequently enough to achieve a

degree of effectiveness. There were not enough of them.

Finally magistrates accepted a fresh coat of whitewash

as evidence of repair.

Creation of urban self-government in London was

not the cure-all that many reformers predicted. Money

was raised solely by rates with no direct contribution

from the national treasury for purchase or remodeling.

This narrow base, which was governed by a self-help

philosophy, created a precarious situation. The County

Council, however, did go a long way toward laying a

foundation for slum control and decent housing. It was

conscious that the majority of Londoners depended on

sanitary inspection to enforce minimum housing standards.

It censured local authorities which neglected their

sanitary responsibilities by understaffing, and which

refused to seek closing and demolition orders— the only

effectual remedy for jerry-built dwellings. It attacked

overcrowding. It counselled local authorities to use

initiative. It continually put pressure on local offi­

cials to use part II of the Housing of the Working Classes

Act rather than depend on the LCC. It induced parliament

to consolidate housing and public health legislation.

And it reviewed vestry activities, published reports,

mobilized public opinion, and appealed to the Home

Office and the Local Government Board.

In order to advance on the forces of entrenchment

the LCC's Housing of the Working Classes Committee

requested information on insanitary areas or groups of

houses from all its councilmen and aldermen, from

members of parliament for the metropolis, and from any

organization that could conceivably be involved with the

5
working classes. It also directly challenged the

5
London County Council, Housing of the Working
Classes Committee, Minutes, I (3 Feb. 1890), 400 and 405.
A few of the other organizations are the Charity Organi­
zation Society, London School Board managers, ministers of
religion, East London Church Fund, and Bishop of London's
fund. Hereinafter cited as LCC, HWCC, Minutes.
 38

•'vested interests of filth" hy applying for concurrent

powers to enforce sanitary and housing legislation.

In the LCC Minutes of Proceeding is a perfect example

of purposeful incompetence which enabled private

selfishness to triumph over public welfare. A vestry

medical officer condemned an area. The vestry directed

its surveyor to make an independent report. The vestry

then chose the surveyor's report rather than the medical

officer’s "presumably because that course happened to

suit the pockets of the owners, one of whom was a

vestryman.

Parliament, induced by the London County Councils,

consolidated the acts related to working class dwellings

in 1890 and the sanitary and nuisance removal acts

related to London in 1891. Armed with strengthened

legislation the LCC moved against inactive and

irresponsible local officials. It pressed them into

taking the initiative and responsibility of enforcing

the acts. Under the Public Health (London) Act, 1891,

one half of the salaries of sanitary inspectors was

payable by the Council, which was reimbursed by the

^London County Council, Minutes of Proceedings,

(22 April I890), 311. Hereinafter ciied as LtlC, MP.
 39
7
Exchequer. The vestries responded slowly. Only under

the combined pressure of the LCC, the Mansion House

Q
Council on Dwellings for the Poor, the Jewish Board of

Guardians, and the newspapers did the vestries appoint

more sanitary inspectors. In 1887 the Tower Hamlets had

12 sanitary inspectors. This gradually rose to 25 in

1894 and then to 36 in 1901. And the number of inspectors

Q
stayed around 36 through 1907. Looking at this in

terms of average population per inspector, there were

48,400 people per inspector in 1887 compared to 15,700

in 1907. This was a substantial change.

While the increase in inspectors was significant,

it was far from enough because the working classes were

not responsible for the structural faults and the

uncleanliness which resulted. Sanitary conveniences

were the first to break down and create nuisances. If

toilets were not in the basements they were found in the

back yards. The Pall Mall Gazette in 1884 described a

7LCC, MP, (1 Aug. 1893), 890; Public Health, (London)

Act, 1891, 5T & 55 Viet., ch. 56, sec. 108.
8
The Mansion House Council was organized under the
auspices of the Lord Mayor of London in response to
"The Bitter Cry of Outcast London." Its local committees
investigated complaints and inspected insanitary, poorly
contructed, and overcrowded dwellings in metropolitan
London.
g
Mansion House Council on the Dwellings of the Poor,
Annual Reports for 1887 and 1898; London County Council,
London Siatisiics, V (1894-95), 593-94; XIV (1903-1904),
178-85; XVIII (1907-08), 106.
 40

typical yard as "only big enough to swing a cat in” and

surrounded by walls so high that it actually was a shaft

to carry the odors up into the houses Unfortunately

the shortage of inspectors limited visits to once in

three years when property should have been inspected at

least twice a year. The East London Observer in 1901

called for "an army of inspectors who shall make through­

out the east end housing conditions alike, so that

because the poor won't live under insanitary conditions

they shall not be driven out.""^

The ICC in 1893 undertook to implement its by-law

responsibilities in order "to raise the standard of

private and public sanitation." It solicited and

incorporated the suggestions of local sanitary author­

ities, the Sanitary Institute, the Royal Institute of

British Architects, Institute of Surveyors, and the

12
Incorporated Society of Medical Officers of Health.

The local officials, on the other hand, either defaulted

or passed meaningless by-laws regulating common lodging

houses. Henry Jephson, a member of the LCC, excused

1QPall Mall Gazette. 4 Feb. 1884.

^ Sast London Observer, 24 Aug. 1901.

12LCC, MP, (1 Aug. 1893), 889.

 41

the Council and indicted the Local Government Board.

The LGB had circulated very weak model by-laws. Most

vestries adopted by-laws with discretionary clauses

which left it optional to require registration. Further­

more, the Council had no voice in framing these by-laws

to control tenements or lodging houses. Consequently,

the LCC lacked legal power to enforce the rules and the
13
right to make a representation to the LGB. ^ Interestingly

enough when A. L. Leon, of the LCC and Limehouse District

Board, suggested that Limehouse District Board require

registration of every house with more than one family,

the Bast London Advertiser said that this was drastic

action which meant 851

° of the houses. And although it

was a step in the right direction the newspaper was

14
glad the district board did not act.

At special joint meetings the County Council

impressed upon the vestry authorities their obligations

under the recently consolidated legislation. Council

officials also informed them that the LCC would use its

residual powers under section 45 of the Housing of the

Working Classes Act and section 100 of the Public Health

(London) Act to close uninhabitable and obstructive

13
"Henry Jephson, The Sanitary Bvolution of London
(London, 1907), pp. 377-78.

^ E a s t London Advertiser, 18 Feb. 1899.

 42
15
dwellings if they defaulted. ' It seems that the County

Council never had recourse to its residual powers in the

East End. However, its pressure on local officials was

effective in instances. Poplar gave immediate attention

to insanitary property between East India Dock Road and

High Street. In seven months the Housing of the

Working Classes Committee reported that many houses

were demolished and others were receiving attention.

To simplify obligatory communication of action taken,

tabular forms were provided to the local medical

officers. The local authorities diligently filed these

reports. By September 1891 they had represented 1,247

houses in the county as unfit for human habitation and

four as obstructive; of these 449 were in the Tower

Hamlets and the four obstructive buildings were in

17
Mile End Old Town. More than one-third of the houses

were in the East End; yet this fell short of the need.

East London newspapers from time to time discussed

the sanitary condition of the area. While Whitechapel

District Board of Works proudly claimed that its

15LCC, MP, (17 Feb. 1891), 183; and (13 Jan. 1891),
6-8.
16LCC, HWCC, Minutes I (31 Mar. 1890), 471; and
(13 Oct. 1890), 59TI

17LCC, MP, (28 July 1891), 879? and (3 Nov. 1891),

1106.
 43
sanitary condition was never better, the Bast London

Advertiser noted that "numerous courts and alleys

require ventilation, illumination, and sanitation

lft
prior to their complete demolition." On another

occasion it pointed to 50 years of sanitary work which

left derelict buildings standing so that men had a

place to escape from the cold. In one abandoned

building nex;t to the Salvation Army shelter, for

example, "the body of a dead man was found there

19
gnawed away by rats." In another instance the Bast

End News cited court testimoney by W. C. Steadman; he

20
depicted a house as "not fit for a dog to live in."

Around 1900 both the Housing of the Working

Classes Committee and the Home Office became concerned

with the decline in closing orders. The Housing of the

Working Classes Committee launched an inquiry to

discover the causes for the drop in closing and

demolition orders and what could be done to stimulate

new activity. It diagnosed the symptoms as judicial

reluctance to implement the law. This hindrance to

enforcement was substantiated with evidence from an

ip
East London Advertiser, 16 Nov. 1889.

19Ibid.t 15 April 1893.

20
Bast End News. 15 April 1893.
 44

inquiry into local authority procedures. Poplar, for

example, never used part II of the Housing of the Working

Classes Act, it always preferred the Public Health

21
(London) Act. This presumably was because it was

easier to take legal action; if the person who caused the

nuisance was unknown then either the owner or occupier

could be cited. Also closing orders did not have to be

followed up with demolition orders. The Mansion House

Council noted that what one magistrate condemned another

exempted because each had different opinions of a

22
nuisance. Back in 1894 W. A. Blaxland, LCC solicitor,

had realistically assessed this problem. The local

authority, he wrote, had to prove to the courts that

dwellings were in a condition "so dangerous or injurious

to the health as to be unfit for human habitation."

A building deprived of proper light and ventilation was

not a nuisance if it was in a state of repair because

21
London County Council, Housing of the Working
Classes Committee, Papers, 1901-02, Case 39b, Poplar
Clerk, 23 April 1902. Hereinafter cited as LCC, HWCC,
Papers; also Case will be omitted.
oo
The Mansion House Council, Annual Report, 1889,
p. 12 and 1894, p.7; London County Council, Public Health
and Housing Committee, Minutes, III (30 April 1894), 672.
Hereinafter cited as LCC, PHHC, Minutes. The Mansion
House Council lobbied for new courts to deal with sani­
tation. They would sit in Special Petty Sessions. It
also wanted the LCC to use Petty Session Courts instead
of Police Courts. The LCC considered using Petty
Session Courts but lacked the staff.
 45

the owner did not necessarily create it nor could he

abate it.2^ Or take cellar dwelling offenses as an

example. They were difficult to fight. Mile End Old

Town could not get a conviction of one owner even after

several notices were served. In another case under the

Metropolitan Management Act, 1855, section 103, the

magistrate refused the case unless it was proved that

the "underground rooms were exclusively occupied as

living and sleeping apartments by the occupants

summoned," Mile End's medical officer dropped the

case. 24
Stepney's medical officer of health, D. L. Thomas,

clearly spelled out the cause for decline. Magistrates

personally inspected the premises before they issued a

closing order; the owner, however, knowing the date of a

visit, had time to lavishly apply paint and limewash to

make the dwelling look reasonable. Dr. Thomas described

Newtons Rents, Stepney: There were 12 one room houses.

"Six of the houses had no back premises at all; no

through ventilation; no separate water supply; and no

23
^London County Council, Public Health and Housing
Committee, Papers, 1893-94, Bundle E59, Blaxland, 19
March 1894, Hereinafter cited as LCC, PHHC, Papers;
also Bundle will be omitted.

2^Mile End Old Town, Medical Officer of Health,

Annual Report, 1891, pp. 10-11.
separate water closets. The occupiers had the use of

two water closets which were open to the public and were

always in a filthy condition." Not only was it

impossible to keep the dwellings clean but each had less

than 1,000 cubic feet air space. Dr. Thomas wanted

them closed. The magistrate suggested certain improve­

ments and added that he would not grant a closing order

25
because of overcrowding in the district. However,

not only judges were hesitant, so were local councillors.

Mr. Ambrose, of the Limehouse District Board and LCC,

doubted the value of closing property when there was no

2 ft
place for the people.

During the investigation the London County Council

requested the Home Office to inform magistrates of their

obligations. It added that closing orders which could

be followed up by demolition orders were difficult to

get from judges. Magistrates were unwilling to close

a house no matter how incapable of repair so long as

27
the inhabitant could not find another place to live.

The Home Office was also dissatisfied with the decline

25LCC, HWCC, Papers, 1901-02, 39a, Stepney Clerk,

3 June 1902.

2^East London Advertiser, 25 April 1891.

27LCC, HWCC, Papers, 1901-02, 36a, LCC clerk,

13 March 1902.
 47
and pressed for more information about the administration

of part II of the Housing of the Working Classes Act. The

London County Council filed a report based on its obser­

vation and borough information reciting the above cases.

The Home Office interpreted the report to suit its view.

It singled out the local authorities rather than the

magistrates as the obstacle to enforcement. The Home

Office defended the magistrates, emphasizing that they

must issue a closing order if there was good cause, and

it added that ’’the Orders for demolition arising out of

them are of course entirely a question for local

Authority.” It concluded that local inactivity was

responsible for the drop from 1890 to 1900. It showed

that of the 623 summonses taken out between 1896 and

1900 only 15 were dismissed or about two to three per

cent. Yet when one looks at their figures for summons

and order made only at the Worship and Thames Police

Courts a different picture evolves. Of the 54 summonses

under the Housing of the Working Classes Act only 20

orders were made; on the other hand, of the 173

summonses under the Public Health Act 169 orders were

„ 28
made.

28LCC, HWCC, Papers, 1901-02, 39b, Charles Murdock,

Home Office, 31 July 1902.
 48 >

The drop in closing orders was obvious, and the

charges and countercharges of responsibility by the

London County Council and the Home Office gave a clue

to the answer. A Housing of the Working Classes

Committee memo pointed out that in 1890 there were

700 applications for closing orders while in 1900 only

100. Then between 1892 and 1900 there were 896

applications for closing orders of which 604 were

refused or the houses were improved, while only 292

houses were demolished. Most of these applications

had been made under the Public Health Act, not the

Housing Act. The memo also noted that in the past

five years Poplar had not used the Housing of the

Working Classes Act and Bethnal Green was scored for

29
not replying.

The solution was not as simple as getting local

officials and magistrates to deal with substandard

housing. In 1885 the Mansion House Council reported

that tenants refused to complain for fear of eviction.

W. Wallace Bruce noted in 1892 that even the Public

Health Act was ineffective in closing property because

2^LCC, HWCC, Papers. 1901-02, 39b, Memorandum on

Closing and Demolition Orders, undated.
landlords and their agents evicted any tenant who

complained that the property was unhealthy. This

action immediately silenced other tenants who had good

reason to complain. The legal department reported that

the County Council lacked authority to protect the

tenant and that local authorities possessed enough

powers to deal effectively with nuisances. Furthermore,

to get legislation making it illegal to evict a tenant

who gave evidence was difficult, while the owner could

30
easily find another excuse to remove the tenant.

The positive result of these inquiries was a

simplified procedure for getting closing orders under

part II. Through the 1903 Housing of the Working

Classes Act boroughs could apply to the magistrate for

the order without first serving a notice on the owner

31
to abate the nuisance. The local authorities were

duly notified of this and asked to reconsider cases

in light of the new law.

Legal difficulties and unwillingness were not the

only reasons for nonenforcement. When the Housing of

30LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, Al-II, W. W. Bruce,

10 Oct. 1892, and Blaxland and Murphy, 24 Oct. 1894.

31LCC, HWCC, Minutes. VII (3 Peb. 1904), 750.

 50

the Working Classes Committee invited local authorities

to inform it of insanitary property, their first

reaction was to push clearance schemes under the Cross

Act or part I of the Housing of the Working Classes

Act. Sometimes a clearance scheme was necessary but

more often than not the local authorities wanted to be

freed of the financial and political responsibilities.

Regardless of vestry dilatory tactics, the LCC knew

that there were many individual houses which could be

handled without expensive schemes. Information sent

to the Council by private groups and local medical

32
officers corroborated this view.

Three cases which span the eighteen years exemplify

the problems the County Council faced. In the first

Mile End desired a scheme but quickly relinquished these

hopes. In the second the immediate nuisance was finally

abated by closing the buildings; however, Poplar

advocated a scheme in which the buildings would be torn

down. And finally when Poplar recommended a scheme to

demolish small properties the LCC rejected it and

recommended that Poplar use the new powers under the 1903

Housing of the Working Classes Act.

For example: LCC, PHHC, Papers. 1899-92, Al, no.

5, letters from the COS, 3 April 1890, 22 April 1890, and
20 May 1890; A 2-1, Murphy on W. C. Burrows' case, 11 Dec.
1890; A2-II, Mansion House Council, 21 June 1892.
 The properties reported in Yalford St., Mile End

Old Town were insanitary and occupied hy foreigners.

One anti-alien resident described the neighborhood as

"worse than the Black Hole of Calcutta"; and he was

surprised that fever had not broken out "owing the

horrible smells from the foreign Jews who now inhabit

9/10 of the street." Murphy inspected the properties and

substantiated the local medical officer's report, but

was opposed to a scheme under the Cross Acts because

mortality and sickness were not high. The County

Council recommended that Mile End apply the Torrens

Acts. The vestry protested but did deal with the

houses individually either under the Torrens or the

Sanitary Acts. Shortly after the passage of the Housing

of the Working Classes Act in 1890 Murphy changed his

mind and recommended a scheme under part II. The

Council, however, was not about to accept Mile End's

responsibilities. It let Mile End deal with the

33
properties individually.

It took eleven years of bickering before the Arnold

Buildings, Poplar, were dealt with properly. After

33LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A12-I, Mile End Old

Town medical officer of health and surveyor, 6 June 1889;
Mile End medical officer, 15 Nov. 1889; LCC, Murphy, 26
Feb. 1890; LCC clerk, 8 March 1890; Mile End clerk, 11
Aug. 1890; A. Barkam, 3 July 1890; LCC, Murphy, 11 Nov.
1890.
several unsuccessful attempts to get Poplar to abate the

nuisances on Murphy's recommendation the Public Health

and Housing Committee informed Poplar to take action or

else the LCC would invoke section 100 of the Public

Health (London) Act.^4 Farnfield, Poplar's clerk,

insensed at this pressure, replied that "no one can do

their duty save the officers of the London County

Council." He added that just a few months ago almost

every sanitary improvement necessary was carried out,

when, due to an infectious disease, the board's medical

officer was at the buildings daily. The villain, he

concluded, was not the owner but the tenants who

willfully damaged or failed to care for the water

closets. Poplar, however, finally did apply and

receive a closing order in May 1894 and gave the

35
tenants eight days to move. But the derelict

building stood for another decade.

Interestingly enough the Arnold Buildings had been

opened only in 1888; they contained about 300 rooms or

110 tenements. After the building was closed the owner

34LCC, PHHC, Minutes, III (19 March 1894), 641; LCC,

PHHC, Papers, 1 8 9 3 - ^ 7 '^?9, LCC, Murphy, 19 March 1894.

35LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1893-94, E49, Poplar clerk,

24 March lo94 and 17 May 1894.
considered converting the buildings for commercial use

rather than remodel. But the question dropped out of

sight. In 1901 the Limehouse and Poplar Workman's

Home Incorporated toyed with converting them into a

lodging house on the Rowton principle, and then

abandoned the project the following year. Poplar's

medical officer, P. W. Alexander, now submitted a

clearance scheme under part I of the Housing of the

Working Classes Act for the Bridge St. and Emmett St.

area (today West Perry Rd. and Emmet St., respectively,

and located just below Bowley St.) which included the

Arnold Buildings. The LCC's officers were opposed to

any clearance scheme. They recommended that Poplar

demolish the Arnold buildings and use its powers to

deal with the other buildings. Since Poplar disagreed,

and refused to accept the Home Office's offer to

arbitrate, the issue dragged on until Po^j-ar had no

Og
choice but to ask for a demolition order.

In the last example, the LCC rejected a major

clearance for two small courts— Brewery Yard and Gandy

36LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1893-94, E49, Poplar clerk,

17 May 1894; LCC, EWCC, Papers, 1901-02, 67, Poplar
medical officer, 12 July 1901; LCC architect, valuer,
medical officer, and housing manager, 22 Jan. 1902;
Poplar clerk, 18 March 1902; LCC clerk, 11 July 1902;
Poplar clerk, 22 Oct. 1902; 35, Proof of report of HWCC
for year ending 1902; 1905-06, 67, Poplar clerk, 20 Bee.
1904.
Court (today they no longer exist, hut were located

where the Bow Bright Estate stands)— because they were

"not of sufficient general importance to the County of

London" to justify it. Instead the Council encouraged

Poplar to use the 1903 Housing of the Working Classes

Act which simplified the procedure for getting closing

orders and permitted the borough to recover costs for

demolition from the owner.

37 Eventually some of the

dwellings were closed while others were cleaned and

repaired because they could still be used. Poplar,

however, asked for a scheme again, pleading difficulty

in getting closing orders. Prom 1903 to 1907 these

courts underwent periodic inspections. A number of

dwellings in Brewery Yard were torn down while many

in Gandy Court were thoroughly repaired and made

inhabitable.88

In the first few years of the County Council Shirley

Murphy's direct contact with local authorities kept them

• w
on their toes. Murphy regularly queried them on action

‘37
^ These clauses put some teeth into the principle
of fiscal respc i s i M I i t y of the slum owner which had been
enacted in the Hou;? ig of the Working Classes Act, 1885.

38LCC, HWCC. tupers, 1903-04, 88, LCC valuer, 21

July 1904; LCC clerk, £8 July 1904; joint report of
medical officer, clerk, etc., 7 Dec. 1904; LCC clerk.
11 March 1905; LCC, HWCC, Minutes, VIII (1 Peb. 1905),
615-16; Metropolitan Borough of Doplar, Annual Report
. . .on the Sanitary Condition of Poplar for years
1903-07.
taken. Dr. Loane once replied that no Council assistance

was necessary as violations could he remedied in the

police magistrates courts; Dr. Talbot of Bow, Poplar,

39
curtly said that the defects "can be remedied by us."

Murphy's experience as a medical officer in St. Pancras

and his service on the Home Office's inquiry into the

sanitary condition of Bethnal Green were valuable

assets. In addition, in the first years the Council's

staff was small enough to permit most sanitary and

housing problems to come directly to Murphy. As the

department grew and impersonalization increased most

matters were dealt with procedurally rather than

personally.

Mistakenly, W. W. Bruce praised the LCC for the

"quiet revolution" it accomplished in eight years. He

reiterated Canon Barnett's feeling that the sanitary

and slum question was no longer foremost; rather it

40
was overcrowding. Sanitation had come a long way

since mid-century; nevertheless, the problem was far

from solved. However, next to jerry-built or unadapted

housing, overcrowding created slums. The inordinate

99LCC, PHHC, Papers. 1889-92, Al, no. 5, LCC

medical officer, 9 Oct. 1890.
40
East London Observer, 3 Feb. 1900.
pressure on rooms and sanitary facilities accelerated

deterioration. Also it raised rents. Newspapers

advocated enforcement of current legislation. Section

35 of the 1866 Sanitary Act, descried the Pall Mall

Gazette, was "practically a dead letter, because to

enforce it throughout London would mean a tremendous

fall in rents,. . .house fanners— namely, vestries—

would never consent to. . . .No fresh legislation is

necessary; carry out the existing law and down the

41
rents must come."

Overcrowding according to the census reports was

more than two persons per room. Medical officers of

health and the Local Government Board used cubic feet

as a standard. A typical minimum, used by both the

LOC medical officer of health and the Local Government

Board, required at least 400 cubic feet of air space

per person if the room was used for sleeping and living,

and 300 cubic feet if used for sleeping only. Children

ten or over were equivalent to adults, while two children

under ten were equal to one adult. Measurement of air

space may have been a realistic means to check on

overcrowding in small rooms, but even so the standards

were very low. Moreover, statisticians found it

41Pall Mall Gazette, 3 May 1889

 57

easier to apply the census standard of more than two

persons per room. Data for manipulation was readily

available. Unfortunately, crowding, that is where

there was more than one person but not more than two

per room, was rarely discussed.

The difficulty in attacking overcrowding was

relocating the tenants. In Bethnal Green, for example,

the sanitary committee served notices for abatement

of overcrowding. Some families immediately moved into

similar rooms; others were out in the wet cold without

42
shelter because there were no empty rooms. Dr. Loane,

Whitechapel's medical officer, hit the nail on the head:

"You cannot prevent overcrowding by turning out of a

room an unfortunate family because too many children

have been born into it, for, if dislodged, such a

family will occupy a room at a similar rent as close

to the original spot as possible.

The combination of high rents, aliens, and

reorganization of local government in 1899 focused

attention on overcrowding, especially in Stepney and

Bethnal Green. Dr, Thomas, Stepney's medical officer,

charged immigrant pauper aliens for overcrowding

^ Eastern Argus, 10 Dec. 1898.

^Stepney Borough Council, Annual Report, I (1900-

01), App. D, pp. 3-5.
his district. A poor man with a large family, he

claimed, took only two rooms instead of a whole house.

Even when he paid a shilling or two more per week «t

was cheaper than taking a house. The alien, moreover,

used the living room both for work and sleeping.

Thomas recommended restricting immigration of aliens . ^

Dr. Bate, medical officer for Bethnal Green, approached

the problem of immigrant overcrowding more reasonably.

He doubted that the Polish and Russian Jews would "ever

become good citizens, but they are here to stay and we

must do the best we can with them." Consequently, he

got several inspectors to learn Yiddish to improve

45
communication.

As overcrowding and the house famine drove rents

up, anti-alienism became virulent. While the British

Brotherhood used violence against the Jews, others from

the laboring classes banded together into the East

London Tenants Protection Committee and the Workingmen's

Housing Council to plead their case. They advocated

rent tribunals to get fair rents and control avaricious

44
Stepney Borough Council, Annual Report, I (1900-
01), App. A, pp. 15-16.
45
Bethnal Green Borough Council, Sanitary Condition
for Bethnal Green for 1906. pp. 59-60.
 59

landlords and they fought overcrowding. It was a step

46
in the right direction hut their success was minimal.

From about 1904 overcrowding was more readily controlled.

From then on the increased vigilance of inspectors

coupled with ample accommodations and lower rents eased

47
the whole situation.

Joint efforts between the London County Council and

freeholders was another approach in dealing with

insanitary areas at no expense to the ratepayers. The

LCC cooperated with great landlords like Lord Portland

and small freeholders like Sir Algernon Osborn. These

were instances in which the freeholders lost substantial

control oncd the estates were leased. Located in

Whitechapel, Osborn's estate was between Bell Lane and

Sandy's Row (today between Bell Lane and Middlesex St.)

and bounded on the south by Wentworth St. This estate,

to the north of the Metropolitan Board of Works'

Goulston St. clearance, had been considered ripe for

redevelopment since 1877. The East London Advertiser

described the Bell Lane area as one of the worst in

Whitechapel. It condemned the County councillors for

^ E a s t London Advertiser, 11 March 1899; Jewish

Chronicle, 7 ffeb. 1^02.
47
Stepney Borough Council, Annual Report, VII
(1906-07), App. B, p. 74.
 60

preferring street improvements in the West End to the

East End and suggested that they should he dismissed

"like the councillors of Hamblin, who couldn't or

m Q
wouldn’t rid the city of rats.”

Whitechapel’s request for a major slum clearance

was rejected. The County Council felt that the estate

fell within the scope of part II of the Housing of the

Working Classes Act. Whitechapel was reluctant to act.

It insisted that the Osborn estate could be dealt with

under part I. Realizing that the Council would not use

the housing act Whitechapel put forth an alternative.

It proposed that when Sandy's Row was widened the LCC

incorporate the area in the street improvement. This

was also rejected. After years of talk, in 1897 the

opportunity to clear the area of courts and alleys

arrived. In close communication with Sir Algernon

Osborn the LCC agreed to help him in redeveloping his

estate. The Council would sell him the frontages

abutting Sandy's Row at a reasonable sum and assist

him in the formation of new roads and in closing several

courts and alleys. After the new road had been made the

remaining land would be used for shops and dwellings.

The catch lay in repurchasing the leasehold interests.

iQ
East London Advertiser, 16 Nov. 1889.
Most would fall-in shortly and could "be easily negotiated;

however, there were some that did not expire until 1922

and 1930. If these leaseholder owners were uncooperative

the Council agreed to use the Housing of the Working

Class Act, design a scheme, and acquire the leases

compulsorily. Then clear title would he transferred to

Osborn who would reimburse the LCC for its expenses.

The Council calculated that this procedure saved the

public costly expenses. Fortunately, when agreement

wa3 reached with Osborn to redevelop his estate,

49
recourse to a scheme was unnecessary.

Octavia Hill, on the other hand, promoted a purely

private system to improve housing for the poor. Her

philosophy was firm management and strictness, tempered

with humaneness. Her major point was proper management

of property. This meant that landlord as well as tenant

was obliged to maintain decent standards. Miss Kill

bought or managed property and trained rent collectors

in this philosophy. Each collected the rent personally,

talked with the tenant about family problems, checked

the property for necessary improvements, and tried to

create in the tenant a respect for property and d^^.ent

environment. She sought to improve his habits and his

49LCC, MP, (23 Feb. 1 8 9 7 ) , 192-93 and (28 Feb. 1 8 9 9 ) ,

265-66 .
 62

life. When Octavia Hill took a dwelling she immediately-

made the minimum improvements and even planted a garden,

eliminated overcrowding, and weeded out undesirable

tenants. Most of the property she managed was in west

London; in 1884 she accepted control of the housing

estates in Deptford and Southwark for the Ecclesiastical

50
Commissioners. She acquired some in the East End

which was managed by her assistants. In 1874 she

accepted the management of a block in Whitechapel, St.

Jude’s parish. In 1877 Lady Pembroke bought 15 houses

51
which were turned over to Miss Hill.

The key to the individual approach was that the

landlord ruled with a firm hand: he had to provide

continual guidance for the tenant— be it through personal

direction, social workers, or public health nurses— to

educate him for urban living and help him take full

advantage of the amenities. In other words, what was

needed was continual control which required strictness

and punctual rent payment; human kindness in adversity;

and proper cultivation of self-help. This system worked

only if landlords were responsible and had a personality

^ L a v i d Owen, English Philanthropy: 1660-1960

(Cambridge, Mass., 19?>4J, p. 3^9.

"^Octavia Hill, Extracts from Octavia Hill*s

"Letters to Fellow-Workers,'11' 1864-1911» compiled by
E. S. Ouvry (London, 1933)! P. IB.
 63
like Octavia Hill’s or were willing and able to get

volunteers.

Private organizations such as the Mansion House

Council on the Dwellings of the Poor and the Jewish

Board of Guardians were as interested in the welfare of

the laboring classes as individuals. The Mansion House

Council was an effective pressure group in London.

Formed in response to "The Bitter Cry of Outcast

London" it quickly grew into prominence as a watch dog

for insanitary, substandard, and overcrowded housing.

In 1886 it got the Home Office to investigate the

sanitary conditions of Mile End Old Town and in 1887

52
of Bethnal Green. In each case additions were made

to the staff of sanitary inspectors and the worst

dwelling houses were vacated. Local committees of the

Mansion House Council investigated complaints and

inspected houses and kept local authorities, as well as

the LCC, on their toes. In instances their pressure

brought immediate results without any recourse to legal

52
The Mansion House Council on the Dwellings of the
Poor, Beport, 1885* 1887, 1888; Report by D. Cubitt
Nichols, esq. on the Sanitary Condition of the hamlet of
Mile End Old Town, PP, 1886 [C 4714], LVI, 169; Report of
an inquiry held by Messrs. D. Cubitt Nichols and Shirley
Murphy, as to the immediate sanitary requirements of the
parish of St. Matthew, Bethnal Green, PP, 1888 [C 5407],
LXXXI, 533.
proceedings. On the other hand, there were cases which

at first failed even when taken to court; yet persistence

brought success. In Whitechapel, for example, the Booth

St. Buildings were in an insanitary condition. Pressure

on the owner and the local authorities failed to get an

improvement, so the Mansion House took the owner to court

The judge dismissed the case and required the Mansion

House Council to pay costs. The local medical officer,

the sanitary inspector, the dustman of the district

board, and the inspector of the Jewish Board of

Guardians all testified on the owner’s behalf.

Dissatisfied with the results, the Mansion House

Council pursued the case. At last, two years later

with the help of W. Johnson, of the LCC and Whitechapel

Board of Works, it got a new inspection, served notices,

and successfully defended the case in court, requiring

53
the owner to make the major sanitary repairs. Much

of the Mansion House Council's work was in sanitary

improvement and in educating not only the people but

also local officials. Through these means uninhabitable

properties were closed, neglected dwellings were improved

53
The Mansion House Council on the Dwellings of the
Poor, Report, 1896, p. 13; 1897. p . 6; 1898, pp. 6 and
8.
 65

and residents as well as public officials became conscious

of the potential of higher standards.

Another group deeply committed to maintaining decent

housing in the East End was the Jewish Board of Guardians.

It was organized back in the 1860s to minister to poor

Jews. It also considered substandard dwellings and

insanitary conditions, as legislation then scarcely

existed and was largely a matter either of voluntary

adoption or temporary measures induced by the panic of a

cholera outbreak. The sudden increase in immigration

from eastern Europe and the trade cycle in the 1880s

resulted in extraordinary pressure on East End housing

and in changes in public opinion. In 1884 The Lancet

published the article "A Polish Colony of Jewish

Labourers" which focused on the appalling conditions

and the ignorance and indifference among immigrants in

the East End. These unfortunate conditions and the

publicity forced the Jewish Board of Guardians to create

a sanitary committee with its own inspectors. Moreover,

the Jewish community viewed these new immigrants as an

embarrassing nuisance to their new-found nobility. The

Sanitary Committee succeeded in dealing with this grave

problem by educating the immigrants and applying

pressures on the landlords and local authorities. Part

of the success can be attributed to the modest standards

 66

it established for itself; these enabled it to carry

weight with local officials and landlords. Its procedure

was to send its sanitary inspector to visit a reported

dwelling and then notify the owner. When the case was

serious and if after a reasonable period of time there

were no improvements it was reported to the medical

officer of health. Any house considered unfit for human

habitation by the inspector of the Jewish Board of

Guardians was always first inspected by the Committee

itself and then reported directly to the medical

*54.
officer.

Inspection of small workshops was another service

to the community provided by the Jewish Board of

Guardians. Many immigrants worked in sweatshops which

were in the administrative twilight zone between local

authority sanitary inspectors and factory inspectors.

Factory inspectors had access to sweatshops only if

women and children were involved, and immigrants had

few children working there. So in 1892 the Jewish Board

Guardians appointed a regular inspector of small work­

shops to help in sanitary work. The paradox was that

the tenants were usually responsible for the nuisance

54
Lloyd P. Gartner, The Jewish Immigrant in England,
18*70-1914 (London, I960), pp. 147, 132, 153; 1). Lipman,
A Century of Social Service, 1859-1959: The Jewish
BoaiTTTn?ui?’d I ^ " r i b n ^ n : 1953)’. W . 6'4'V'T26".----
 67

while remedies had to he made by the landlord. In 1904

the Jewish Board of Guardians shifted its activities

from sanitary to personal health work. The substantial

improvement in sanitary conditions, the effective

reorganization of local government, and the new water

55
authority made redundant most of its activities. Thus

private organizations such as the Mansion Hei.se Council,

the Jewish Board of Guardians, and the Charity

Organization Society helped control slums, and

educated the public of the need for preventive action.

A few borough councils had initiative. They

approached the question of slum control through

renovation programs of their own. In 1901 the south

London borough of Camberwell decided to purchase the

leaseholds, and freeholds if necessary, of rundown

property in Hollington Street and the adjoining area

between Wynham and Avenue Roads behind the London,

Chatham and Lover Railway. Camberwell purchased about

571 houses in 19 streets which it put into good

sanitary repair with a minimum adaption. Many of the

houses were poorly constructed to begin with and if

the cost of proper renovation was prohibitive they

were demolished. Nevertheless, the widening of streets,

55
'Lipman, Century of Social Service, pp. 126-7, 131•
regular garbage collection, planting of trees went a

long way to improve the environment. The old tenants

received decent accommodation at the same rents, without

the strict enforcement of rules on cleanliness. The

advantage of this approach was that the original tenants

were not displaced; rather they were moved to empties

while repairs were made. Furthermore, the improvements

were reflected in the neighboring areas. Camberwell's

system was an adaptation and modification of Octavia

56
Hill's ideas and it, too, operated without a loss.

Kensington, in west London, took a slightly varied

course. In the Wotting Dale district (Shepards Bush,

Kenley St.) Kensington purchased property and did

extensive structural changes, erected new floors and

ceilings, insured lighting and ventilation, installed

sculleries with kitchen ranges and stoves, and added

water closets. The borough provided 31 three-roomed

tenements and 21 two-roomed ones. It demolished two

buildings and built a three storey house with 6 two-

room tenements. However, only 84 of the original 350

56
E. G. Howarth and M. Wilson, West Ham (London,
1907), pp. 134-35; Mansion House Council on the Dwellings
of the Poor, Present Situation of Housing in. . .London
(London, 1908), p. 29; W. Thompson, Housing Up-to-flaie
(London, 1907), pp. 32-34; Frederick Bingham, The Official
Guide to the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell (London,
TMTTpp".'3'9-42. * --- £L— -------------
 69

tenants were rehoused. Thompson recognized that the

original inhabitants were limited in financial resources,

yet he concluded that the slum dweller refused to come

back to Notting Dale because of the raised sanitary

57
standard. Interestingly enough no borough in the

East End, let alone in London adopted or considered

either of these approaches.

Finally, another means of preventing slums was to

remodel middle class houses in transition areas before

they were turned into rooming houses or tenements.

These were substantially constructed dwellings and

therefore worth "making down.” Properly converted the

owner’s investment would be protected. However, no

borough took advantage of section 59 of the Housing

of the Working Classes Act— they had used it only for

insubstantial, flimsy property as described above. On

the other hand, private property owners who did

converting were able to take advantage of exemption

from the inhabited house duty in the Customs and Inland

Revenue Acts, 1890 and 1891. This idea was vigorously

57
Thompson, Housing Up-to-Date, pp. 34—36;
Howarth, West Ham, p. 1*5; Mansion House Council,
Present Situation, p. 30.
 70

advocated by Dr. John T. J. Sykes, medical officer for

St. Pancras."^

In spite of housing and public health legislation,

and civic pride and public opinion becoming acutely

aware of slums, London had a.long way to go before it

would prevent slums from being created.

58
The exemption clauses in the Customs and Inland
Revenue Acts are section 26 of 53 & 54 Viet. ch. 8 and
sec. 4 of 54 & 55 Viet. ch. 25; W. Thompson, Housing
Handbook (London, 1907)» pp. 215-220; Thompson, lidusing
tlp-io-Date, pp. 17-18.
 CHAPTER III

SLUM CLEARANCE

The tearing down and rebuilding of cities is a

recurring process. Buildings are worn out, increased

land value dictates new land use, new industries

develop, new modes of communication and transportation

demand rights of way or improvements to facilitate

traffic flow. Population concentration requires new

ways to house more people, adequate sanitation, estab­

lishment of shops and stores, and erection of warehouses.

Slums present a special problem. People live there

because they have no where else to go, their individual

rent is low, their work is in the immediate vicinity

or done at home. Slums, moreover, are overcrowded. As

one area is cleared slum dwellers pack into another,

recreating the problem.

By 1890 massive .'.nmolit ion for commercial,

industrial, and railioac purposes had subsided in the

East End. Railroads had their rights of way and their

terminals; and the shipping industry, instead of

renovating and modernizing the existing docks, witnessed

building of new ones further down the Thames. Demands

of business, industry, and commerce were at a minimum.

71
The London School Board was expanding its plant and at

times was encouraged to buy slum property to alleviate

slum clearances. The School Board, however, preferred

to build in a middle class area where the air was

fresher, the land cheaper, and where it was freed from

rehousing obligations. When the London County Council

transport division considered erecting a car shed in

Bow in 1904, community pressure demanded that

neighboring run down property be purchased and the

estate retained as an open space.^ Dwelling companies

were not interested in purchasing expensive slums for

redevelopment; instead they negotiated with landowners

to get reasonable leaseholds. More often semi-philan­

thropic groups happily purchased cleared sites from the

Metropolitan Board of Works at below market value.

Consequently, the burden for slum clearance fell upon

the London County Council and the boroughs. Ratepayers

expected business to clear away old houses for a

factory or warehouse, or a landowner to redevelop his

estate when leases fell-in. These were laissez-faire

symbols of progress which benefitted the whole community.

However, public expenditure for slum clearance was

anethema to ratepayers, for, on the one hand, it

encroached on private property, and, on the other, it

^East London Advertiser, 18 June 1904.

 73
paid unnecessarily high prices for obviously worthless

buildings. Rarely did it occur to ratepayers that they

should enforce landlord obligations which would prevent

slums instead of complaining about exorbitant clearance

costs.

Ideas for new towns— like Saltaire and Port

Sunlight— gained reception more readily than urban

renewal mainly because they were private efforts.

Even though Londoners had had numerous schemes for

rebuilding the City since the Great Eire of 1666, they

were basically unresponsive to clearing and reconstructing

worn out areas. The concept of public responsibility

for urban redevelopment gradually became accepted in

the late 19th century. During these years men favoring

slum control and sanitary enforcement fought the forces

of entrenchment. They were scarcely able to clear the

worst slums let alone tackle the problem broadside.

The local authorities did not prevent new slums and

they hardly touched the enormous evils in alleys and

courts where buildings were packed and rarely saw

sunlight.

The answer to London's needs lay in comprehensive

demolition and complete rearrangement of streets. Where

the Torrens Act limited itself to individual buildings,

the Cross Act enacted in 1875 promised schemes for

clearing and rebuilding whole areas which could not be

coped with otherwise. Houses were "highly injurious to

the moral and physical welfare of the inhabitants" if

they were uninhabitable or if there was a high rate of

disease. These evils could be caused by "closeness,

narrowness, bad arrangement or bad condition of the

streets and houses or groups of houses within such

area, or to the want of light, air, ventilation, or

2
proper conveniences, or to any other sanitary defects."

The inherent weakness was that an area was determined

to be ripe for clearance only when mortality and

sickness were higher than the metropolitan mean. In

addition, even when an area was a major slum, the

Metropolitan Board could decide that the sanitary acts

and the Torrens Act were sufficient to deal with it.

Finally, the act as amended in 1879 permitted property

owners to collect high prices for worthless buildings

3
that were purchased compulsorily.

Nevertheless, armed with the powers of the Artizans

and Laborers Dwellings Improvement Act, the Metropolitan

Board of Works examined the slum problem. In the East

End it cleared away 21 2/3 acres of the worst centers

2
Artizans and Laborers Dwellings Improvement Act,
1875 (38 & 39 Viet.), c. 36.
3
Artizans and Laborers Dwellings Improvement Act,
1879 (42 & 43 Viet.), c. 63.
of pestilence. These sites were sold to semi-

philanthropic and private investors with the stipu­

lation that working class housing should he erected.

Some sites, unfortunately, could not he sold even at a

great loss. When the London County Council superceded

the Metropolitan Board it exuberantly re-examined the

question of slum clearance as it had slum control.

Reports were solicited and received from local officials

as well as from citizens interested in improving the

quality of London. The medical officers, frustrated

hy local authority procrastination and intransigence,

thought that the County Council would shoulder the

whole responsibility. The LCC was flooded with clearance

projects, and after the 1890 housing act many were

re-presented. Had the Council agreed to all of them,

it would have been bankrupted. There were so many that

it was impossible to deal with them economically or

practically. The Council picked the most obvious cases.

Of the thirty-one acres cleared in London, seventeen

4
acres were in the Tower Hamlets.

By 1900 the major emphasis of the LCC shifted from

improvement schemes in inner London to alleviating

^LCC, The Housing Question in London, 1855-1900

(London, 19^ ' , ~ pp~~^9^^5;' 3o 5, 30H'. 3IgfTgCT' Housing
of the Working Classes in London, 1889-1912 (London,
1912), p p . 146-156. ---------- -----------
overcrowding by building new estates for the working

classes in outer London and beyond the county lines.

The Council emphasized transportation, both workmen's

trains and omnibuses, to move the artisans to and from

work. In fact, there was no new clearance scheme for

the East End, With the exception of the Tabard St.,

Southwark, scheme of 1912, to which even the conserv­

atives could not close their eyes, there were no

schemes in London until after World War I. Brady St.,

Bethnal Green, was sanctioned after World War I began,

and only because of great pressure. It is fair to say

that by 1900 the Council felt it had done enough

clearance, and more should be done on the local level.

Moreover, the housing problem, it was convinced, would

be solved by providing more new homes rather than

aggravating the shortage in central London through

demolition.
The housing act of 1890 provided for slum clearance

schemes with and without rehousing obligations. Under

part I of the act reconstruction was mandatory and

part II left it at the discretion of local authorities.

The County Council was responsible for planning large

areas of general importance to the community, usually

 77

more than ten houses. For the first time vestries and

district boards were granted power to devise and execute

small slum clearance schemes. On the other hand, if

they shirked their responsibility the LCC got residual

power to act. The potential use of part II was related

directly to the amount the LCC was willing to contribute

to such schemes. After two meetings with local

authorities, the Housing Committee grasped this. It

prompted the LCC to consider contributions to local

schemes and recounted the Metropolitan Board of Works’

financial grants for street improvements which

benefitted the whole community. It assured the Council

that the financial attraction would encourage the

vestries and district boards to submit schemes. And it

optimistically suggested that this aid would dispose of

the worst uninhabitable areas within a few years. The

County Council accepted the arguments and agreed to

contribute one-quarter to one-half the cost of satis­

factory schemes which were made under part II, if there

was a need for funds.^

The Artisans' Dwellings Act, 1882 (45 & 46 Viet.)

c. 54, sec. 6stipulated that if ten or more houses were
included in a scheme then the Cross Act was applicable.

6LCC, MP (17 Feb. 1891), 183; (24 March 1891), 354.

 78

In the beginning the London County Council was

cautious and yet flexible. The Housing Committee was

not too keen on being strapped with wholesale demolitions

when local authorities did not carry their weight.

R. M. Beachcroft, member of the LCC, the Housing

Committee, and chairman of the committee, 1892-93»

exemplified this temperament. His principle for

distinguishing between the application of part I or

part II was whether the slum had "general or metro­

politan importance." When the improvement scheme had

general importance then part I applied, otherwise the

burden fell directly on the local authority. He sharply

cautioned the committee not to use part I for straightening

7
out traffic arteries. In hammering out policy guides,

the committee decided that emphasis should be on part II,

unless the LCC bore the costs. Not only was the Public -

Health and Housing Committee determined to make local

authorities more responsive but it was attracted by

the simplicity of application and cheapness of

administration. A scheme required neither publication

of notices nor a parliamentary sanction if there was

no petition to the Local Government Board. Moreover,

a freeholder or leaseholder could not appeal an

^LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, E7, Memo on future

policy, Beachcrofi, 20 Oct. 1890.
 79

arbitrator's award. There was no compulsory rehousing

requirement on the site when proper accommodations were

found elsewhere, and elsewhere did not have to he in

the immediate neighborhood. Furthermore, under part II

the Council could strike bargains with local authorities.

It could contribute up to half the cost and cover a

substantial portion of the vestry's costs through

loans. Finally, the LCC could apply the betterment

principle when property enhanced in value through the

clearance belonged to the same person who also owned

g
dwellings in the slum.

Implementation was more difficult than originally

conceived. After five years of pressure on the Poplar

Board of Works to undertake an improvement scheme under

part II for Ann St., the LCC had to do it itself.

Poplar's clerk, in response to the Council's appeal

for information of uninhabitable areas, suggested

Ann St. as a possibility for the application of the

Cross Act. His flimsy basis was the report of Poplar's

medical officer, even though Talbot had noted that

enforcement of the sanitary and nuisance acts was

sufficient. Although Murphy inspected and discounted

8LCC, MP, (13 Jan. 1891), 7

 F \ G . . 11
ANN S T R E E T S C H E ME .
PLAN No. 42.

.•iJL-d

•\

w CNTBAHCt
TO T K C
.C f t a r IH O IA D O C K
the general importance of the area, he, together with

Talbot, reinspected the area. Murphy proposed that

Poplar invoke the Torrens Act and should it refuse then

the County Council should request the Home Office to

hold an inquiry under section 5 of the 1885 housing act.

His judgment was based on Talbot's opinion that while

the houses were unfit for humans the absence of high

mortality or sickness prohibited representing the area

Q
under the Cross Act. In October 1890 Poplar coyly

inquired whether the new housing act affected the

Ann St. area. Then in December the clerk hinted that

Poplar would act on Talbot's recommendation and seek

closing and demolition orders under part I I . ^

In spite of promises the Poplar Board was

reluctant to use the law, let alone take full advantage

of it. However, it bluntly told the County Council

that it did not need to step in as Poplar was "fully

aware of the law and also more familiar with the

surroundings." The Board's clerk assured the Council

that when better weather arrived immediate action would

9LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A13-I, Poplar clerk.

26 July 1889; LCC, Murphy, 27 Feb. 1890; LCC, Murphy,
27 March 1890.

10Ibid., 1889-92, A13-I, Poplar clerk, 15 Oct. 1890

and 31 Dec. 1890.
be taken; until then it was reluctant to disturb the
11
tenants. Only in May, after constant prodding by the

LCC, did the Poplar Board begin proceedings under the

Housing of the Working Classes Act, and it was July

before summonses were issued. These first summonses

were dismissed by the Thames Police Court on grounds

of informality. Murphy reinspected the area after

Poplar claimed it made new summonses. However, he

discovered no significant change and no notice of new

summonses. Poplar defended itself. It placed the

burden of responsibility on the magistrates by charging

that the judge after listening to evidence from the

sanitary inspector, the medical officer, and the district

surveyor still had the audacity to declare the houses

12
neither unfit for humans nor insanitary.

All along Poplar militantly argued against a scheme

on grounds that the houses were scattered over a large

area. Even after proceedings failed, irrespective of

Murphy's position, the Board refused to use its

authority. In view of recurring failure, the LCC in

1ILLCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A13-I, Poplar clerk,

24 April 1891.

12Ibid., 1889-92, A13-I, Poplar clerk, 8 May 1891,

29 July“O T l , 25 Sept. 1891; LCC, Murphy, 10 Dec. 1891;
Poplar clerk, 13 Jan. 1892.
in February 1892 once again suggested a clearance scheme

under part II and a meeting of the medical officers.

The Council also threatened that it would use its

residual power, design a scheme, and make Poplar pay

the costs. At this point the Poplar Board abdicated

responsibility.^"3
The Housing of the Working Classes Committee

prepared the clearance scheme so as not to excite a

neighboring property owner, Mr. lardell, who had an

access road to his stables through the area. Once the

scheme was completed the Home Office ruled that Poplar

14
would contribute one half the cost or £4,000.

Ann St. is a good example of the County Council's need

to resort to its residual powers in order to clear a

slum when the Board defaulted.

Not every local authority shirked its duty. Some

were active in demolishing slums under part II. The

Liinehouse District Board also had submitted a number

of areas for clearance consideration in response to

the London County Council's initial circular. The King

13LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A13-I, LCC, 1 Feb.

1892; Poplar clerk, 11 March 18§2.

14Ibid., 1889-92, A13-I, LCC, Murphy, 9 May 1892;

1893-947” AJ3 , LCC, 12 May 1893; Home Office, 23 June
1894.
 QUEEN CATHERINE COURT SCHEME
PLAN No. 50.

oc

Ul

o
thi QU«»H
CATH 1«»M “•

SC A L g. O P' F fe E T
CB
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 as
. F\I G . I V - 1
K I N G J O H N ’S C O U R T S C H E M E .
PLAN No. 51. 1 .

IlllWuni

L I ME H O U S E C A U S E W A Y

; Hp, > i
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•
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— |■11 &a&MC*Vllit»,y.'c£.ii:

'. Il. ~~7.- " "™..... ............

John's Court- and Queen Catherine's Court areas eventually

evolved into improvement projects under part II. On the

suggestion of the LCC the Limehouse District Board

directed plans to he drawn and by June 1891 had them

under advisement. The LCC, informed of each step,

prodded the District Board to minimize delays. At one

time the County Council, a bit unfairly, sent a strong

note to the Limehouse District Board exhorting it to

complete the necessary paperwork or else the Council

would exercise its powers in default, devise a scheme

under section 46 (5 and 6 ) of the 1890 housing act,

and let the Home Office decide on Limehouse's contri­

bution. Immediately, the Limehouse Board of Works

forwarded plans for the King John's Court and made a

request for a fifty per cent contribution. The Council’s

architect rejected the plans because King John's Court

was retained in the redevelopment and Limehouse

Causeway varied greatly in width for the short distance.

Later the architect added that there were too many

houses planned for this small area, Negotiations for

the next two years were bogged down over the questions

of land use, the widening of Limehouse Causeway, and

the closing of King John's Court. The Council preferred

that the site be turned into a playground, while

Limehouse declared that it would be a nuisance and that

 87

housing was essential. Limehouse submitted new plans

more suitable to the Council; however, it confused the

issue by suggesting that both the Housing of the Working

Classes Act and a street improvement act be applied.

According to the LCC this was illegal. From 1894 to

1896 discussions led to an amicable solution: Limehouse

Causeway was to be widened, King John's Court closed,

and cottage dwellings erected. It took one more year

15
to settle the fine points.

The planning for Queen Catherine's Court began

later and was successfully completed more rapidly.

At first the Limehouse Board of Works had reservations

about the Queen Catherine's Court scheme because there

was a grave shortage of vacancies. It preferred to wait

until housing was erected on the Brook St. site which

was across the street and had been cleared by the

Metropolitan Board of Works. The Council sympathized,

yet it insisted that the preliminary work be done in

order to expedite matters. Within a month Limehouse

15LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A10-I, Limehouse

District Board clerk, 14 Jan. 1891, 3 June 1891; LCC
draft, 13 June 1891; LCC draft, 2 Dec. 1891; LDB, clerk,
7 Dec. 1891; LCC arch., 10 Dec. 1891; A10-II, LCC arch.,
21 March 1892; LDB clerk, 4 July 1892; LCC arch., 18
July 1892; LDB clerk, 12 Oct. 1892; 1893-94, A10, LCC
valuer, 12 July 1893; LCC, 8 May 1894; LCC, MP (28
April 1896), 442-43.
 88

submitted plans and asked for a contribution. This

time difficulties centered mainly on rehousing.

Differences were ironed out and by June 1892 both

16
authorities agreed on suitable plans for the court.

Under part II of the Housing of the Working Classes

Act rehousing was not mandatory. London Terrace, St.

George in the East, was a long and very narrow alley

which was cleared with the stipulation that the site

be sold for commercial purposes. St. George's medical

officer, B. R. Rygate, immediately represented this

alley under the Cross Act to the new County Council.

The terrace had been represented to the Metropolitan

Board of Works three times (1875, 1883, and 1884), and

each time the Board refused to consider it because it

was too small and not of metropolitan importance.

Rygate described the area as dilapidated and damp, and

noted that in 1888 alone 34 medical relief orders had

been issued. Murphy, too, did not recommend action

17
under the Cross Act as the area had only 13 houses.

The Housing of the Working Classes Act put London

Terrace into new perspective. Upon Rygate's

16LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A10-II, LDB clerk,

18 Dec. 1891; LCC draft, 19 Jan. 1892; LDB clerk,
26 April and 10 June 1892; LCC, 6 Dec. 1892.

~^Ibid., 1889-92, A15-I, St. George in the East's

medical officer, copy, 20 May 1889.
 "<■ ,

' FIG. V

LONDON" TERRACE SCHEME

■ PLAN No. 49.

ll

{
V.

S c al e +rttt
* Source: Ltd, f U W n j ffa jj j W lI
kcni«n\
 30V2I33.L N O O N O I IA€>ld

06
re-presentation, Murphy suggested a clearance scheme

under part II. The vestry instead of acting forcefully

merely closed the dwellings. Since it had not applied

to the courts for closing and demolition orders, it had

to find a way to prevent the usual superficial patching

which permitted reuse of the buildings. The vestry's

delegation to the Housing of the Working Classes

Committee pleaded for application of part I on grounds

that St. George's was in dire poverty. The LCC's

response was to guarantee a grant under part II. The

vestry countered with a suggestion that it would

purchase the freehold if the County Council contributed

to the cost. Thus a foundation for negotiations was

established. The vestry, trying to insure that the

property would be marketable and that it would not

become a neighborhood rubbish dump, implored that

adjoining lands be included. In this instance, the

LCC's solicitor saw no legal reason to prohibit the

addition of adjoining lands and backed the vestry; but

the Council refused to budge on grounds that it was

impossible under part II. The Council's architect

surveyed the area and recommended that the whole plot

be sold for commercial purposes because it faced a

factory, was surrounded by buildings, and was too

small for erecting working class dwellings or for

retention as an open space. Agreement for clearing

 92

the site and selling it for commercial use was quickly

reached and approved. Consequently, this rotten hack

street was demolished by the local authority after hard

and serious negotiations. St. George in the East had

not evaded liability. It was poor and desperately in

need of financial contributions. Interestingly, when

Stepney Borough Council sold the land it returned £316.

-| O
12s of the County Council's £1000 contribution.

Not every representation received favorable action

from the LCC or local authorities. Many were eventually

filed into baroque pigeon holes of roll-top desks and

left for another clerk to clean out, while others

became administrative footballs. Great Pearl St. (today

Calvin St.) had been represented in 1877, 1884 and 1888,

the latter carried over to the County Council. Murphy

agreed with the Whitechapel Board of Works that a scheme

was necessary. Although he thought that many buildings

in the back courts could be removed under the Torrens

18LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A15-I, LCC, Murphy,

26 Feb. 1890; St. George clerk, 15 Nov. 1890; LCC, Murphy,
22 Jan. 1891; St. George clerk, 5 Feb. 1891; LCC draft,
11 March 1891; LCC, Northeast Subcommittee, Minutes
(30 April 1891), 126; LCC, PHHC, Papers, l889-'9Z7“A,15-I,
St. George clerk, 13 July 1891; Al^-II, St, George clerk,
5 Feb. 1892; LCC, Blaxland, 22 Feb. 1892; LCC, 27 Feb.
1892; LCC arch., 21 March 1892; LCC, 6 Dec. 1892; LCC,
MP, (5 June 1894), 612 and (21 Nov. 1905), 1711.
 93

Acts, he was aware that the courts were unwilling to

grant demolition orders. Moreover, even if successfully-

applied the Torrens Act would not result in a rearrange­

ment of the area. Therefore, he advocated a new

representation under the Cross Act which enlarged the

condemned area, included other courts, and permitted

19
the erection of decent working class dwellings.

The Housing of the Working Classes Committee

rejected the subcommittee's recommendation to use the

Cross Act and advised appropriate application of the

Torrens Act. Simultaneously, it ordered the medical

officer and architect to discern which houses were

insanitary, which obstructive, how the defects could be

remedied, and how much it would cost the ICC to

selectively demolish and repair. With a price tag of

£4,500 to demolish obstructive and uninhabitable

dwellings and £450 to repair the others, the subcommittee

reiterated that the local authority be reminded of its

20
obligations and the potential of the Torrens Act.

19LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A21-I, Murphy,

29 July 1889.

20LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A21-I, LCC, Murphy,

29 July 1889i LCC, fcWCC, Minutes, (9 Oct. 1889), 185-86;
LCC, PHHC. Papers, 1 8 8 9 - 9 ^ 1 2 1 = 1 , LCC, Murphy and arch.,
8 Nov. 1889; LCC, Bell Lane and Great Pearl St.
subcommittee, 14 Nov. 1889; LCC, HWCC, Minutes, (14 Nov.
1889), 239.
 Meanwhile, Whitehall launched an inquiry into the

sanitary condition of Whitechapel which it seems came

to nothing. A conference between the Whitechapel Board

of Works, the LCC medical officer, and owners brought

agreement on improvements. Whitechapel was convinced

that with its strengthened authority under the new

housing act the evils would be remedied. Eight months

later, however, there was no action except closure of

two courts and two houses. Almost a year later

representatives of the landowners cleverly explored the

state of local government action in order to avoid

21
making any repairs. The Northeast Subcommittee of the

Housing of the Working Classes Committee had recently

viewed the area. It faced a dilemma: it favored a

scheme, yet the compensation clauses of the Housing of

the Working Classes Act made a scheme impractical. The

subcommittee consequently counselled against a scheme

unless the Home Secretary compelled it. At the same

time the subcommittee asked the Council officers to

prepare a scheme. Since the freeholders defaulted on

the agreement to improve their properties and as

LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A21-I, Whitehall,

31 Jan. 1890; Whitechapel clerk, 3 Oct. 1890; A21-II,
Taylor, Hoare, and Box, solicitors, 17 May 1892.
 95

alterations would "not adequately improve” Great Pearl

22
St., Murphy took the line that a scheme was imperative.

Great Pearl St. was ignored for a decade. The

case was revived hy the new metropolitan borough of

Stepney when a deputation went to the Housing of the

Working Classes Committee of the ICC in February 1902.

Mr. Potter, president of the borough, asked for a

clearance scheme under part I. In January Stepney's

medical officer had made a representation under part II.

Thus if a part I scheme were not possible then Stepney

was willing to have it done under part II so long as

the Council contributed. Stepney, however, could not

undertake the project alone in view of already high

rates. It added that due to the transient population

the use of sanitary by-laws was impossible. The area’s

male population were casual laborers or made cheap

boots and clothes. Moreover, it was difficult to get

the names of owners and ground landlords because none

of the houses were registered even though some were

practically lodging houses. The Council prescribed to

Stepney closing and demolition orders under part II.

22LCC, HWCC, NESC, Minutes, (5 April 1892), 350-51

and (12 Dec. 1892), 542-43; LCC, PHHC. Housing
Subcommittee, Minutes I (11 Jan. 1893), 9; LCC, PHHC,
Papers, 1893-94, A2i, LCC, Murphy, 25 Jan. 1893.
 96

If this failed then it recommended that Stepney design

an official representation. Interestingly enough there

is no record of the medical officer's January represen­

tation; it is possible that Stepney never forwarded it

to the Council. The County Council also urged Stepney

to get the names of all leaseholders and freeholders.

It indicated that Poplar had done it and intimated that

if Poplar successfully followed up this with closing

orders Stepney might do the same. After years of

wavering "between comprehensive schemes and use of

closing orders, circumstances forced Stepney to rely

23
solely on closing and demolition orders.

Fortunately the Great Pearl St. area received

minor surgery; however, the dispute over two blocks in

Mile End Old Town ended in total inaction. The Lewin's

Buildings and Lomas Buildings are the best examples of

file cabinet politics. In October and November 1892

the vestry and the LCC exchanged letters discussing the

condition of the Lewin's Buildings. The Cou..ty Council

wanted closing orders and immediate action. The vestry

3LCC, HWCC, Minutes. V (26 Feb. 1902), 629-30;

Stepney Borough Council, AR for 1902, App. B, p. 97;
LCC, HWCC, Minutes, V (26"Teb. 1902), 631 and (5 March
1902), 6 4 5 ; ^ £ e r s , 1901-02, 15, LCC clerk, 4 March
1902; 15 March 1902; 16 May 1902; Stepney clerk,
16 July 1902.
preferred sending a deputation to work out the differences

it seems that although a date was set no meeting was

held. Mile End could not justify clearing the Lewin's

Buildings because the rates were already very high and

there had been an enormous increase of poverty in the

district. It argued that the owners should be respon­

sible for removing obstructive buildings and for making

houses fit for humans. The vestry refused to rspend

"large amounts of public money in order to save landlords

the slight, natural, and proper loss they may now suffer

as a direct consequence of thfcir former greed and

overcrowding of the land." The Public Health and Housing

Committee replied that poverty did not excuse the vestry

from carrying out its obligations, especially since it

had been Mile End's medical officer who notified the

Council.24

The Council's valuer submitted two plans to deal

with the area. One proposed removing a few buildings

and altering a few others for £450. The other proposed

demolition of all of Lewin's Buildings and a few on

Sidney Street, widening Sidney Street, and using the

24LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A12-II, Mile End clerk.

27 and 31 Oct. I89fc; LCC clerk, 8 Nov. 1892; PHHC,
Minutes, III (30 Jan. 1893), 217; Papers, 1893-94, A12,
Mile End clerk, 22 Dec. 1892.
 98

rest of the land for front gardens. This projected cost

was £5,000. The Public Health and Housing Committee,

however, decided to wait six months to give "the Vestry

25
an opportunity of taking action." With this documen­

tation ended, and the case disappeared into the files.

The Lomas Buildings controversy, on the other hand,

revolved around finance, use of cleared space, and

housing. Mile End wanted the County Council to contribute

to the costs. When Mile End advanced a scheme under

part II, the LCC demanded proper plans and estimates

before it would consider a contribution. Once the plans

were resubmitted the Council indicated that the area

must be retained as an open space, and it desired a

guarantee that enough vacancies existed to accommodate

the residents. The vestry protested and the LCC

accepted the request to use the site as a builder's

yard or rope walk; the vestry needed the revenue and

there already existed two or three open spaces in the

26
neighborhood. Little was done in the next year. To

25LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1893-94, A12, LCC valuer,

15 Feb. 1893; Minutes, "Iv (27 Feb. 1893), 248.

26LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1893-94, A25, LCC clerk, 10

Oct. 1894; Mile End clerk, 25 Oct. 1894; LCC clerk, 13
Nov. 1894; 1895-96, A25, LCC clerk, 22 June 1895; Mile
End clerk, 6 June 1895; LCC clerk, 22 June 1895.
 99

expedite the scheme, Mile End sent a delegation to the

Local Government Board. It requested that Murphy attend

to reinforce its position. The Housing of the Working

Classes Committee agreed there was sufficient housing

available in the vestry to free it from the rehousing

obligation, noted that the vestry’s officers were

capable of advancing the case, and diplomatically

excused Murphy. As it turned out the Local Government

Board was not satisfied with Mile End's scheme and

refused the sanction. To Dr. Thomas, Mile End's

medical officer, it seemed that the Local Government

Board had "evidently laid down a hard and fast rule

27
that in such cases new dwellings should be elected."

Although the Lomas Buildings were a standing

disgrace which demoralized the working classes, nothing

more was said until the Mansion House Council complained

to the LCC in 1903. For the Council to send a copy of

the nuisance complaint to the Stepney Borough Council

was insufficient. Murphy reviewed the history, pointed

out that Mile End never took advantage of an offer tc

use the County Council's solicitor to draw up a

representation, and recommended that an inspection by

27LCC, HWCC, Papers, 1896-97, 10, LCC clerk, 27 Feb.

1897; HWCC, Minutes, I (24 Feb. 1897), 329.
 100

the Public Health Committee might get results. Just as

Mile End previously had blamed the Local Government

Board so Stepney did, and it appeared that Stepney

oo
proposed to do nothing. Thus a slum so close to

clearance a decade earlier was dropped due to the Local

Government Board's obstinancy and local authority

frustration. It was not touched again until after

World War I.

Clearance schemes under part II were not feasible

for every site. The first and most important slum

cleared by the County Council required little deliber­

ation. The Boundary Street estate, Bethnal Green, was

the largest undertaking by either the Metropolitan

Board of Works or the London County Council. It had a

history of sub-standard housing reaching back over

fifty years. Southwood Smith in his 1838 report to the

Poor Law Commissioners cited the insanitary and foul

conditions in some streets; a decade later Hector Gavin,

Board of Health inspector, in his Sanitary Ramblings

condemned the dwellings; in 1883 the medical officer

for Bethnal Green, G. P. Bate, reported the houses to

the vestry; and in 1887 the Local Government Board held

pQ
Mile End Old Town, 42nd Annual Report, 1898,
p. 57; LCC, HWCC, Papers, 1903-04, 10, Stepney clerk,
17 Dec. 1903; memo from HWCC to PHC, 20 Jan. 1904.
 101

an inquiry and cited this as one of the worst areas in

the vestry. Bate again advocated a major redevelor>ment

project in April 1890. He recited the now familiar

litany: very poor health conditions, overcrowding, and

structural defects street by street. He added that the

only action taken after a special vestry committee

visited the area in 1883 was the application of the

Nuisance Removal Acts. Consequently, good money was

wasted patching houses that should have been demolished;

in fact, one owner deliberately ignored the notices,

pulled down his houses, and left the land vacant. Bate

ended this report by obliquely condemning the vestry

for not making any order to demolish any houses within

the area. Murphy fully backed Bate and recommended a

clearance scheme for the Boundary Street area. The

Northeast Subcommittee prepared the scheme for clearance

29
and redevelopment.

The major problem in this scheme was rehousing the

displaced families. The prerequisite for clearing 15

acres and displacing 5,700 poople was suitable

accommodations in the neighborhood. Most working

class families usually moved into the nearest vacancy.

29LCC, PHHC, Papers. 1889-92, A3-I, Bethnal Green,

Bate, 3 April 1890; LCC, Murphy, 5 June 1890; HWCC,
Minutes (29 July 1890), 574.
 102

The engineer assured the Housing Committee that half of

the residents could move immediately without being

seriously inconvenienced. The London County Council,

anxious not to displace residents without a place to

go, thought of acquiring two sites and constructing

working class housing. The solicitor cautiously

advised that he did not think the Home Office would

permit purchase of land under part III until the scheme

was confirmed unless the purchase was by agreement.

Nevertheless, the Housing of the Working Classes

Committee went ahead with plans to acquire the sites.

At the same time residents and ratepayers of Bethnal

Green, mostly living within a mile radius of the slum,

held a Sunday meeting and petitioned the LCC for a

redevelopment plan which would not overcrowd the

adjoining areas.

The County Council gradually formulated a plan to

minimize housing pressure in the surrounding districts.

If everyone was forced to move as property was

purchased the neighboring areas in Bethnal Green,

Whitechapel, and Shoreditch, which were already

30LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A3-I, LCC engineer,

9 Oct. 1890; LCC, asst, solicitor, 16 Oct. 1890; HWCC,
Minutes, (20 Oct. 1890), 603; PHHC, Papers, A3-I,
petition signed by Henry Davison, 2 Nov. 1890.
 103

overcrowded, would have been unable to take the added

strain. Thus, as each piece of property was purchased

the valuer and medical officer inspected it and decided

whether to repair or demolish it. The Council adjusted

rents and tried to end overcrowding. In the main rents

did not change much; what happened was that subletting

was ended. In this way transition pains from clearance

to rebuilding were eased. The project took eight

years.^1
The LCC took precautions to assist any tenant who

needed aid in moving and checked each complaint of

official abuse. Regardless, some residents were

belligerent and refused to move until they felt like it.

And from the tenants point of view the County Council

was not a benevolent despot. A group of residents,

some of whom could not even sign their names, sent a

letter describing their circumstances. They had lived

in the area for forty to fifty years and felt that the

LCC was "making criminals out of us, by putting us in

the streets." They did not want to be "disrespectful",

they "just wanted a roof over our heads and to earn an

honest living"; however, they were "stiff Rods", all

31LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A3-II, LCC, public

health department, £l July 1892; LCC valuer, 12 Dec.
1892; 19 Dec. 1892.
 104

they wanted was justice and a place found for them.

32
They felt their other letters had been ignored.

The Council helped relocate families, and tried

to cooperate with the semi-philanthropic Guinness Trust,

which did not feel obliged in the least. And the Council

gave gratuities which covered moving costs. Some

individuals thought they could get more by demanding

compensation. This led. to a false charge from

J. Norris, a resident, that Rev. Loveridge promised

tenants that he would get them large compensations if

33
they ignored notices to vacate premises.

Meanwhile, the Holborn Gladstone Club and the

Fulham Liberal Club wanted the names of landlords in

order to inform the public who gained profit from slums.

The Plumstead Radical Club and the Woolwich District

Radical Club not only protested the enriching of slum

landlords but went so far as to insist that these rack-

renters should forfeit their property. It seems that

these clubs were deeply influenced by Henry George's

ideas. While the Strand Liberal and Radical Club was

^2LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A3-II, residents,

Sept. 1892.

•^LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A3-II, Guinness

Trust, 15 Nov. 1892 an3T°17 Nov. 1892; HWCC, Minutes, II
(17 Oct. 1892), 649.
 105
piqued that had landlords raked in handsome profits,

the Shoreditch Liberal and Radical Club was concerned

with the high cost to ratepayers and implored the

34
Council to use part II of the housing act.

Political clubs were not the only cautious critics.

A letter from an unknown Shoreditch vestryman, disgusted

with the decayed property, chastened the LCC for paying

high prices for "rotten rubbish. Owners will have

money to continue playing tricks, and ratepayers pay

for it." Even more enlightened and self-centered pleas

came from the vestry of St. Mary Abbotts, Kensington.

It complained that parishes which received no direct

benefit from the scheme had to pay for it. Consequently,

if there was no other way of dealing with the slum than

under part I, then the parish benefiting from the

improvement should make "a special contribution towards

35
the expenditure." Thus the public was never

satisfied: on the one hand, it accepted the need for

clearance, on the other, it defended the helpless

34LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A3-I, Holborn Glad­

stone Club, 15 NovT 1890; Plumstead Radical Club, 10 Nov.
1890; Woolwich District Radical Club, 9 Dec. 1890;
Fulham Liberal Club, 12 Dec. 1890; Strand Liberal and
Radical Association, 14 Jan. 1891; Shoreditch Liberal
and Radical Club, 21 Jan. 1891.

•^LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A3-II, A vestryman of

Shoreditch, 14 May 1892; St. Mary Abbotts, 11 March 1891.
 106

ratepayer who demanded that either rackrenters and

greedy landlords clear the slum or the immediate local

authority be responsible for the clearance.

Once the scheme had been confirmed, there was a

new form of harassment. The vestry of Bethnal Green

complained that owners stopped repairing their property,

that better class residents were moving out and their

vacated premises were being quickly filled by squatters.

The result was a general decline in sanitation which

could be mitigated by closing the unfit houses. The

vestry pleaded that it was anxious to maintain

cooperation between the Council and itself. Presumably,

it did not want to issue closing notices on property

the LCC acquired. Actually, it wanted the Council

immediately to assume responsibility for every house

in the area, regardless of who owned it. The Council's

position was that it could not do much since it had only

a handful of properties, and it accepted full responsi­

bility for the sanitary condition of all property it

a cquired.^

Managing working class dwellings and helping

residents move was only one headache for the London

County Council. Neighborhood hooligans and petty

36LCC, PHHC, Papers. 1889-92, A3-II, Bethnal Green

vestry, 5 April 18^2; LCC clerk, 20 May 1892.
 107

thieves found the vacant property an attractive nuisance.

An adjoining manufacturer suffered from burglary and

asked the LCC to provide some protection. Houses

vacated still had salvageable material. Zinc and lead

were good items. One boy caught stealing zinc r e c e i v e d

a month's sentence. Another youth was put into his

father's custody until trial for pinching lead. A

workman and his friend were charged with stealing and

receiving lead, respectively. At the jury trial they

pleaded not guilty, and were acquitted.

3 71 Such

prosecutions curtailed vandalism and thievery.

Public relations was a key problem. The local

residents, the press, and public opinion had to be

placated. The Council held a meeting in the Boundary

Street area to dispose of misconceptions and inform

the residents of the project's progress. Unfortunately,

a tempest in a teapot developed when an article appeared

in the Shoreditch Guardian calling the LCC "Brothel

Keepersli" It charged that the Boundary Street area

was the center for prostitutes and thieves and that

the Council was collecting this sinful money. Moreover,

many houses were unfit. In another article it pointed

out the hypocrisy of the Council. On the one hand its

•^LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1 8 9 3 - 9 4 , A3, James Keeves and

Son, 26 June 1 8 9 3 » kcC valuer, 26 April 1893 and 4 Oct.
1893; ICC solicitor, 29 Nov. 1893.
 108

virtue was outraged because a music hall had "living

pictures which might excite the passions"; while on the

other the County Council owned property which provided a

promenade for disreputable women. The valuer quickly

debunked the articles; he claimed that overcrowding was

carefully watched and that no property was used for

immoral purposes. One house was let to a woman who

sublet and she submitted a list of tenants and their

occupations. Furthermore, only sanitary and repairable

property was let. When the vestry of Bethnal Green

complained about insanitary property, it was answered

.
xn a similar .3 8
vein.

No other slum clearance scheme under part I was

sanctioned for the Bast End until the end of the decade;

for that matter only two others were cleared in the

whole of London. In 1899 the LCC accepted two slum

removal projects under part I for the East End.

Curiously, the Burford's Court, Tucker's Court, and

Favonia Street scheme was composed of three miniscule

sites totaling seven-eights of an acre and they were

scattered throughout Poplar. All were within a mile

of Ann St. and of Preston's Road where the LCC had

38LCC, PHHC, Minutes, III (31 Oct. 1 8 9 2 ) , 16; PHHC,

Papers, 1 8 9 3 - 9 4 , AT,’’ cutting from Shoreditch Guardian,
20 Oct. 1894; LCC valuer, 23 Oct. 1894 and 24 Oct. 1894;
LCC valuer, 14 Nov. 1 89 4 .
■J

109
, F I G . VII .
V
B U R F O R D ’S " C O U R T . A c ., S C H E M E .
H A N No. 33 (a). .
PARIS!! O F ALL S /.li'W S , ! OTLAR.

anix:ic=HT)'.jar-

A,HT0i.'"'Vr7t';V

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■hetmo KttKKiyi 1M ** \ « j . 1 ..
aaaas— 1 •..................... K 8»<iUlJI|
 F 16. VI11
B U R F O R D ' S C O U R T , &o.f S C H E M E .

PLAN No. 33 (b).

PARISH OF BROMLEY ST. LEONARD.
 Ill

housing estates. Burford's Court was across the street

from Ann St., Tucker's Court about one half mile west,

and Favonia St. almost a mile north near St. Andrew’s

Hospital. Murphy counseled that part II provided

sufficient powers for the demolition of Tucker's Court

and Burford's Court; he was especially concerned with

Burford's Court as it had a high death rate. In July

Murphy added Favonia St. to the demolition list and

recommended its retention as an open space. As the

officers prepared a scheme under part II the valuer

concluded that each site was too small for building.

Moreover, since the three slums were within a mile of

Preston's Rd. estate which had surplus land from the

Blackwall Tunnel, possibly the rehousing obligation

could be transferred. The architect concurred in the

view that rehousing was impossible on these sites;

however, he hesitated because he thought that if land

were added to Burford's Court and Tucker's Court he

might design some kind of tenement block, though not

a favorable one. Alternatively, decent dwellings could

be built in Preston's Road without cost to the ratepayers

if the three sites were sold for commercial purposes

and the income transferred into its account, The

Housing of the Working Classes Committee dropped plans

under part II and ordered the officers to design a

scheme under part I based on their recommendations that

 112

Burford's Court and Tucker's Court be cleared and sold

for commercial purposes and that the Favonia St. site

39
be cleared and used for a playground.

A series of minor scandals arose before all the

properties were acquired and the sites cleared. In

Burford's Court a child died and the story appeared in

the newspapers. To mitigate bad publicity the Home

Office wanted to know what action was taken, and within

a month Poplar pressured the ICC to arrange for

"immediate removal of the occupants" from houses in

Burford's Court. Although the LCC promised that the

area would be cleared in twelve months, snags appeared,

and an arbitrator was required. A year and a half later

Poplar's medical officer again decried the condition of

Burford's Court; he said it was "positively appalling

and too terrible for words"; moreover, he absolved

himself on grounds that legal notices for the scheme

were already published. The County Council could only

reply that as soon as property was acquired it would

handle it. If this were not enough Poplar Borough

Council once more asked that Burford's Court be closed

39ICC, HWCC, Papers, 1898-1900, 44, Poplar medical

officer, 26 Nov. l89o and 11 May 1899; ICC, Murphy, 17
May 1899 and 5 July 1899} LCC valuer, 12 July 1899; ICC
arch. 12 July 1899; 26 July 1899; ICC, MP, (24 Oct. 1899),
1429. ““
 113

and included a letter from an irate neighborhood

resident named Robert Gibbs. Mr. Gibbs threatened to

go to the press if he got no action. He complained of

the noise and the disturbances to his family. Worst

of all urchins had taken to the roofs, were peering in

his windows, destroying his roofing, and had pushed over

a chimney into his children's nursery. Local officials

were continually inspecting his property as it was a

shop, n[B]ut such as the Public Health was intended to

reach are skipped," he complained, "filthy dirty beasts,

a very curse to God's earth. Send me the owner's name

and by Heaven I prosecute him if you don't do something

in the matter." Within the year the LCC had title to

this property and promised that the residents would be

40
moved out. Interestingly, Poplar, not too active for

the previous decade and reluctant to get closing orders

for Burford's Court itself, felt it could criticize.

On the other hand, the London County Council which took

pride in its efficiency did not always provide a good

example.

Providence Place was another Poplar slum which the

County Council cleared rather quickly. In July 1900

40LCC, HY/CC, Papers, 1901-02, 44, LCC clerk, 17

April 1902; Poplar clerk, 30 May 1902; 1903-04, 44,
Poplar medical officer, 23 Dec. 1903; LCC clerk, 31
Dec. 1903; Poplar clerk, 27 Jan. 1904; LCC clerk,
29 Jan. 1904.
 114

Poplar's medical officer officially condemned Providence

Place and King Street. Murphy concurred that the very

high death rate, had arrangement, houses without

basements, and ground floors below ground level made

clearance of Providence Place imperative. However, he

refused to recommend King St. as it had only nine houses,

and there were two businesses which would have to be

compensated. He advised that it was better to handle

the houses separately. Poplar was pleased that the LCC

applied part I to the Providence Place area, yet it was

disappointed over the rejection of King Street. The

controversy over King St. carried over two years. Poplar

was of the opinion that both areas should be dealt with

under one scheme by the Council. The Housing of the

Working Classes Committee indicated that King Street was

too small, a paradox considering that it accepted

Burford's Court, Tucker's Court, and Pavonia Street for

clearance; and it added that, as it was already

handling the larger area, Poplar should use closing

orders under part II. Poplar did not give up easily.

It petitioned the County Council to clear the King St.

area with a scheme under part II. The LCC, reluctant

to deprive the local authority of responsibility,

guaranteed Poplar vacancies in its Adalaide Building in

Ann St. if it got closing orders. Poplar did not react,

 115

so the LCC let the tenements to prevent an economic

loss. Eventually, Poplar replied: it warned that

closing orders were meaningless because the dwellings

would be merely patched making the scheme more

expensive. It stressed to the Council that it had the

machinery and the capacity to shoulder the costs.

Months later, after the Housing Committee viewed the

area, the LCC adamantly refused to deal with King St.

under part I and added that the houses were so

dilapidated that only a closing and demolition order

41
would do the trick. In this situation Poplar tried

to repeat the Burford's Court, Tucker's Court, and

Pavonia St. maneuver to have the County Council carry

the financial burden. The Council acted wisely; it

undertook to clear Providence Place and insisted that

Poplar assume responsibility for demolishing some slums.

After 1900 the London County Council was not active

in slum clearance. The East End had received a lion's

share of the schemes. More acreage was cleared in

Stepney by the Metropolitan Board of Works and jointly

41LCC, HWCC, Papers. 1898-1900, 63, LCC, Murphy,

3 Oct. 1900; 1901-62, 63, Poplar medical officer, 25 July
1900; 1898-1900, 63, LCC clerk, 6 Nov. 1900; 1901-02, 63,
Poplar clerk, 31 Dec. 1900; Poplar clerk, 14 Aug. 1901;
LCC valuer and manager, 10 Oct. 1901; LCC clerk, 18 Oct.
1901; LCC clerk, 22 Nov. 1901; Poplar clerk, 4 Feb. 1902;
HWCC, Minutes. VI (30 July 1902), 304; HWCC, Papers,
1901-02, 63, LCC clerk, 18 Oct. 1902.
"by the London County Council and local authorities than

in any other borough. Consequently, the London County

Council was not too receptive to Murphy's proposal for

redeveloping the Backchurch Lane area in St. George in

the East. Murphy indicated that in spite of low death

rates the area was poorly arranged and worn out.42 The

Council's officers proposed five storey blocks in order

to make the buildings financially feasible and if the

London County Council desired to provide accommodations

in advance then it could either lease nearby vacant land

or purchase a freehold under part III. The Housing

Committee was satisfied with the report and endorsed

drafting a scheme just in case Stepney made an official

representation. In October Stepney advocated a scheme

under part II; however, the Housing Committee deferred

the project and decided to omit part of the site which

had recently been sold to save money. Months later,

however, after viewing the area the Housing Committee

notified the Home Office that no improvement scheme was

necessary. Stepney tried again in 1903 to get the LCC

to redevelop Backchurch Lane only to drop the idea, and

42
Although the area was overcrowded the death rate
was low because it was inhabited by Jews whose habits,
age level and vaccination kept it down. LCC, HWCC,
Papers, 1901-02, 65, LCC, Murphy, 25 March 1901; 1903-04,
65, Stepney clerk, 9 May 1903.
so informed the Home Office. It was convinced that a

Home Office inquiry in the face of LCC opposition made

it extremely probable that the Home Secretary would order

the scheme to be carried out under part II and that part

of the expense be carried by the borough. About this

time the Council notified the Home Office that most of

the area would be converted into commercial property

43
shortly and a scheme was unessential. In this instance

the Housing Committee at first was enthusiastic for

redevelopment. But by 1903, sensing that the temper of

the Council wa3 not conducive to slum clearance, aware

that expenditure was rising, and faced with an expanding

building program in the outlying parts of the metropolis,

the Housing Committee rejected the scheme in hopes that

private enterprise would redevelop it.

The reorganization of Bethnal Green in 1900 brought

with it a more vigorous administration. The Brady Street

area in Bethnal Green provides a most interesting study

43LCC, HWCC, Papers. 1901-02, 65, LCC, engineer,

arch., valuer, medical officer, and manager, 17 July 1901
HWCC, Minutes, V (24 July 1901), 242; HWCC, Papers,
1901-02, 65", LCC valuer, 23 Oct. 1901 and 30 Oct. 1901;
Poplar clerk, 23 Oct. 1901; HWCC, Minutes, V (30 Oct.
1901), 352; VI (30 July 1902), 304; V I (25 Feb. 1903),
735; HWCC, Papers, 1903-04, 65, Stepney clerk, 9 May
1903; Stepney Sorough Council, Minutes of Proceeding,
III (15 April 1903), 897-98; HWCC. Papers, 1963-T5TT6 5,
LCC valuer, 10 March 1903; LCC clerk, T3 March 1903.
 118

of deliberate procrastination in hope for private

development. In his representation, G. P. Bate,

described this area as one with a high death rate,

overcrowding, and built in the cheapest manner by

speculators. The history of closing and patching and

reopening of houses went back into the 1880s. Over a

thousand notices had been served, but the repairs were

only superficial as the owners had short term leases.

Only a clearance scheme could cope with such a slum.

However, Bethnal Green was quickly turned down. The

London County Council assumed that a private developer

would take over the area shortly and redevelop it;

therefore, there was no justification for expenditure of

public funds. In the meantime, Bethnal Green was urged

to use its powers under the Public Health (London) Act.

Bate was greatly disappointed that the LCC did not deal

with the area under part I and noted that in 1904 the

proposals to deal privately with the area fell through.

The Council again concluded that, with the hope of a

private undertaking still existing, it could not design

a plan under part I. Bate was greatly disappointed

with the Council's refusal. Even the Local Government

Board, called by Bethnal Green to inspect the area,

 119
44
decided not to take action. ^

Since the LCC was unwilling to act, closing orders

were issued by the medical officer. Some houses were

closed; others were thoroughly cleansed and either

repaired or remodelled. Another special survey of the

area re-emphasized the conclusion that nothing short of

an immediate scheme was acceptable. Permanent improve­

ments short of clearance were not feasible. Thus Bethnal

Green again approached the County Council, stressing the

grave health hazards. Bate had high hopes because the

March 1907 election had brought the conservatives into

power "pledged to devote more attention to domestic

policy to the exclusion of some of the Municipal trading

schemes favoured by the late Council." Nevertheless,

the Council refused to budge from its previous position.

It argued that past housing schemes had been unrerauner-

ative, had absorbed large sums of money, and that

45
economy was the order of the day. Proposals for

44LCC, HWCC, Papers. 1903-04, 88, Bethnal Green

medical officer, 24 Feb. 1904; Bethnal Green, Sanitary
Condition for 1904. pp. 47-48; LCC, HWCC, Papers. 1905-06.
88, LCC clerk, lb March 1905; Bethnal Green, Bate,
30 March 1905; LCC, 20 April 1905; Local Government
Board, 4 Nov. 1905.

4^Bethnal Green, Proceedings, VI (7 Dec. 1905), 39;

VI (4 Jan. 1906), 67; ~VlI (20 beo. 1906), 47-48; VII
(21 Feb. 1907), 106; LCC, HWCC, Papers, I (16 Jan. 1907),
item 38; Bethnal Green, Sanitary Condition for 1906,
pp. 55-58; Sanitary Condition for 1<X>7, PP« 68-69.
 120

clearing the Brady Street area got nowhere until the eve

of World War I when after long negotiations between the

Local Government Board, the LCC, and Bethnal Green, the

Board decided in September 1914 that part II would be

sufficient. The war halted any progress. And at the

end of the war t^s County Council cleared the area

itself.^

During this period the East End Dwelling Company,

formed in 1882 to house the poor and earn a profit,

redeveloped a number of estates in the East End. This

was not exactly slum clearance but the private redevelop­

ment of worn out areas where freeholders were eager to

get higher ground rents. In 1892 the company acquired a

leasehold in Mansford St., Bethnal Green, with an

entrance in Pollard S t . ^ The following year it began

negotiating with the Moravian Trust for a leasehold in

Mile End. The East End Dwelling Co. desired the block

bounded by Hannibal Road, Cressy Place, and Stepney

Green. In 1893 it purchased the building rights in

Hannibal Rd. and Cressy Place and five years later it

completed negotiations for land at the intersection of

Cressy Place and Stepney Green after it purchased the

46Public Record Office, HLG 1/14 pt. 2.

^ E a s t End Dwelling Co., Minutes, III (23 May 1892),

9; III (11 June 1892), 11.
 121
48
rights from another leaseholder. The East End Dwelling

Co. also negotiated a leasehold with the Barnet Chancel

estate for Ravenscroft St. and Columbia Rd. in Bethnal

Green.49

However, the East End Dwelling Co.’s largest

redevelopment was in the Victoria Park Square area of

Bethnal Green. In 1900 it pieced together parcels from

three estates. The block bounded by Old Ford Road,

Globe Road, Sugar Loaf Walk, and Victoria Park Square

was owned by the Merceron estate and the Gretton estate.

Demolition and reconstruction were planned to take place

gradually over a decade; and eventually the northwest

corner was sold as a freehold to the Roman Catholic

church. Directly east across Globe Road and to the

south in Gawber, Welwyn and Kirkwall Streets, the East

End Dwelling Co. purchased leaseholds from the Moravian

Trust. These leases were negotiated between 1898 and

50
1902 for gradual redevelopment. The company also

considered other leases, like one in the Isle of Dogs

4^East End Dwelling Co., Minutes, III (20 March

1893), 83; III (8 May 1893), 96; IV (26 Oct. 1896), 86;
IV (24 Jan. 1898), 157.

49Ibid., IV (18 May 1896), 62-63.

50Ibid., IV (5 June 1899), 239; V (8 Oct. 1900), 61;

V (19 Nov. 1900), 70; IV (31 Oct. 1898). 200; V (19 March
1900), 30-31; V (3 June 1901), 105; V (8 July 1901), 113;
V (6 June 1902), 136-37; V (8 May 1905), 306; V (15 June
1908), 465; V(6 July 1908), 471.
 122

offered "by the Dock Co., hut rejected them because the
51
owners wanted too much rent.

Public responsibility for slum clearance was

established with the Cross Act and restated in the

Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890. This did not

mean that slums were doomed. Even vigorous adminis­

tration did not end this urban blight quickly. But

without the essentials— money and will— little could be

expected. The London County Council had will in the

first years and also brought the local authorities

into line. What it lacked was money. While not bad in

itself, since it made local officials think carefully,

the cry for fiscal responsibility was very often

linked with resistance to social change and used as a

guise for what was essentially a reactionary position.

The chief villain was parliament. It actually believed

that government loans rather than direct treasury grants

for slum clearance would wipe away London's cesspools.

The East End received the largest share of

clearances. Of the 95 acres demolished between 1875 and

1907 by the Metropolitan Board of Works, the London

County Council, and the local authorities, about 41 acres

were in the Tower Hamlets. The table makes obvious

^ E a s t End Dwelling Co., Minutes, IV (17 July 1899),

248.
S L U M C L E A R A N C E IN THE TOWER HAMLETS

IC C
■UF T O 1 A C R E
•1 TO 7 A C R E S
■7 T O 15 A C R E S

ro
 124

that the Metropolitan Board of Works demolished more slum

acreage in London and in the East End than the London

County Council. Why then does the LCC get so much credit?

TABLE I

SLUM CLEARANCES IN GREATER LONDON, 1875-190752

Bethnal
London East End Stepney Poplar Green
Acres Acres Acres Acres Acres

MBW 51 21 18 3 —

LCC 31 17 — 2 15
Loc. Auth. 13 2 1 1 —

Partly "because it forced the local authorities to act

responsibly and partly because it made itself look more

dynamic and accountable than the Metropolitan Board.

Finally, it must be remembered that many private estates

52
LCC, The Housing Question in London, pp. 294-95,
300, 308, 318; LCC, Housing of the Working Classes, pp.
146-150. In the LCC statistics one usually finds six
clearance schemes or about six acres listed under
'•Council Schemes" with a footnote stating they were
initiated by the MBW or a category "MBW and Council
Completed Schemes." The majority were cleared by the
MBW but no buyers could be found. In Cable St. the LCC
was responsible for completing financial settlements
before clearance began. In all these instances the MBW
deserves the credit for slum clearance.
were ripe for redevelopment and private enterprise or

semi-philanthropic groups stepped in long before public

authorities felt obliged to do so.

 CHAPTER IV

MUNICIPAL HOUSING: ATTITUDES AND ACTION THROUGH 1892

By the last decade of the 19th century the principle

of local government responsibility for slum clearance and

slum control was accepted. There were here and there

murmurs of disapproval. Individuals were found who did

the job better, and there was dissatisfaction with the

high cost of slum clearance which benefitted avaricious

landlords. But in the main, the climate of opinion

favored slum clearance while still being very hostile to

municipal housing. Conservatives and laissez faire

liberals adamantly opposed government rehousing programs

as a threat to private enterprise. Yet how were the

poor laborers to get improved dwellings?

To Sir John Simon, City of London medical officer

of health and public health pioneer, municipal housing

was nothing more than an indirect subsidy to capital,

permitting employers to lower wages.^ The civic minded

Mansion House Council was also openly antagonistic to

■^John Simon, English Sanitary Institutions (London,

1890), pp. 434 and 441.
126
 127

municipal housing— an attitude which it dropped after

2
World War I. The Liberty and Property Defence League,

a pressure group which believed in self-help and non­

interference, charged that "Municipal bodies had enough

to do, and as some think far too much, without launching

into the land speculating and building trades." In

1885 it attacked the Housing of the Working Classes Bill

which proposed to sell prison lands expressly for working

class housing, arguing that the sale of public property

at less than market value established "a very dangerous

precedent for future measures of pauperization and

socialism in other directions." It even believed that

this could mean the end of philanthropic groups which

3
erected housing for laborers.

Octavia Hill, and many who held a comparable view,

insisted that private enterprise was capable of

supplying all the housing required, and that voluntary

effort and industrial dwelling companies existed to

help the poor. In her article "Common Sense and the

Dwellings of the Poors I. Improvements Now Practicable,"

2
The Mansion House Council on Dwellings of the Poor,
The Present Position of the Housing Problem in and
Around Bondon (London, 19o8), p. o ; ^he Mansion House
Council on Health and Housing, The Present Situation in
London (London, 1934), pp. 3-4.
3
^Liberty and Property Defence League, Land (London,
1885), p. 48; The Times, 3 August I885.
 128

she stubbornly opposed any scheme which used public

funds for rehousing. These schemes merely restored the

old poor law system and further undermined "the

dignified position of the working men of England, who

have hitherto assumed that the support of their families

was to depend on their labour, their self-control,

their wisdom and their thrift." Moreover, erection of

public housing would entice more migrants from

4
agricultural districts.

As if substantiating Miss Hill’s philosophy a group

of prominent London leaders met at St. Jude's,

Whitechapel, in November 1882 to discuss housing

London's unskilled labor. This meeting resulted in

the formation of the East End Dwelling Co. Its purpose

was to help the "poorest class of self-supporting

labourers" get dwelling accommodations at the lowest

rent and also pay a dividend. It cited Richard Cross's

idea, expressed in The Nineteenth Century, that better

dwellings could be provided for the working class at

rents no higher than those usually paid by this class

for distinctly inferior accommodations. And it called

upon Octavia Hill for advice. The East End Dwelling Co.

4
Octavia Hill, "Common Sense and the Dwellings of
the Poor: I. Improvements Now Practicable," The
Nineteenth Century. XIV (1883), 925-26.
 129

differed radically from existing companies and

associations which erected dwellings for the more

prosperous industrial workers. Its definition of a

member of the poorest class was a laborer earning £1

or less per week. To achieve its goal it limited its

investment to land cleared by the Metropolitan Board

of Works. When this source dried up and the company

was forced on the market, it modified its policy.

The success of Peabody Trust and the East End

Dwelling Co. posed models for others to follow.

Created shortly thereafter were the Guinness Trust,

Sutton Dwelling Trust, and the Pour Per Cent Industrial

Dwelling Co. Each accomplished much in its own way,

but, even taken altogether, they were too small to make

a really significant difference. Sydney Waterlow's

Improved Industrial Dwellings Co. also served as a

model. One suggestion to solve overcrowding and

redevelop jerry-built areas in the East End was based

on Waterlow's success. It was proposed that twenty

great landlords buying property and rebuilding could

solve the problem in London with a few thousand pounds

5
East End Dwelling Co., Minutes of Forming
Committee, 1 November 1882, 13 I'tovember 1882, 5 February
1883; Bast End Dwelling Co., "Circular for Raising
Capital, February 1884."
 130
g
at four per cent. But nothing came of the proposal.

At a conference on "Housing of the Industrial

Classes," which met early in 1889 at St. James* Hall,

Piccadilly, Sir Charles Piussell, MP, "insisted that it

was a public duty to provide fit dwellings for the

industrial population." Commenting on the conference

The Times suggested that Radicals used housing reform

as a cat's paw for taxation of ground rents and another

7
step toward municipal socialism. Nearly two years

later in regard to rehousing in Bethnal Green The Times

was advocating that landlords be made to rebuild. It

deplored the idea of a "London rebuilt by the benevolent

Q
despots of the County Council."

Some national newspapers favored public housing.

For a while, in 1892, the Pall Mall Gazette seemed to

accept municipal housing. When the London County Council

decided to erect housing itself for the Blackwall

Tunnel, the Pall Mall Gazette praised the Council's

experiment to build with direct labor and dispense with

the contractor. It defended this action because the

^Arnold White, "The Nomad Poor of London," The

Contemporary Review. XLVII (May 1885), 724.

^The Times, 15 February 1889.

®Ibid., 9 December 1890.

 131
Council had not committed itself to future action.

"Progress," proclaimed the Gazette, "is the result of

tentatives; and if you shy at an experiment you may

9
as well lie down in your tracks and die."

While The Times and the Pall Mall Gazette were quick

to state their position, the local newspapers in the

East End seldom broached the topic. Once in a while

East End papers carried a small news item about housing

needs and it was exceptional to find a comment. The

East London Advertiser accepted the need for working

class tenements which were erected by private interests,

and lamented the difficulty the LCC had in attracting

private enterprise to purchase sites such as Brook St.

It added that the Council's sale of slum cleared sites

below cost was nothing less than "indirect State

Socialism."^ In an earlier article discussing the

housing question the East London Advertiser noted the

"agitation in favour of municipal action" to provide

laborers' dwellings, drew attention to the accomplishments

of private enterprise, and went on specifically to

praise Peabody for its cheap and profitable dwellings

^Pall Mall Gazette, 19 October 1892 and 23 November

3.892.

^ E a s t London Advertiser, 5 December 1891.

 132

even though they were "barrack and prison l i k e . " ^ It

can safely be said that the East London Advertiser, the

most articulate newspaper, did not support public

housing.

Lord Shaftesbury, who at the Royal Commission on

Housing of the Working Classes in 1883 had testified

that the housing problem had become worse due to

clearances, had faith in voluntary work so long as it

was protected by the umbrella of the state. He reasoned

that if the state supplied dwellings for laborers "at

nominal rents, it will, while doing something on behalf

of their physical condition, utterly destroy their moral

energies." He exhorted the public not to encourage the

state to intervene "until every effort has been made,

every expedient exhausted, and indisputable proof

given that, if the State does not do the work, it will

12
never be done."

Lord Salisbury, on the other hand, did not think

such proof was necessary before the state extended

aid. He was acutely aware of society's failure to

reach the poorest classes and of their inability to

^ East London Advertiser, 26 March 1891.

12
Lord Shaftesbury, "Common Sense and the Dwellings
of the Poor: II. Mischief of State Aid," The Nine­
teenth Century, XIV (l883)t 935 and 938.
 133

pay for decent housing erected by private enterprise

unless their wages rose. Salisbury's solution was

government loans at low interest rates to finance

decent accommodations« He admired the Liberty and

Property Defence League’s "wholesome doctrine" of no

government intervention; however, he deplored their

rejection of government loans for public purposes

13
since this was acceptable practice.

Just as conservative and realistic as Salisbury

was Lewis T. Dibdin, a barrister involved in church

and charity matters. He cited public opinion as the

restraining force. So long as it refused to favor

public housing no local authority would accept the

responsibility. Despite public opinion and vested

interests, however, Dibdin acknowledged that public

money was necessary. His solution was simple: greater

enforcement of sanitary laws, selective clearance done

gradually to minimize displacement, and government

loans to private interests to reconstruct. Preferring

private interests to purchase cleared sites and

construct tenements, Dibdin nevertheless accepted

local government erection of tenements as long as

they were sold to private enterprise immediately

13
Lord Salisbury, "Labourers' and Artizans'
Dwellings," The National Review, II (1883)» 305 and 312.
 134

upon completion.^

The Fabians advocated municipal housing and helped

shape opinion in favor of it. However, they did not

condone subsidies, Fabians consistently argued that

public enterprise was profitable and benefitted the

public directly. They refused to sanction deficit

operation and artificially lowered rents. According

to a Fabian tract of 1900, they wanted public housing

erected "only in places where [it could] be built at

15
a fair profit." Similarly, twenty years earlier, a

speaker at a workmen's meeting at Mission Hall in

St. Luke's had challenged the popular conclusion that

if local government erected artizans' dwellings this

"would be tantamount to subsidizing the people." He

was convinced that municipalities were just as capable

of making a profit as the industrial dwelling

companies.^ Even the Artizans', Labourers' and

General Dwelling Co. accepted competition from the

County Council so long as it let tenements at market

■^[Lewis T. Dibdin], "Dwellings of the Poor," The

Quarterly Review, CLVII (Jan. 1884;, 167.
15
Fabian Tract 101, The House Famine and How to
Relieve It (London, 1900), p. 18.

^ T h e Times, 21 October 1880.

 135

value

Some argued for housing from a negative point

of view; they demanded housing for laborers to protect

the social fabric. In outlining a Radical program in

the Fortnightly Review in 1883 one writer had argued,

"Self-interest enforces the dictates of humanity." He

added that workers, even if they were instruments of

production, were more valuable if they lived in better

conditions. And then this Radical turned the argument

from economics to social stability. Rehousing was an

insurance against disease and revolution. Finally, he

quoted Danton; "If you suffer the poor to grow up as

animals they may chance to become wild beasts and

rend you."..18

Lastly, transportation and relocating workers in

the suburbs was offered as a solution for solving

overcrowding and poor housing in central London.

This typical middle class view gained strength in

the 1890s. Fortunately, not every envisioned trans­

portation as the new solvent of social evils. In

1884 M. G. Mulhall, a statistician, condemned it as an

unworkable solution for the majority of laborers so

~^The Times, 7 March 1890.

18
"Radical Programme: III. The Housing of the Poor
in Towns," The Fortnightly Review. XXXIV (1883), 595-596.
 136

long as business stayed in the center. The only practical

remedy was to rebuild and remodel the homes of the poor.

To accomplish this he advised that land be made

available rate free for 90 years to national and

municipal authorities, trust committees, and joint stock

companies.19

William Thompson, in his book in 1907, questioned

the efficacy of cheap transport as the solution. He

condemned private enterprise for its failure to erect

sufficient housing. He recommended that the public

actively engage itself in fighting for the enforcement

of the nuisance removal and housing acts. His

organization, The National Housing Reform Council,

continually mobilized public opinion. He also demanded

that private and public enterprise cooperate and that

20
the Council increase its building activity.

It was in this melieu that the London County Council

struggled to arrive at a viable housing policy. Paced

with strong and organized opinion against municipal

housing the Council moved cautiously in order to allay

such fears. No matter how progressive politicians might

M. G. Mulhall, ''The Housing of the London Poor:

II. Ways and Means," The Contemporary Review, XLV
(February 1884), 233 and 235-36•
20
William Thompson, The Housing Handbook (London,
1907), pp. 7-39.
 137

be, they could get only a few steps ahead of their

constituents. Consequently, the County Council moved

gingerly. It first clarified its powers under the

Cross, Torrens, and Shaftesbury Acts. By November 1889

the Housing of the Working Classes Committee convinced

the Council that it should ask parliament for an act

consolidating all legislation pertinent to housing.

At a conference with the Home Secretary, members of

the Housing of the Working Classes Committee were

21
assured of this legislation in 1890.

Meanwhile, in July 1889, the Council proposed

municipal housing for Hughes Fields, Deptford.

Whitehall objected to the floor plans and ventilation

and light in the staircases. It suggested that the

Council provide a model for others to follow. In

addition, the Home Office informed the LCC of objections

to the proposal from the vestry of St. Luke, Holborn

District Board of Works, Wandsworth District Board of

Works, the vestry of St. Nicholas, Deptford, the

Parochial Justice Association of Battersea and Clapham,

and the vestry of Hammersmith. Although St. Nicholas,

Deptford originally approved of the scheme it now

LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, E7, White. 20 May

1889; HWCC, Minutes, I (27 May 1889), 96; LCC, MP,
(5 Nov. 1889), 863 and (28 Jan. 1890), 388. “
 138

joined in with the others who "hotly resisted it." The

Home Secretary hinted that the Council should revaluate

its position and take advantage of the vacant accommo­

dations nearby to withdraw its proposal. Consequently,

in December 1889 the County Council said it would sell

Hughes Fields on the open market for rehousing and

asked the Home Office to reduce the number to be

22
rehoused.

After this rebuff the Council returned to the

Metropolitan Board of Works' policy. In principle, it

limited itself to clearing slums and leaving reconstruction

to private interests, a policy which failed almost

immediately.

On the other hand, the ICC uid not ignore the

question of housing for the working classes. The

housing committee, conscious that clearance schemes

under part I and II of the 1890 housing act and enforce­

ment of nuisance removal legislation depended on a

reasonable housing program, focused on three aspects:

immediate rehousing of uprooted families, rebuilding

old areas, and erecting housing irrespective of housing

obligations. Accommodations had to be found for persons

22Public Record Office. HO 45/10198/B31375, pp.

45-47; LCC, Housing Question in London, pp. 177-78.
 139

displaced under part I or II to prevent overcrowding

in surrounding districts and to make their move as

convenient as possible. Lord Compton's solution was

to rehouse as many as possible within a half mile of

the clearance site. This meant finding out the number

of facancies available, offering them to those first

displaced and to those whose circumstances required

they remain in the locality. Compton also wanted to

ascertain which families were willing to go to the

suburbs and to help them relocate near railway stations

on lines which catered to workmen. Alfred Hoare, in

an addendum to Compton's memo, insisted on distin­

guishing between those who had to live near their

work and those who could move and then press those who

could commute to leave. Two other aspects of Lord

Compton's rehousing proposal were to discover vacant

sites in the area and offer them to private enterprise

or to use part III and have the Council undertake

construction itself. He also wanted schemes divided

into sections when possible. In this way one part would

be cleared and rebuilt, and then tenants from the

second section could move into it. Compton's proposals

23
were adopted as guide posts.

23LCC, PHHC, Papers. 1889-92, E7, Private and Confi­

dential Memo on rehousing policy, Dec. 1890; LCC, HWCC,
Minutes, I (15 Dec. 1890), 687-89.
 140

Lord Compton "based his proposals on the assumption

that private enterprise would carry the brunt of

redeveloping a cleared site. Nevertheless, the committee

discussed the question of municipal housing on cleared

sites. In February 1891 it concluded that the time was

not ripe for a pro or con decision. Instead it decided

to consider "each particular case on its merits," and

24
the Council accepted this recommendation. However,

the County Council earlier had tightened its control

over rebuilding slum areas. It stiffened minimum

specifications and demanded that plans for artisans

25
dwellings be submitted and approved by the Council.

The third aspect of the Council’s policy revolved

about using part III: this permitted buying land and

erecting municipal housing. At first its implementation

was conceived in a narrow framework of helping rehouse

displaced families. No positive decision was taken

until 1898 when overcrowding reached a crisis stage

and it was obvious that municipal housing had failed

to rehouse those for whom it was intended.

24LCC, HWCC, Minutes, II (16 Feb. 1891), 40; LCC,

MP, (14 April 1891)7 405.

25LCC, MP, (3 Dec. 1889), 953.

 141

Thus the Council on taking power retained the

policy of the Metropolitan Board of Works. It continued

to sell cleared sites to private enterprise with a

stipulation that working class housing be erected.

However, it left itself in a flexible position in order

to change when circumstance demanded. Since the

Metropolitan Board's policy was outmoded by the 1890s,

just how did the County Council arrive at the conclusion

that it must provide publicly owned housing? And how

did the Council persuade the Home Office to permit it

to activate its powers?

The London County Council had inherited from the

Metropolitan Board of Works a number of sites either

cleared or about to be cleared. In the East End the

three important ones were in Tench St., Brook St., and

Cable St. They were all in the Limehouse District

Board's area. Together the architect and the medical

officer investigated the sites and the surrounding

vicinity, and formed a policy of action. Since there

were 1640 unoccupied rooms which were capable of

accommodating 3,280 persons and the required rehousing

for the three sites was 2,816 both felt that the

Council could apply to the Home Secretary to reduce

the rehousing to one half. They developed their

argument quite well. The Metropolitan Board of Works

had tried to sell the Tench St. site in January 1888

 142

and the Brook St. site in July 1887 for artisans'

dwellings, hut had failed. The Metropolitan Board

reviewed the areas and concluded that no further

housing was necessary in the Tench St. vicinity.

Instead it went to parliament for permission to retain

the site as an open space. Brook St., on the other

hand, was auctioned once more hut there was no market

for erecting working class housing. The ICC's

architect and medical officer reasoned that the

relocation of docks further down the Thames caused the

population decline. They believed that with so many

vacancies it was undesirable and uneconomical to build.

If new dwellings were constructed and rented at market

value they would remain half empty, or if they were let

at below market rents, they would attract people from

other districts. Moreover, the LCC could not erect the

buildings in time to accommodate families being

displaced from the Cable St. area. Under these

circumstances, Blashill and Murphy concluded that no

dwellings should be constructed at the Brook St. or

at the Cable St. sites because "no adequate return can

be obtained on this outlay by building suitable dwellings

for the poor." However, if the Council wanted to

erect housing on the Brook St. site, it should be low

density cottages— for one or two families— and be

 (f/C-v V t f W i

F<o-. 143
B R O O K S T R E E T S C H E M E , .

PLAN No. 18.

H A M LET O F R A TCLIFF.

SCAL E
XV

Source; LCC ■ QuejtiM /ft Loftoieft.

PSWf-A I’tp.-r^C
racioM

/
 144
26
independent of the number displaced.

This report was digested gradually. The site in

Tench St. was turned into a playground and garden.

Brook St. moved ahead slowly. J. Ambrose, a member of

the Limehouse District Board of Works, writing in the

capacity of a private citizen, did not believe there

was sufficient housing. He deplored the four years of

inaction on the Brook St. site when there was desperate

need for accommodation for the poor. Ambrose condemned

the Peabody Trust for its dear rents which inevitably

contributed to the poor crowding into rooms. He

optimistically believed that the Council's buildings

could pay five or six per cent and that the ensuing

benefits would make the poor "happier and more

27
comfortable." On the other hand, a group of residents

petitioned that the Brook St. site be converted into

an open space as there were plenty of rooms available

already. The closest open spaces, about half a mile

away, were already used to capacity, and Mr. Vatcher's

public gardens, which were behind London Hospital, were

28
well used in spite of the half penny entrance fee.

pc
ICC, PHHC, Papers. 1889-92, A8-I, LCC architect
and medical officer, 15 July 1889.

2^Ibid., Ambrose, 6 Nov. 1889.

28Ibid., Price, 24 Nov. 1889.

 The conflict was clear: open space or housing.

There were vacancies; yet they were too expensive for

the poor working class, or landlords were unwilling to

accept them. So there was a housing need. Yet parks

were essential. In addition, there was the architect's

and medical officer's report which noted that housing

was uneconomical. The upshot of all this was a very

political solution. The London County Council decided to

ask the Home Secretary to reduce the rehousing obligation

by one-half to 281 and sell one plot in Brook St. for

rehousing; to keep another plot, 60 x 150 feet, as an

open space; and to sell the third for commercial

purposes. Interestingly enough, R. Ward, the LCC solic­

itor, submitted a very legalistic interpretation

counselling that the Home Secretary could not reduce the

number to be rehoused even though there were sufficient

vacancies; moreover, even if he did so this would not

make it a valid order. Whitehall proceeded cautiously.

The Home Office recommended that the LCC put up for sale

the segment it desired with the 281 requirement and that

it not go ahead with the open space as yet. Finally, the

Home Office agreed to modify the order and permit the

sale of one segment for commercial purposes.29

29LCC, MP, (4 Feb. 1890), 87; LCC, PHHC, Papers,

A8-I, LCC solicitor, 17 Feb. 1890; Whitehall, 1 April 1890.
 146

Ambrose wrote another letter to the Housing of the

Working Classes Committee begging the County Council to

provide cottages for the poor. He cited the scheduled

closure of 40 to 50 houses and the refusal of most

landlords to accept the displaced tenants. He opposed

the idea of an open space as the churchyard in Butcher's

Row was being converted into one. The valuer, after

considering Ambrose's cottage plans, recommended that

if two and three storey cottages accommodating 300

people were permitted than the site would be attractive

to private enterprise. The LCC accepted this and the

30
Home Office approved.

Just as the LCC thought it had resolved the Brook

St. problem, the Limehouse District Board of Works

exhorted the Council to apply to the Home Secretary

for power to erect cottage dwellings itself. The

District Board argued that closing insanitary property

was unjustifiable when rehousing was uncontrollable.

But the crux of the problem was the loss in rates from

closing unhealthy property and in effect increasing

the burden upon the remaining houses. Soon thereafter

LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A8-I, Ambrose,

2 March 1891; LCC valuer, 16 April 1891; LCC, MP, (5 May
1891), 506-07; LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A8-T7 Home
Office, 1891.
 147
31
the Hamlet of Ratcliffe reiterated Limehouse’s stand.

So long as there was hope for private redevelopment

of the site the County Council easily resisted all

pressures to erect municipal housing. The East End

Dwelling Co. had originally rejected the Brook St. site.

However, it reconsidered its position when it was

offered a £4,000 investment on the condition it purchase

the land. By mutual agreement, based on the analysis of

the company's architect, the investment in the East End

Dwelling Company was reduced to £2,000 and the company

required to buy only one plot. The East End Dwelling

Co. offered the County Council £550 for Brook St. And

although the company agreed with the LCC's architect to

accept the Council's model plans except for details,

the Corporate Property Committee rejected the offer as

too low. The committee wanted £720 and the company

refused a shilling above £550. So both sides dropped

32
negotiations until after the auction.

In the meantime the Council and the Home Office

31LCC, PHHC, Papers. 1889-92, A8-I. Limehouse

District Board of Works clerk, 1 June 1891; A10-I,
Hamlet of Ratcliffe, 6 Nov. 1891.

■^East End Dwelling Co., Minutes, II (1 June 1891),

179; II (29 June 1891), 187; il (2o July 1891), 193;
II (4 Aug. 1891), 195; LCC, PHHC, Papers. 1889-92, A8-I,
LCC arch., 16 July 1891; LCC Corporate Property
Committee, 20 July 1891.
 148

bickered over the design of the two storey cottages.

Recognizing yard space to be at a premium Whitehall

demanded a flat roof for the use of occupants on the

top floor and insisted on a high railing. Blashill

strongly protested the railing since he had designed a

three-foot wall. The Home Office accepted the

architect's proposal of a one-foot six-inch rail on

33
top of the wall. ^ Ironically, the roofs on the

cottages are pitched.

The auction was a failure and the County Council

reopened negotiations with the East End Dwelling Co.

The company now wanted to construct ten cottages instead

of eight. The LCC's architect refused comment until he

had studied the floor plans and the arrangement of

rooms.3^ At this point negotiations collapsed and on

5 April the LCC decided to ask the Home Office for

permission to build. It based this plea on the failure

35
to attract buyers. The Council, however, judiciously

omitted the private negotiations with the East End

33LCC, PHHC, Papers. 1889-92, A8-I, Whitehall,

1 Aug. 1891» Whitehall, 17 Oct. 1891; LCC clerk,
26 Oct. 1891; Whitehall, 12 Nov. 1891.

3^East End Dwelling Co., Minutes, II (22 Peb. 1892),

233; LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-9'S7" a 8'-II, LCC arch.,
31 March 1892.

35LCC, MP, (5 April 1892), 315; LCC, PHHC, Papers,

1889-92, A o -TT, Whitehall, 2 May 1892.
 149
Dwelling Co. The Council, nevertheless, did find it

impossible to get buyers who were willing to construct

reasonable quality tenements and pay an economic price

for the land.

The Cable St. site reveals a different complication

in trying to dispose of land which led to the LCC's

decision to build working class housing. The County

Council inherited this incomplete scheme from the

Metropolitan Board of Works. The Board had begun

purchasing properties but the responsibility for tying

up ends, clearing the area, and offering it to private

enterprise was left to the Council. The Guinness Trust,

established in 1889 to house London's laboring poor,

approached the Council through C. T. Ritchie and this

site became the center of negotiations for more than

two years. C. T. Ritchie, president of the Local

Government Board and a trustee, asked the County

Council for help in getting land at a price which

permitted constructing low cost buildings. The Housing

of the Working Classes Committee, willing to cooperate,

made clear to the Trust that the committee must abide

by the price set by the valuer and that the Trust

must accept the Council's rehousing requirements. At a

OC
The valuer's duties are comparable to those of an
American county auditor.
 ''--rt*ma ,.~«A '«**. ,

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C A B L E S T R E E T S C H E M E .

PLAN No. 22.

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 151
joint meeting the representatives of the Guinness Trust

stated its objectives in hope of getting the best

possible deal. The Trust desired to house the poorest

married couples in single rooms of twelve by ten, and it

clearly disapproved of the Council’s building standards.

Since the Trust expected to make a three and a half per

cent profit it wanted no conditions on the land;

furthermore, should the Council refuse the Trust’s

conditions it knew where land was available at Is l/2d

per square foot or £7,000 per acre. The Housing of the

Working Classes Committee, on the basis of this meeting

and a report from the valuer and architect, decided to

offer the whole site for Is 8d per square foot with the

stipulation that the Guinness Trust rehouse 970 people

and limit the height to four storeys. If the Trust

wanted only a portion of the site then the price per

square foot was higher. In either case the Trust had

to submit plans for the Council’s approval.

37

The Guinness Trust's reply led to a grand misunder­

standing. The Guinness Trust offered to purchase only

one plot at not more than Is 8d per square foot— the

37LCC, HWCC, Minutes, I (20 Jan. 1890), 343; LCC,

PHHC, Papers, 1889-32, A9-I, Memo of Conference of
Guinness trust and Housing of the Working Classes
Committee, 5 Feb. 1890; LCC, HWCC, Minutes, I (17 Feb.
1890), 415; LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-32, A3-I, LCC clerk,
22 Feb. 1890.
price if the whole site was purchased. It agreed to

limit the height of the buildings to four storeys if the

price was right and if its architect concluded that the

cost per room would permit low rents. The Trust

explicitly stated its unwillingness to meet building and

design standards of the Housing committee; however, it

guaranteed suitable and sanitary quarters. It hoped

that both the Committee and Council would square the

need for a free hand in this "practical experiment" with

their principles. Assiduously it avoided mentioning

anything about submitting plans. When reminded of the

plans, the Guinness Trust recognized the awkward

situation. It immediately replied that it was willing

to submit them, yet concluded that no "useful purpose

could be served" because the Trust could not comply

with the general building regulations. To have accepted

the Trust's condition the Council would have established

an unwarranted precedent; moreover, no builder was

deprived of initiative so long as he proved the merits

of deviation from model plans to the Council. Two

months later the Guinness Trust got around to thanking

the Housing Committee for its willingness to evaluate

the plans on their merit, were sorry for the misunder­

standing, and informed the Council that since it had not

 153
38
seen any hope it went and purchased property nearby

A year later the Guinness Trust once again offered

to purchase the Cable St. site at not more than Is 6d

per square foot with the stipulation that it be allowed

to erect five storey blocks. The valuer considered this

offer to be below cost but noted that the Trust through

C. T. Ritchie was assured of the Home Secretary's

approval of five storey blocks. The Guinness Trust's

plans were severely criticized by the architect: the

rooms were very small, two-thirds of the living rooms

had insufficient lighting, the windows were small and

poorly located, the ceilings only eight-feet six-inches,

and the tenement was five storeys. Taking into

consideration that this was housing for the poorest

working classes, the architect was willing to abide

by the committee's decision on the defects, except

for the bad natural lighting. Later the architect

reported that the Trust was willing to accept the four

storey limit and include nine-foot ceilings if the

Council dropped the price to Is 3d and he mentioned the

LCC. PHHC, Papers. 1889-92. A9-I Guinnes s Trus t ,

26 Fe . _ , .................. _il9; LCC, HWCC,
Minutes, II (3 MarcK—l890), 435; LCC, PHHC, Papers,
1669-92, A9-I, Guinness Trust, 26 March 1890; Lflfl, HWCC,
Minutes, II (31 March 1890), 470; LCC, PHHC, Papers,
1669-9^i A9-I, Guinness Trust, 22 May 1890.
Trust's intention to build below pavement level as this

did not contravene the law. The valuer reported that

his talk with the Trust's architect revealed a fixed

scale of rents; and he calculated that at this rent

rate the development would pay only three and a quarter

per cent if the Council accepted the new offer of

£2,000 which was just a little more than Is 3d per

square foot or £1,925 for the plot. He suggested that

if the trustees bound themselves to these rents the

committee should consider the price. Thus the Council

informed the Trust of its willingness to accept the

offer on the condition that the Trust abide by the

regulations of 3 December 1889, limit the blocks to

four storeys with nine-foot ceilings, and that the

proposed scale of rents "be strictly adhered to."

Finally it asked that the defects in lighting be

removed. The Trust accepted the four storey and nine-

foot ceiling recommendations; however, it refused to

accede to the building regulations, some of which the

trustees regarded as unnecessary and impractical.

Moreover, it refused to be bound by a rent scale

because it had to have a reasonable return which only

 155
39
experience would tell.

So after this series of prolonged and unfruitful

negotiations with the Guinness Trust the LCC changed

tactics. In January 1892 the Home Secretary reduced

the rehousing requirement from 970 to 720 and then in

May, after no sale, the LCC petitioned to have it

reduced to 485. Whitehall, however, suggested the

County Council consider the redevelopment in terms of

more lots so as to bring the land within reach of the

ordinary builders who could build single tenements.

Furthermore, the Home Office suggested that there

would be no difficulty in rehousing 720 if the buildings

were three storeys with three rooms per floor. The

valuer studied this proposal and reported that the

experience of the Metropolitan Board of Works and the

London County Council showed that ordinary or small

builders could not afford to take the land on any terms.

Only philanthropic and semi-philanthropic groups could

do so because they specialized in housing the poor.

Furthermore, he did not think anyone could contemplate

two, three, or four storey buildings unless the

39LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A9-I, Guinness Trust,

30 April 1891; LCC valuer, 11 May 1891; LCC arch.,
28 May 1891; LCC arch., 11 June 1891; LCC valuer,
22 June 1891; LCC draft letter, 25 June 1891; Guinness
Trust, 24 July 1891; Guinness Trust, 30 Oct. 1891.
 156

conditions of sale and building regulations were more

flexible. The architect argued against three storey

blocks on the ground that good ventilation and lighting

could not be provided; and he reminded the committee of

its opinions when it compared the three and four storey

clay models for Brook St. The housing committee

forwarded the valuer's report to the Home Office with

the comment that the Home Secretary's idea served

40
"no good purpose."

During these years the local community pressured

for action. As early as May 1890 thirty-five ratepayers

complained that the site had become a rubbish dump and

a public urinal. A year later a petition, signed by

127 residents and tradesmen, askea the County Council

to sell the land or itself erect housing for the poor

since the site was a nuisance and increased the rates.

In October 1892 the vestry of St. George in the East

insisted that healthy working class housing which

could be let at reasonable rents be constructed; and

added that the cleared area and removal of inhabitants

40LCC, MP, (24 May 1892), 464; LCC, PHHC, Papers.

1889-92, A9-TT, Whitehall, 22 June 1892; LCC valuer,
4 July 1892; LCC arch., 2 July 1892; LCC draft letter,
12 July 1892.
 157

was "a great loss to the trading community."^''1'

After a few discussions with the East End Dwelling

Co. which came to naught, the LCC petitioned the Home

Office for power to build. First the Home Office

granted a further reduction in the number to be

42
rehoused and then it granted the right to build.

In the Cable St. instance negotiations with the

Guinness Trust dragged on for three years with no

success, rehousing requirements were relaxed with no

positive result, and negotiations with the East End

Dwelling Co. fell through before the Council accepted

responsibility to erect working class housing.

In both cases the actual decision to build came

after the LCC had tried other alternatives. Each of

these cases emphasized the futility of searching for

private developers, who were not to be found, while

the national government and local authorities were

breathing down the LCC's back. The pass which permitted

the London County Council to cross the divide to

municipal housing, however, was found in an area

LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A9-I, petition Hunt,

12 May 1890; petition Hunt and Benn, 16 June 1891;
A9-II, St. George in the East, 11 Oct. 1892.
42
East End Dwelling Co., Minutes, III (24 Oct. 1892),
44; LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92';" I'5-II, LCC clerk,
7 Nov. 1892; Whitehall, 2 Dec. 1892.
 158

outside slum clearance and the housing acts. The break

came in a Thames tunnel improvement scheme which had

parliamentary stipulations requiring rehousing.

The construction of the Blackwall Tunnel,

connecting Poplar with Greenwich, necessitated acqui­

sition and demolition of working class housing for

approachways. Parliament included a clause in the

scheme which made erection of new housing prerequisite

to complete demolition. The Council had no difficulty

in rehousing the inhabitants. The complication arose

over the construction of new housing. Sites which

were set aside in Cotton St. and Yabsley St. had no

buyers. Thus on 2 February 1892 the LCC, under

pressure from its Bridges Committee, committed itself

to erecting the housing itself if there was no sale at

the next auction. A few weeks later the Public Health

and Housing Committee was informed that there was no

sale of land in Cotton St. and Yabsley St. which was

reserved for the Blackwall Tunnel nor in Brook St. and

Cable St. Detailed architectural plans were drawn.

But construction was delayed until the Council decided

which site to use first and established a Works

Department to do the construction. The Council

resolved these problems quickly when the Home Secretary

forbade further displacement until housing was provided

 159

for 150 persons. It contracted the foundations and

retained the erection of the structure for the Works

Department, hut then contracted that to private

43
enterprise, too.
Once the Council committed itself to erect municipal

housing for the Blackwall Tunnel decisions for the other

sites were easy to make. Nevertheless, the ICC moved

cautiously and considered each case on its merits.

In the two official histories of housing by the London

County Council a very defensive position was presented.

It was argued that the Council inherited "derelict

sites" from the Metropolitan Board of Works which no

one wanted even when concessions, as modifying the

height of buildings for the Guinness Trust, were made.

Moreover, the histories stated that the Council was

influenced by the Metropolitan Board of Works' interpre­

tation and implementation of the artisans' dwellings

acts; only when the Council failed "to dispose of [the

sites] on any terms whatever" and pressure for

"fulfillment of the rehousing obligations" developed

43LCC. HWCC, Minutes, I (29 July 1889), 162; LCC,

MP. (2 Feb. 1892), 69; tCC. HWCC, Minutes, II (29 Feb.
TF92), 368; LCC, MP, (29 March 1892), 273; LCC, PHHC,
Minutes, III (12 Eec. 1892), 172; LCC, MP, (22 Nov. 1892),
1102"; (-24 Jan. 1893), 43.
 160

did the Council a c t . ^ This was only part of the truth.

On the other hand, the LCC tried to erect working class

dwellings in 1889 and later erected a lodging house for

single men. The reason for not constructing municipal

housing in 1889 was pressure from the Home Office and

the local authorities. Thus its argument that its

adoption of the housing policy was not "originally

45
deliberate and considered" is not true. The argument

that the Council was forced into public housing was in

part a ruse for what many members were committed to.

The Council had to act cautiously and only by gradual

steps could it lead the public up the path of

responsibility.

44
LCC, The Housing Question in London, p. 47; LCC,
Housing of tlie Working Classes, pp. 26-27.
45
'LCC, Housing of the Working Classes, p. 26.
 CHAPTER V

PUBLIC HOUSING POLICY IN FLUX: 1893-1907

Despite decisions to build housing in Poplar,

Limehouse, and Deptford, the County Council moved very

carefully. Instead of going wholeheartedly into

municipal housing, the Council raised questions with

each new clearance. By the end of 1893 about twenty

acres of London’s slums were slated for demolition,

and the LCC had accepted responsibility for redeveloping

the Millbank prison site. In 1895 the second series of

clearance schemes were initiated, most of which felt

the wrecker's sledge hammer in 1898-1899. After each

site had been scrutinized, conscientious overtures were

made to get artisans' dwellings companies or housing

trusts to purchase the sites. It became obvious that

commercial builders and trusts would not deal with the

LCC so long as they could get the sites more cheaply

from private interests who imposed no onerous model

standards. Consequently, the LCC eventually accepted

obligations for rebuilding in the slum areas it cleared.

Unfortunately, it hesitated in positively asserting its

161
 162

responsibility for redevelopment of slum areas. It

preferred to be forced through circumstances to accept

responsibility, because this absolved it of political

liability.
This indecisiveness seems to reflect the attitudes

of the County Council and the housing committee.

During its first three years, the ICC operated on a

non-partisan basis* Both parties felt their way.

Gradually, each organized a party structure in the

Council. In the main, Progressives, i.e., Liberals

and Labor, advocated public housing. The Moderates,

less euphemistically known as Conservatives, argued

for working class housing erected by private enterprise,

though some Moderates voted for municipal housing.

Both parties promoted the housing question and insisted

that it should not become a political question. Beyond

this, the most they agreed upon was the need for slum

clearance.

By 1892 the Council was organized on a party basis

and the Progressives with an increased majority were

able to push their program. Prom 1895 to I898 the LCC

was equally divided between the Moderates and Progressives

which made for caution. This changed abruptly in the

1898 election and the Progressives held a handsome

majority until 1907. The 1898 election was the turning

 163

point. With a landslide victory the Progressives opted

for providing working class dwellings in excess of

parliamentary rehousing obligations. This reorientation

of policy led to gradual phasing out of its slum

clearance program and to emphasis on building new

housing estates in the metropolis.

The Council's indecisive attitude toward housing

is best illustrated by its handling of the Goldsmith

Row site. The land was purchased in order to build

accommodations for families displaced from the Boundary

Street area. The County Council originally expected to

house 440 persons in four storey blocks and to provide

a playground. A tussle with the vestry of Shoreditch

led to an agreement whereby the Council would build on

one-third of the site and accommodate 220 persons and

leave two-thirds as an open space towards which the

vestry contributed.1

In June 1892 the site was offered for sale. Bids

failed to reach the estimated minimum and the site was

withdrawn. J. Hartnoll, a private developer and owner

of the Grosvenor Buildings which were erected on a site

cleared by the MBW, privately offered to take the plot

1LCC, PHHC, Papers. 1889-92, A4-I, LCC architect,

16 Oct. 1890; LCC valuer, 10 July 1891.
for £1,250 if he could build five storey blocks and

design it his way. Although the committee rejected

this conditional offer it was prepared to negotiate.

At the same time it decided to ask the Council to apply

to the Home Secretary for permission to build. The

committee, however, did not approach the Council or the

Home Office until after recess when it ascertained that

2
Hartnoll was not prepared to change his offer. In

October the LCC decided to erect the housing. But

then hesitated to implement the resolution, because the

East End Dwelling Co. offered to take the site. The

Public Health and Housing Committee accepted the East

End Dwelling Company's offer with the provision that

the dwellings be erected considerably sooner than the

Council intended to build and that both parties agree

in advance to a satisfactory rent schedule. To make

the deal more attractive the East End Dwelling Co.

offered to rehouse families in its Mansford St. block

on the condition that applicants would be judged on

merit and have decent character. Because of the East

End Dwelling Company's offer to rehouse residents in

Mansford St. and because of the urgency to construct

2LCCf PHHC, Minutes. II (27 June 1892). 529: II

(11 July 1892), 541-42?" II (3 Oct. 1892), 613, 615.
accommodations in Goldsmith Row the committee accepted

the deal in spite of the Home Office's approval for

municipal housing. This resolution was defeated in the

Council in December 1892 in a fight led by John Burns.

He demanded that the LCC implement its 11 October

3
resolution.

In January 1893 the Hast End Dwelling Co. expressed

surprise that the committee had negotiated with the

company after having in early October decided to build

itself. The committee regretted the misunderstanding

and noted it was "fully prepared to entertain the

company's offer"; nevertheless, at the same time it

4
instructed the architect to prepare plans for the site.

On the one hand, the East End Dwelling Co. was rightly

incensed that the Council failed to inform it of the

December decision. In these circumstances it was the

company's option to decide whether to continue

3LCC, PHHC, Minutes, III (31 Oct. 1892), 14; LCC,

PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, A4-I, East End Dwelling Co., 22
Nov. 1892; LCC, PHHC, Minutes, III (28 Nov. 1892), 113-15
LCC, Iff, (11 Oct. 1892')’,"1571"; (20 Dec. 1892), 1243.

John Burns founded the Battersea Labor League;

represented Battersea on the LCC, 1889-1907, and in
parliament, 1892-1918; was president of the Local
Government Board, 1905-14.

4LCC, PHHC, Minutes, III (30 Jan. 1893), 216.

 166

negotiations. On the other hand, it was remarkable

that the East End Dwelling Co. did not know what

happened as the minutes of the Council were printed

and members of its board sat on both the LCC and the

Public Health and Housing Committee.

Two interesting sidelights reflect the Home Office's

position and the attitude of the East End Dwelling Co.

The Home Office was dubious about permitting the LCC

to go ahead and erect the dwellings. D. Cubitt Nichols,

an arbitrator for the Home Office, emphasized that the

Goldsmith Row question was "a somewhat important matter

and may lead to further consequences." Yet he advised

that the Council be permitted to build if the Home

Office did not want to delay indefinitely the

Boundary St. scheme. He reasoned that the site was

too small to interest the philanthropic groups and

that speculative builders did not like to work under

5
the LCC. In any case, the East End Dwelling Co. in

June 1892 decided not to bid for the site. Pour months

later it changed its mind and began to negotiate for

the site, offering £1,500 on the condition that it be

permitted to build right to the edge of the open space.

When the Council rejected the condition, the East End

'’Public Record Office, HLG 1/17 file .

 167

Dwelling Co. reduced its offer to £1,400, agreed to set

the "block hack from the open space and to abide by the

Council’s other terms, except that it wanted no

g
restrictions on rents or letting.

In July 1893 the Council decided to build housing

on the first section of the Boundary Street Estate and

quickly followed suit with the second section on grounds

that it was difficult to find anyone willing to construct

up to LCC standards. Despite these decisions the

committee resisted recommending that the whole area be

redeveloped by the Council. Nevertheless, in October

1894 the County Council accepted sole responsibility

for the Boundary Street area on the excuse that this

would ensure the fulfillment of the ”general scheme of

planning and design.” Implementation was another

matter. Not until the Council decided to construct a

central laundry did it move to ask the Home Office for

authority to retain all the land and build housing

itself. The cost of the proposed central laundry

precluded artisans' dwellings companies since it was

calculated into the rents. Moreover, the Council

concluded that private builders were reluctant to take

^East End Dwelling Co., Minutes, III (11 June 1892),

11; III (24 Oct. 1892), 44; IliT (TT ^ov. 1892), 50-51.
 168
7
leases as they would have to compete with the LCC.

There never were negotiations with private companies nor

were any sections of the area put up for auction. The

Boundary Street area, the largest clearance and redevelop­

ment scheme, became the full responsibility of the

Council because of practical and economic considerations.

Ann St., Poplar, is an example of attempts by the

County Council to attract private interests in

redeveloping slum sites. Thoughts of leasing the land

were quickly scuttled when the Guinness Trust expressed

interest in the area. Within a month negotiations

collapsed, mainly because the site was so very

restricted. In December 1895 long drawn out negotiations

with the East End Dwelling Company began. Tentatively,

the valuer and the company agreed that the sale price

should be £2,250 for the freehold if the company’s

architect thought that cottages would bring a gross

rental of eight per cent on outlay for land and buildings.

A minor complication developed when the London School

Board decided it wanted the site for a school. The

East End Dwelling Co. dropped further discussions

until the ICC and the London School Board resolved

7LCC, MP, (25 July 1893), 830-31; (1 Aug. 1893),

808; LCC, P M C , Minutes, III (1 Oct. 1894), 768; LCC,
MP, (9 Oct. 1894), 991-92; (9 July 1895), 670.
 169

■their differences. Because a parliamentary stipulation

demanded housing for 180 persons and the land could not

be released from this obligation the Council reopened

g
discussions with the East End Dwelling Co.

The company proposed to have a central four storey

block with cottages at either end. The County Council

drove a hard bargain. It demanded that tenants in the

uncleared half be given priority to live in the new

buildings or be given gratuities. Release from these

terms was out of the question. In addition, the East

End Dwelling Co. had to modify its construction plans.

When the LCC's architect studied the company's plans he

rejected them because they were designed on the back to

back principle, had too few toilets and sinks, lacked

baths, and were plagued with structural deficiencies.

The medical officer leveled his criticism at the back

to back design and poor staircases. In rejecting the

plans the Council directly cited only the back to back

defect and hinted at others. Understandably the company

8ICC, PHHC, Minutes. IV (1 July 1895), 205, IV

(28 Oct. 1895), 288; LflC. Housing Subcommittee, Minutes,
II (27 Nov. 1895), 383; LCC, PHHC, Minutes, IV (18 bee.
1895), 329; East End Dwelling Co., Minutes, IV (20 Jan.
1896), 45; LCC, PHHC, Minutes, IV (J Feb. 1896), 391-92;
East End Dwelling Co., Minutes, IV (10 Feb. 1896), 48;
LCC, Housing Subcommittee, Minutes, II (26 Feb. lo96),
474; LCC, PHHC, Minutes, IV (17 i*eb. 1896), 399; East
End Dwelling C o ., Minnies, IV (2 March 1896), 51.
was disappointed with the Council's rejection of plans

which "stood the test of experience." The East End

Dwelling Co. argued that if it followed the Council's

suggestions it would end up providing flats for affluent

artisans. The company plagued the LCC until it agreed

to submit the plans to the Local Government Board. The

Council refused to accept the Board's decision as

binding. Rather it was willing to seek only an opinion.

A meeting resolved the difficulty and the Council

assented to accept the Local Government Board's

decision as final. The Board rejected the plans

because the ventilation was poor; however, it noted

that the plans did not contravene the law. Quickly

new plans were designed and the East End Dwelling Co.

requested that the LCC forward them directly to the

Local Government Board without the housing committee's

approval. This request was refused. The new plans

remedied the back to back housing evil, but the

architect raised other points. The East End Dwelling

Co. replied that it had met the medical officer's

objections and the Local Government Board's requirements.

Refusing to retrace the architect's criticisms which had

been answered in 1896, it requested that the plans be

 171

submitted to the Local Government Board. The Council

Q
at this point complied.

The Local Government Board rejected the plans on

two points. It miscalculated and thought that 180

instead of 100 persons should be rehoused. The Bast

End Dwelling Co. pointed out that its plans were for

the smaller half and that the other 80 could be

provided for easily. More fundamental was the Local

Government Board’s refusal to approve single room

tenements unless they were ’’occupied by one man only."

The Local Government Board interpreted "one man" as

being equal to one person, which the East End Dwelling

Co. rejected. It could not understand why the Board all

of a sudden began to insist on only one person per

room. Such a restriction was comprehensible if

affluent workers were to replace the old inhabitants.

But there was nothing wrong with two factory girls, an

^East End Dwelling Co., Minutes, IV (4 May 1896),

60; IV (18 May 1896), 63; LCC, fcWCc," Minutes, I (3 June
1896), 78; I (8 July 1896), 114; LCC, HWCC, Papers,
1896-97, 11; LCC architect, 22 July 1896; East End
Dwelling Co., 14 Aug. 1896; LCC medical officer, 30 Sept.
1896; LCC, 5 Oct. 1896; East End Dwelling Co., 21 Oct.
1896; LCC, HWCC, Minutes. I (28 Oct. 1096), 196-97; LCC,
TWCC, Papers, 1896-37, ll; LCC, 19 Feb. 1897; Local
Government Board, 22 April 1897; East End Dwelling Co.,
2 June 1897; LCC, 5 July 1897; LCC architect, 21 July
1897; East End Dwelling Co., 1 Nov. 1897; LCC, 8 Nov.
1897.
 172

old woman and her daughter, an aged couple, or a young

couple occupying one room. The company added that

sensible landlords deplored overcrowding, while sanitary

authorities were responsible for enforcing the law.

Furthermore, the Local Government Board only made the

job of finding accommodations for the poor more difficult

by imposing conditions which were more stringent than

those required by the law. In conclusion, it pointed

out that negotiations with the Council had been

initiated about the same time as with the Ravenscroft’s

Charity, which meant that the Charity Commissioners

had to confirm the lease, and the Ravenscroft buildings

were completed.1^

The Housing of the Working Classes Committee

agreed with the East End Dwelling Co. and presented

this argument to the Local Government Board. Moreover,

it was aware of the potential complications for itself

should the new ruling be enforced. Recognizing the

predicament, the Local Government Board inquired what

procedure was used for terminating occupancy when a

child came and was informed that the tenant was asked

10LCC, HWCC, Papers, 1898-1900, 11, Local Government

Board, 8 March 1898; IifcC, HWCC, Minutes, I (27 April
1898), 730; LCC, HWCC, Papers. 1898-1900, 11, East End
Dwelling C o ., 13 May 1898.
 173
to take an extra room and if he refused then it gave him

a notice to quit. However, the directors made it clear

that they refused to have any restrictions imposed other

than their own, derived frcm experience, and those in

the sanitary by-laws. The Local Government Board

permitted strictly limited occupancy to childless

married couples, two girls, or two elderly persons of

the same sex. In effect, the Local Government Board

granted a concession, but the East End Dwelling Co.

wanted no restrictions other than those enforced in

law. But the Local Government Board refused to budge

even when there were further representations by the LCC

on the company's behalf. To get further concessions

the East End Dwelling Co. gave notice to the Council

that it was dropping negotiations and when no concessions

were forthcoming, it allowed the matter to lapse.

Edward Bond, chairman of the company and LCC member,

wrote to The Times reviewing the history of Ann Street

and placed the blame at the feet of the Council. He

concluded that had common sense and common justice

prevailed the Council would have accepted the offer

which was £400 more than the estimated value of the

site, and that the buildings would already have been

erected; now, however, the Council had to construct

 174

them.^" Originally there were genuine design complaints

which required modification. But Ann St. devolved into

a case of nit-picking whereby the Local Government

Board frustrated private initiative and the LOG stepped

in. Interestingly the basic negotiations took place

between 1895 and 1898 when the Council was equally

balanced between Progressives and Moderates.

A different situation arose with the Cotton St.

site in Poplar. J. Hartnoll offered to purchase the

site in May 1896. This site backed up to his Grosvenor

Buildings which had been erected on a Metropolitan

Board of Works1 clearance site. However, the chairman

of the housing committee refused to permit a vote on

the issue as the Council's plans were in an advanced

stage. Thereafter Hartnoll persistently petitioned to

get the site. When the Council's architect ran into

problems "of complying with Treasury requirements," the

LCC turned to Hartnoll. By May 1897 the Council was

almost ready to close the deal at £1,400 when two

complications arose. The architect and medical officer

LCC, HWCC, Papers. 1898-1900, 11, LCC clerk, 24

May 1898; Local Government Board, 8 July 1898; East End
Dwelling Co., 22 July 1898; Local Government Board,
15 Aug. 1898 and 12 Nov. 1898; LCC, MP, (8 Nov. 1898),
1288; LCC, HWCC, Papers, 1898-1900, TT, East End Dwelling
Co., 21 Nov. 1898; East End Dwelling Co., Annual Report,
1899.
noted that the working drawings infringed on nearly

everyone of the LCC's building regulations, and the

Council refused to part with a freehold. Hartnoll

agreed to modify the plans, yet, as previously, he

wanted a freehold not a lease. After redesigning the

plans the housing committee agreed to permit the half

basements in these special circumstances and not to

insist on direct access from tenements to the yard.

In July 1898 the committee recommended that the land

be sold to Hartnoll. The decision was postponed even

though an attempt to get the Council to build the

dwellings with a charge on the rates had been lost.

By October the architect, valuer, and Home Office

agreed that Hartnoll's offer was the only practical

way of redeveloping the site as he was his own builder

and manager. In the Council there were protests

demanding that the Council do the construction.

Beachcroft fought to have the Council do it if there

were no charge on the rates. The Home Office now

inquired twice as to what had transpired and was told

that the Council had decided to build itself. Finally,

in October 1899 the housing committee informed Hartnoll

that it had been prepared to sell but that the Council

 176
12
overruled it. It would appear that control of the

Council after 1898 by the Progressives with their more

positive policy had dictated this decision.

It seems that wherever the London County Council

cleared slums, be it in the East End or in London, the

County in the end provided the new housing. Always the

cry was the same— it was forced to take the responsi­

bility. Nevertheless, there were many critical

councillors who from time to time put forth resolutions

that the LCC should not undertake construction of

dwellings except under statutory obligation.

T. L. Corbett, a Moderate, unsuccessfully moved a

resolution to this effect in October 1895. He reasoned

that these operations were a loss to the ratepayers,

checked private enterprise and diminished rather than

13
increased accommodations for the working classes.

12LCC, HWCC, Minutes, I (6 May 1896), 58-59; I

(3 June 1896), 8 0 - 8TfTT3 Feb. 1897), 299; LCC, HWCC,
Papers, 1896-97, 16, Hartnoll, 19 May 1896; LCC clerk,
memo, 31 May 1897; LCC architect, 30 June 1897; LCC
clerk, memo, 12 July 1897; LCC, HWCC, Minutes, I
(27 April 1898), 729; II (6 July 1898), 73'i"Tl (5 Oct.
1898), 140-41; LCC, HWCC, Papers, 1898-1900, 16 Home
Office, 27 Aug. 18§8; Metropolitan Radical Federation,
17 Oct. 1898; LCC architect, 2 Nov. 1898; LCC, MP,
(8 Nov. 1898), 1289-90; (13 Dec. 1898), 1487; LS?J,
HWCC, Papers, 1898-1900, 16, Home Office, 6 Jan. 1899
and 4 Feb.”1899; LCC clerk, 18 Feb. 1899; LCC, HWCC,
Minutes. Ill (4 Oct. 1899), 212.

15The Times, 30 Oct. 1895; LCC, MP, (29 Oct. 1895).

991.
 In 1892 the London County Council decided to

investigate the causes of the failure to sell cleared

slum land. It wanted to know why speculative developers,

artisans' dwellings companies, and semi-philanthropic

companies refused to "buy cheap sites or even give

substantial bids. The LCC officers' analysis concluded

that only a few builders specialized in erecting working

class housing. The basic problem was lack of profits,

not risk. The speculative builder wanted a substantial

r etu r n . ^ The officers should also have cited profit

as the ma^or deterrent to receiving bids from semi-

philanthropic companies like the Guinness Trust and

the East End Dwelling Co. Moreover, the officers

failed to examine the question of necessary capital.

Only artisans' dwellings companies and semi-

philanthropic groups had the wherewithal or borrowing

capacity. Speculative builders were in the main too

small to command such funds. The valuer in a later

report on the Cable St. site did note that the small

contractor was in no position to buy the land and that

14LCC, PHHC, Papers. 1889-92, E22, LCC architect,

valuer, and solicitor, 4 May 1892.
 178

all attempts to attract him had failed. And one such

15
builder was J. Hartnoll. There was no discussion in

the report of leasing sites nor did the Council

seriously consider doing so; however, during this

period the East End Dwelling Co. was acquiring leaseholds.

Tied directly to price was the London County

Council's conditions of sale. The LCC officers

contended that the speculator disliked minimum specifi­

cations for rooms and staircases, a limit on the

number of floors, and open space requirements. The

Council's minimum size for one room tenements was 144

square feet; if the tenement had two rooms then one had

to be 144 square feet and the other could not be less

than 96 square feet. It demanded nine-foot ceilings

and four-foot wide staircases in blocks. The specu­

lative builder did not hesitate to cut room dimensions

when profit was at stake and he usually cut six inches

off staircase widths and lowered ceilings six inches.

Moreover, he was apt to build half basement flats

which were permissible by building by-laws but not

acceptable to the Council for model dwellings. The

County Council, supported by the Home Office, refused

15LCC, PHCC, Papers, 1889-92, A9-II, LCC valuer,

4 July 1892.
 179

to permit tenement blocks more than four storeys and

speculative builders erected them five or six storeys.

When it came to coverage of the building site, in

addition to depth requirements and set-backs from the

street, the minimum distance between two buildings

could not be less than the height of the buildings and

if possible it was desirable that the width be one and

a half times the height. The Council's standard was

backed by its medical officer who demanded maximum light

and ventilation. In this instance the builder saw a

great loss of profit. The officers concluded that if

the Council changed any of these specifications it would

16
alter completely its policy. The East End Dwelling Co.

and the Guinness Trust had the same reluctance to

conform to these standards as did the speculators.

They too saw it as a restraint on keeping rents low

and getting a reasonable profit.

The Public Health and Housing Committee continued

the study of causes of the decline in land sales. It

admitted that the Council regulations were a major

hindrance. Nevertheless, it defended these higher

building standards as a means of educating the public

16LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, E22, LCC architect,

valuer, and solicitor, 4 May 1892.
and members of the Council as well as a way of raising

prevailing minimum standards. To insure that the new

regulations were properly considered the LCC scrapped

the old policy of having the builder submit plans for

approval to the Council's architect. Instead the

architect sketched plans for a particular site,

submitted them to the Home Office for approval, and

had them available for the auction. Never were these

sketches intended to intimidate developers; they merely

proposed model ways to rehouse the stipulated number of

people while abiding by the Council's standards. The

contractor had at all times an option to modify the

plans or design his own dwellings, subject to the LCC's

approval and within the framework of the regulations

of 3 December I8 89.

In evaluating these standards the committee held

firm to the four storey limit. Although it hedged on

the efficacy of lowering ceilings to eight feet six

inches, it was willing to be consistent with the

proposals of the Building Acts Committee. The housing

committee stressed that the heights of rooms were more

important in limiting overcrowding than establishing

minimum air spaces per person. The committee was also

 181

willing to accept the narrowing of staircases from four

17
feet to three feet six inches.

Private builders not only objected to standards

which were higher than those in the London Building Act,

but they also disliked being submitted to inspection.

The Metropolitan Board of Works had been stringent but

the LCC was even more so. Some speculators had used

very inferior material in order to maximize returns,

as was borne out so clearly by the Royal Commission on

Housing of the Working Classes. Not every builder was

unscrupulous, for many inspected closely their own

work, but it was hard to maintain high standards on

low cost working class dwellings. The officers

advocated that the only way to insure high quality was

to compensate the builder for the cost of better

material. The simplest means of providing this

subsidy was lowering the price of land to a nominal

value. The officers also proposed three alternative

systems of inspection. The Council could continue its

current rigorous checking system; it could devolve the

LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, E22, Draft report as

to the conditions which land belonging to the Council
is sold or leased for the erection of artisans’ dwellings,
and as to the desirability of modifying such conditions
with a view to inducing bodies and persons to come
forward more readily as purchasers of such land,
[printed] June 1892.
 182

responsibilities to the District Surveyors who usually

did a good job; or it could establish strict regulations

but let the architect and his staff use their

discretion and deal with individual cases as the .'se.

The weakness in the last alternative was its openness

to charges of laxity and corruption. The Public Health

and Housing Committee refused to alter the policy of

strict supervision or to modify the building regulations;

however, it agreed to confer with the Building Act

Committee on the height of buildings. When the issue of

strict supervision was brought up again, it refused to

budge because very few builders of tenements existed

and most of the artisan companies were moving into the

suburbs, which helped alleviate overcrowding, in order

18
to be free of the LCC regulations.

The Public Health and Housing Committee reaffirmed

the officer' conclusion that good working class housing

could be provided only if land were sold at nominal

prices or if the Council built housing itself. It did

not go as far as the officers and maintain that some of

the worst pieces of land could not even be given away

18LCC, PHHC, Papers. 1889-92, E22, LCC architect,

valuer, and soliciior, 4 May 1892; LCC, PHHC, Minutes,
II (16 May 1892), 468; LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92,
E22, Draft report as to the condition which land
belonging to the Council is sold or leased. . . .
June 1892.
 183

free. The committee was convinced that finding decent

accommodation for displaced people was more important

than finding buyers. Furthermore, most sites ripe for

redevelopment should rehouse only one half the original

number of inhabitants, and in some cases it was better

to retain the land as an open space or sell it for

19
commercial purposes.

Consequently, the London County Council retained

its official policy of selling land to private

developers. Even getting the Home Office to reduce the

number required to be rehoused and reoffering the sites

for sale failed to attract builders. Thus, in practice,

the Council usually opted for municipal housing

because it refused to lower its standards or to reduce

the price of land below a fair market value for housing

and parliamentary stipulated rehousing. Had the Council

been as reluctant to erect housing as it claimed, it

would have accepted reasonable offers tendered by the

East End Dwelling Co., the Guinness Trust, and Mr. J.

Hartnoll. Instead the LCC usually proclaimed that

negotiations had collapsed and had left the County

LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, E22, Draft report as

to the condition which land belonging to the Council is
sold or leased. . . .June 1892; LCC architect, valuer,
and solicitor, 4 May 1892.
 184

Council with no other alternative. This plea fails to

reflect the general statements of the Progressive party

which advocated municipal housing. The most that can

said for the ICC in its first decade is that it

vacillated on the problem of rebuilding slums because

of public opinion. When the Council decisively

launched a housing program at the end of the nineteenth

century, the LCC neither emphasized the reconstruction

of slums nor helped the poor; rather it developed new

estates.

The crucial change in the London County Council's

policy came between 1898 and 1901. By 1898, because of

the shortage of accommodation, the Council could no

longer avoid the general problem of housing the working

classes. During these years the emphasis gradually

shifted from redeveloping slums to erecting new estates.

And with rare exception this was the policy until

the war.

In the nineties the County Council had ordered

studies on workmen's trains, had initiated public

transport, and had established a Works Department to

do construction by direct labor. By 1898 some of its

new tenements were occupied. Already it was evident

that the poor were not being rehoused in any impressive

numbers. And as the years went by newspapers and

workmen's associations poignantly reminded the Council

of this. Just as the model tenements of the trusts

failed appreciably to help the poor, so did those owned

by the Council. Moreover, overcrowding in central

London had become serious, and in the next few years

grew worse, before it ebbed. Paced with great problems

of overcrowding in the central parts of London and an

ever increasing cost of slum clearance and rebuilding,

the Council redirected its main efforts to new housing

under part III of the Housing of the Working Classes

Act, 1890.
The question whether the County Council should

anticipate housing needs had been raised early in its

existence. Lord Compton in October 1892 proposed

that future housing obligations be transferred from

the central city to the suburbs. The Council, he

maintained, could easily purchase up to £50,000 worth

of vacant land each year. Two weeks later Rev. C.

Fleming Williams asked the committee to recommend to

the Council adoption of part III for purchasing land

and building accommodations for at least 2,000 persons

a year. These maneuvers had brought into existence

 186

a special subcommittee to study housing and rehousing

the working classes.2^

Beyond relegating the Question to a subcommittee,

not much serious work was done until 1898. When the

question reappeared in committee in January 1898, just

before elections, it was whisked off to the LGC's

administrative officers for study. Then in May, soon

after an overwhelming victory for the Progressives,

the Housing of the Working Classes Committee created

a new subcommittee to consider the question of erecting

dwellings for the poorer segments of the working

classes and to consider what powers the LCC and the

local authorities, subject to the Council’s supervision,

needed.^

In November 1898 the committee reported to the

Council on the housing question. The valuer was

against the use of part III in the outskirts to combat

overcrowding. The medical officer concluded that if

the LCC proceeded to construct dwellings it would deter

private enterprise; furthermore, he was absolutely

20LCC, PHHC, Minutes, III (31 Oct. 1892), 13;

III (14 Nov. l892)7Tt:

21LCC, HWCC, Minutes, I (19 Jan. 1898). 638;

I (4 May 1898), 74S1
certain that the Council could not provide enough

housing to alleviate overcrowding. The housing committee

accepted these warnings, realizing that if speculators

were driven out of this market the Council would be

left with a task with which it could never cope. However,

the committee was determined to deal with the housing

shortage in central London and, after properly docu­

menting the differing opinions, it recommended that

part III be applied. A month passed before the Council

accepted the resolution, and it first had to be referred

back to committee. In the final version the Council

merely approved using part III so long as there was no

charge on the rates. But this was the wedge which

eventually changed the whole policy. At the same time

the County Council decided that it would be responsible

for all clearances which involved rehousing and would

rehouse an equal number displaced. Rarely did the

LCC clear slums after 1900; consequently, the clearance

22
clause became meaningless.

For the policy review the officers considered the

willingness and ability of the working classes to move

into the new subdevelopments. The architect was

22LCC, MP, (1 Nov. 1898), 1258-59; (29 Nov. 1898),

1434-40; (6 Uec. 1898), 1457-59.
 188

pessimistic about inducing the working class to move to

the suburbs. "Their experience, their habits and even

their means of existence," Blashill claimed, "are

identified with the place where they now live, and

although they may earn a very poor livelihood where

they are, they would be incapable of earning anything

if they were removed to an entirely different locality."

He did not think they could afford the superior

accommodations nor would properly furnish or know how

to use the larger rooms. Blashill did think that the

Council could successfully provide dwellings if it

went into the class that speculative builders erected.

However, the builders had competitive advantages in

terms of price, cheaper materials, and management.

Even if the LCC developed improved management techniques,

the speculator would quickly learn and adopt them.

The LCC’s only advantage was cheaper interest rates.

23
The most he recommended was an experiment.

More than a decade earlier the Royal Commission

had expressed economic views similar to Blashill1s.

In the central areas the working classes earned a

precarious income but in the suburbs the laborer might

2^LCC, HWCC. Papers, 1898-1900, 35, LCC architect,

25 May 1898.
have no chance to earn anything. The Royal Commission

in 1885 had discovered this to be true. Most of the

poor were casual laborers and the sources of employment

were at the docks (which meant being on the spot when a

ship came in) or costermongering. Others earning

subsistence incomes found employment in the tailoring

sweatshops, or in cabinetmaking or at the markets and

rarely could afford transportation. In addition, most

of the wives either worked as charwomen in the city or

took tailoring home to supplement the family pay. If

these families moved they would lose their credit which

they built with the shopkeepers and their access to

cheap markets with reduced closing prices. Added to

this was a natural reluctance to move and form new

associations. The Royal Commission pinpointed the

struggle for work as the cause of overcrowding. "If

regular work was to be had by all who want it without

any uncertainty, the poor might pick and choose the

24
locality for their dwelling."

James Parsons, an Bast End Dwelling Co. director,

charged that people lived in central London because of

emotional attachments not employment. He caustically

24RCHWC, PP, 1884-85 [C 4402], XXX, 18

 190

added that public housing kept them there. Parsons

preferred to subject the working classes "to chance and

25
changes of life" without intervention of the state.

In spite of Parsons' charge, it can be strongly argued

that economics tied the working classes to the central

26
areas of London; emotional ties were secondary.

Clearly, as long as housing was not subsidized the

poor would not be taken care of. And the speculative

developer, who provided for the affluent working classes,

could compete effectively with the London County Council

in this market. However, since Blashill was discussing

those who lived in poverty he ignored or he did not

account for rising incomes and population mobility.

True the poor were chained to their neighborhood and

2 5 James Parsons, Housing by Voluntary Enterprise

(London, 1903), p. 53*
26
Young and Willmott in Family and Kinship in East
London (Baltimore, Md., 1962) stress social and
psychological reluctance to moving rather than economic
factors. A similar view is expressed by Herbert Gans
about Boston's Urban Villagers (New York, 1962). Peter
Hall, equally concerned with ihe present rather than the
historic, challenges the Willmott and Young thesis in
London? 2,000 (London, 1963). He admits that the social
ties might be strong bonds for a small segment of the
working class, but it was not valid for the majority.
Many families were transient and had not developed
traditional ties. Moreover, he noted that the chief
complaint of those who moved was economic: too limited
a choice in jobs, too few neighborhood shops, and not
enough variety of shops or entertainment. Hall's view
is essentially that of Blashill and of the Royal
Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes.
 191

others, especially older people, were reluctant to move.

Nevertheless, younger men had money and were able to

move. Prom 1880 to 1900 real incomes in general rose

80$. Por those who stayed in the same occupation, the

money wage rose 15 to 20$. The men who shifted into

new industries and better paying occupations had a more

substantial increase. And during this period retail

27
prices dropped 15$.
Mobility viewed from population studies also

supports the thesis that the majority of residents in

the East End did not have the heritage or deep roots

of those who stayed in a traditional town. The Tower

Hamlets saw rapid increases in the 1840s, 50s, and 60s.

The rise averaged 67,500 or 16 to 22$ per decade. While

the population increase in the 1870s was still high,

over 50,000, in the 1880s and 90s the population

increased only by 15,500, and the 1900s saw a decline

by 26,000. First the enormous increases in mid-century

resulted from the potato famine, the agricultural

depression, and unemployment. In these years men

flowed from rural England, Scotland, and Ireland into

London to dwell the population and to change the urban

27
William Ashworth, An Economic History of England,
1870-1939 (London, 1960),"pi
 192

fabric. Then in the 80s and 90s thousands of Jews from

Eastern Europe came. In the 80s about 17,500 came and

in the 90s more than 25,000 poured in. Also in these

two decades the population in the Tower Hamlets

increased by 14,958 and 15,997 respectively. Surely

many residents must have left to make room for the

28
newcomers, even allowing for overcrowding.

^Population. Decennial Census, 1851-1911, PP,

1852-53 [1631], LXXXV, 6-8; 1862 [3056], L, 196; IF63
[7865], LIII, Pt. i, 420-22; 1872 [C 676-IJ, IXVI,
pt. ii, 15; 1873 [C 872], LXXI, pt. i, 25-26; 1883
;c 3563], LXXIX, 3; 1883 [C 3722], LXXX, 73-75; 1893-94
'C 6948-1], CV, 3; 1893-94 [C 7058], CVI, 82-83; 1902
Cd 785], CXX, 31, 174; 1912-13 [Cd 6258], CXI, 241.
 193
TABLE. II

DECENNIAL POPULATION CHANGES IN METROPOLITAN LONDON

AND THE TOWER HAMLETS, 1801-1911

Tower Increase or Decrease

Year Metr. London Hamlets in Tower Hamlets

1801 958,863 143,869

1811 1,138,815 178,774 34,905
1821 1,378,947 218,357 39,583

1831 1,654,994 262,172 43,815

1841 1,948,415 309,012 46,840

1851 2,362,236 376,265 67,253

1861 2,803,989 441,794 65,529

1871 3,254,260 511,947 70,153

1881 3,816,483 566,147 54,200

1891 4,211,743 581,105 14,958

1901 4,509,618 597,102 15,997

1911 4,521,685 570,429 -26,663

 194

TABLE III

DECENNIAL COUNT OF FOREIGN BORN IN METROPOLITAN LONDON

AND THE TOWER HAMLETS, 1861-1901

Change in
Year Metr. London Tower Hamlets Tower Hamlets

1861 40,909 13,196

1871 55,035 15,974 2,778

1881 60,252 18,501 2,527

1891 95,053 35,998 17,497

1901 135,377 61,048 25,050

Thus when the Council in December 1898 resolved to

construct housing irrespective of legal requirements it

did not tackle the priority question of housing the poor.

The Council was aware that poverty closed the door to

better housing; but the LCC study of the operation of

the London Building Act of 1894 made it evident that

the Council was unprepared to face the question of

subsidized dwellings. The critics maintained that the

LCC competition with private enterprise created the

shortage of working class dwellings. The Council, in

answering them, had its officers study the new building

acts as a possible restraining influence. It specu­

lated that contractors withdrew from building in order

 195

to see how the courts and the Council would interpret the

act. The officers discovered that experience under the

new law was not much different than under the old, and

quickly dispelled any misconception that the more

stringent regulations of the new act affected artisans’

dwellings companies, for tenement blocks had to be

constructed up to similar standards under the old law.

The officers, however, isolated the rise in cost of

building materials and labor as the cause for a decline.

The architect estimated that bricklayers' wages and

materials alone had risen fifty per cent. The valuer

and architect reasoned that while wages and material

rose in spurts, rents followed a more steady movement.

From this they concluded that "if rents did not increase,

building, as an ordinary matter of business, would

cease, and could not again commence until a rise in

29
rent should warrant it."

J . Parry Lewis in his study of building cycles

substantiates the architect's estimate of a fifty per

cent rise in costs from 1894 to 1897, and adds that

30
they then taper off. Moreover, the statistics he

29LCC, HWCC, Papers. 1898-1900, 35, LCC valuer and

architect, 6 July 1898".
30
J. Parry Lewis, Building Cycles and Britain's
Growth (London, 1965), p. 2o5.
 196

uses challenge the interpretations of the LCC's officers

that there was a decline in "building. His statistics

"based on data collected "by the Metropolitan Police Dis­

trict and by the district surveyors' reports reveal that

there was no slackening in construction in London, but

rather just the opposite in this period. In 1893-94

some 12,830 new houses were erected and this number grew

steadily until 1897-98 when 18,529 were constructed.-^1

Instead of using Lewis' district surveyor figures for the

whole of London, I have the district surveyors’ district

figures for the East End. My own calculations for the

Tower Hamlets, based on the district surveyors' reports,

show that the number of new buildings completed between

1892-95 averaged about 540 per year, and in 1896 jumped

32
to over 600 while in 1897 they dropped to about 450.

31
J. C, Spensley, Journal of the Royal Statistical
Society, LXXXI (1918), £l0, pt. il.

32LCC, London Statistics, vols. III-VIII. This Table

is my summary of the district surveyors statistics. In
the Greater London Council archives the monthly district
surveyors' reports are recorded in two sections. Part I
deals with permits applied for. Part II records are sub­
divided into part II and part III. In part III the data
reveals construction completed and this data is broken
down into type of construction: houses, working class
tenements, shops, warehouses, outhouses, temporary
buildings, etc. At the end of this series there are also
summary volumes. These volumes are useful as a guide to
the monthly data as the sequence in which districts are
recorded varies from year to year. The totals from these
summaries can be found in the yearly abstract of London
S t atis t i c s .
 197

TABLE IV

NEW CONSTRUCTION IN THE TOWER HAMLETS, 1892-1897

Year Bethnal Green Stepney Poplar

1892 138 360 78

1893 94 393 56

1894 119 331 98

1895 106 397 105

1896 144 284 106

1897 70 257 122

A word of caution about these statistics: in all cases

they were aggregates ; they were not broken down into

classifications of construction. Not until 1902 did the

LCC isolate figures dealing with working class tenements.

The Metropolitan Police District includes the whole of

greater London; the district surveyors' figures include

all new construction. Nevertheless these figures give

an indication of the direction the construction industry

was moving, and it is clear that there was no decline in

building. More significantly, in the Tower Hamlets the

East End Dwelling Co. continued its program of erecting

tenements and cottages for the working classes. By the

end of the decade it provided for an additional 1900

 HOUSING IN THE TOWER HAMLETS

ICCv. _ -EEDC
r-U P T O I ACRE
T O T ACMES
T O I S AC R ES

VJD
OO
 199

people in the East End; for almost 1700 at its Cromer St.

Estate in Gray's Inn Road and for 425 in St. Pancras.

Thus it accommodated over 6000 of whom a third were in

33
west central London. Moreover, the company had

already acquired leaseholds to three estates in Victoria

Park Square, Bethnal Green, and had begun building. It

estimated that this estate would eventually accommodate

1900. The LCC was aware of this unusual activity by

the East End Dwelling Co. while others had ceased to

build.^ Thus, there was neither a real decline nor

did the Council's slum program interfere with private

housing, except ideologically.

The Peabody Trust was not active during this

period. Its most influential years had been 1875-1885.

From 1885 until the end of the century no major

development was considered. Peabody withdrew because

it had overreached itself financially and it desired

to pay the debts before proceeding. In 1898, when its

major debts were paid it returned to construction. The

climate of opinion, however, had changed and Peabody was

33
^East End Dwelling Co., Annual Report. 1902.

•^LCC, The Housing Question in London. 1855-1900«

P. 63.
 200
35
no longer a leader.

The County Council therefore entered the housing

field in 1898 for the wrong reasons. The Council

believed it could alleviate overcrowding in central

areas, and when it launched its suburban building program

in 1900 it believed this would put improved housing

within the reach of the poor. Instead the ICC in its

policy reappraisal should have considered subsidized

housing, for the actual effect of this expanded building

program was to curtail slum clearance and the rebuilding

of slum areas.

35
^'John Nelson Tarn, "The Peabody Donation Pund: The
Role of a Housing Society in the Nineteenth Century,1'
Victorian Studies, X (Sept. 1966), 34— 35.
 CHAPTER VI

ARCHITECTURAL STANDARDS AND PLANNING REDEVELOPMENT

A half century of public health reform, which

included slum abatement, had shaped the outlook of

administrators and councillors and left its imprint on

legislation and policy. While health and sanitary

standards were priority objectives, they were always

subordinated to fiscal policy. Legislation basically

was permissive and lacked financial support from the

national government. Administrators and councillors

preferred to have private enterprise undertake rehousing

of the working classes and the County Council demanded

of private construction companies higher standards

which could not always be economically executed. On

the other hand, when the LCC began to provide municipal

housing, financial stringency dictated its housing

policy as it had its slum clearance policy. Conse­

quently, the Council paid lip service to rehousing

the displaced and the poor while subordinating the

social aspects of the problem to fiscal considerations.

201
 202

The stringent financial requirements and less

faithful acknowledgement of social responsibilities by

the LCC was not inherently evil. The County Council

kept costs at a minimum which pacified the hostile

segments of public opinion including most ratepayers

who disliked taxes. Furthermore, there were vocal

elements, like Octavia Hill, the Charity Organization

Society, and the Mansion House Council, who attacked

housing on grounds that it demoralized the masses and

destroyed private enterprise.

Administratively, the County Council retained and

strengthened the Metropolitan Board of Works' system to

control housing design. Up to 1892 the architect

sketched suggestive plans for sites the Council offered

for sale, checked the detailed plans of developers and

inspected buildings under construction to ensure that

standards were upheld. After 1892 the architect had

to translate into practice the LCC's policy and

building code within its financial requirements. In

addition, he had to consider the medical officer of

health's standards which differed slightly from his,

and had to accept the valuer's cost controls. The

administrative officers were bound as much by the

regulations as the industrial dwellings companies.

Furthermore, they believed that the Council's housing

 203

should set an example for tenement construction.

The key to understanding the LCC's building program

is that it was a quasi-commercial enterprise. The

propertied public generally looked on housing as a

commercial venture and demanded that government enter­

prise be as efficient as private. Governments were not

yet prepared to accept the concept of subsidized housing

for the poor or to use public as a yardstick to control

private enterprise. Public housing, therefore, had to

show a profit; it could not be subsidized out of the

rates.

The Council was guided by three general principles

when redeveloping any estate. Its cottages and

tenements had to be of the "best description." This

meant high quality in construction, more than the

minimum requirements in sanitation, and an aesthetic

facade. Second, the LCC aimed to rehouse the lowest

class of the working population at rents which were

current in the neighborhood of the estate. Finally,

each scheme had to earn three per cent profit on

cap itali zat ion.^

^LCC, Housing Question in London, pp. 43» 47-48.

 204

In 1839 the first minimum standards for housing on

publicly cleared slum land were established. The original

intent was to guide private enterprise. In addition to

minimum dimensions for rooms— one to be 144 square feet

and the other 96 square feet— the committee added a more

detailed set of regulations. Staircases were to be

located at either end of a block, with one for every

four tenements; if it was in the center then the

building should be entered from either side. This

would improve ventilation. The staircases had to be

four feet wide and finished with glazed or hard bricks.

Bathrooms should be provided for each block if none

were nearby; and there should be enough water closets

on each floor to accommodate the residents. To

guarantee proper light and ventilation to each room

and to provide sufficient open ground space the

committee insisted that the open space between buildings

should be equal to the height of the tallest block and

if possible one and a half times its height. No

building was to be higher than four stories, which

requirement the Home Office seconded. Basement flats

were not forbidden but were not desirable and demanded

2
caution.

2
LCC, Housing Question in London, p. 48; LCC, MP.
(3 Dec. 1889J, 955.
 Tenements erected to these standards were intended

to rehouse the lowest income group of the working

classes. By this it was meant the respectable poor,

those who were self-help motivated and self-disciplined.

To have rehoused the lowest classes without these tests

of character would have included the criminal and

destructive segments of society. The Council's attitude

on this matter was similar to that of Octavia Hill.

She felt that the destructive classes needed to be

trained by strong and watchful individuals. The cause

of their problems was not financial but moral. A

decade later, Laurence Gomme, the LCC's statistical

officer, in the official history of the Council's

housing, wrote that "The Council's investigations

confirmed this and it therefore devoted its attention

to the provision of accommodation for classes of the

3
population a little above the very lowest." In order

to successfully rehouse them the County Council

resolved that rents were not to exceed "those ruling in

the neighborhood." In practice this was interpreted

rent per room. So when the Council charged from 2/7 to

3RCHWC, PP, 1884-85 [C 4402-1], XXX, 291; LCC,

Housing Question in London, pp. 43-44; LCC, Housing of
the Working Classes, p. 27.
 206

3/9 or 4/- per room statistically it looked low. But

in the Boundary Street Estate only 15 out of 1,069

tenements were single rooms and they were let at 3/6

while the cheapest rent for two rooms was 5/9.* There

not being many one room flats— and even if they did

exist overcrowding regulations would apply— meant that

most of the poor with children were unable to pay for

accommodations in the new estates.

Other complications arose from the 3i° principle.

The Council refused to place any charge on the rates

except the difference between cost of land and its

value for housing. Rent had to cover not only operating

cost but also interest and sinking fund or cost of new

buildings. Such a policy put severe limitations on

dreams to rehouse the poor, charge low rents, and

provide quality. No doubt that waste was minimized.

Yet there was a basic conflict between the principle

of 31° profit and of rehousing the poor which was

resolved always in favor of the 3i° rule. One book­

keeping device used to retain quality construction and

limit costs was to mark down the value of the land to

a nominal figure— something the LCC was unwilling to do

for private enterprise. In this way uneconomical

4
LCC, Housing Question in London, pp. 314-15.
 207

housing sites, or better still lands purchased at

commercial use prices for residential construction,

were redeveloped. Sometimes the 3$> principle was

suspended on the pretext that rehousing was forced

on the County Council by parliament. Even in these

instances rents were no lower than in commercial or

neighboring tenements. Consequently, rents were set

too high for most East Enders, and as costs rose the

Council gradually modified the building regulations in

order to keep rents from rising higher and still comply

with the financial rule.

The first building standard that the LCC changed

was the limit on the number of storeys. It raised the

whole question of land density and ratio of open space

to building space on any plot. Private developers

disliked the limitation and so did the semi-philanthropic

and artisans' dwelling companies. They argued it was

uneconomical to build cottages for the poor. The

maximum height set by the LCC and the Home Office was

four storeys. This was thought to be sufficient to

provide proper density and adequate light and ventilation.

In 1889 the Home Office enforced this standard, after

considerable negotiation with the Great Eastern Railway.

Only four storey blocks were erected in Thomas St.,

 208

Whitechapel.^ Interestingly enough, the Home Office had

permitted six storey blocks when the Metropolitan Board

of Works had sold land. Shirley Murphy had inspected

some of the Guinness Trust six storey blocks in Bethnal

Green in 1892. His evaluation was unfavorable. They

were erected "en echelon," and some were only 30 feet

apart. While the upper floors had sufficient light the

"rooms below the fourth storey were gloomy and on each

successive floor this gloom increased." Murphy advised

the Council to stick to its standards.^

The four storey standard was threatened almost

immediately. Within a month of its decision to build

in Brook Street the Council cast away model plans for

three storey cottages and recommended four storey

tenements. This was the highest the LCC was prepared

to go in 1892. The Public Health and Housing Committee

even rejected Mr. Hartnoll’s offer to purchase

Goldsmith Row because he insisted on a five storey

block with a free hand to design the interior. It did

this at a time when new accommodations were essential

for rehousing the displaced families from Boundary St.

^Public Record Office, HO 45/10198/B31375, p. 232.

6LCCf PHHC, Papers. 1889-92, E22, Murphy, 21 March

1892.
 209

Eventually Hartnoll dropped negotiations and the East

End Dwelling Company's offer was refused because of

7
design difficulties. The LCC erected two and a half

storey cottages as they were the most practical and

inexpensive.

By December 1892 the Public Health and Housing

Committee considered going up to five storeys in the

Boundary Street estate but postponed the decision.

Even after a conference with the semi-philanthropic

housing companies in December 1892, the architect

strove to maintain the conditions the Council had

voluntarily imposed on itself. In accordance with the

Metropolitan Building Act, new roadways were to be at

least 40 feet wide and buildings in streets narrower

than 50 feet could rise no higher than the distance

between their facade and the opposite side of the

street. According to the architect the Council

required wide areas at the rear and on the street side

for its housing far beyond the requirements of any

Metropolitan Act or by-law. The Council could consent

to relax the regulations; however, it rarely granted a

7ICC. PHHC, Minutes, II (11 July 1892), 541-42; II

(30 Oct. 1892), 613.
 210

relaxation to private enterprise and thus scarcely

could justify doing so in its own case. While artisans'

dwellings companies erected five, six, and even eight

storey blocks, the Council planned to construct

g
healthful four storey dwellings.

In Yabsley St., Poplar, the Council Buildings are

five storeys high, have 20 three room tenements and 30

two room ones. Each has a scullery and a water closet.

And the rooms have slightly more than the minimum

floor space: a 157 square foot living room and a 98

square foot bedroom. This was the first building

erected by the London County Council and it was a

compromise between costs and standards. After studying

the architect's report and aware of rising building

costs, the Public Health and Housing Committee decided

to modify the Yabsley St. plans. To reduce costs the

committee recommended that ceilings be lowered to eight

feet six inches and there be five storeys rather than

four. The Council approved the increase to five floors,

but refused to lower the ceilings six inches. The

architect submitted new plans and recommended that the

8LCC, PHHC, Minutes, III (12 Dec. 1892), 166-67;

LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1893-94, E3, statement of interviews,
Dec. 1892; tcO arch., 10 Jan. 1893.
 211

road (as well as the building) be moved five feet in

order to comply with minimum open space requirements in

front and back. The Bridges Committee opposed this on

grounds that valuable wharf land would be taken, thus

increasing overall costs. The Public Health and Housing

Committee countered by showing that the commercial site

would not lose value; rather there would be an additional

3,200 square feet resulting from a reduction in building

foundations. The Public Health and Housing Committee

carried the day. The building was five storeys and the
g
street was moved five feet.

The Cable Street site is the best example of the

ordeal that the County Council faced in changing its

policy on the number of floors and height. The LCC,

after prolonged negotiations, refused the Guinness Trust

permission to construct a five storey block. In hopes

of attracting a buyer the Council was granted its

petition to reduce the rehousing obligation from 970

to 720 persons. When this failed the Council decided

that low density cottages were desirable and would

lure builders. Thus the LCC petitioned the Home Secretary

9LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1893-94, A24, LCC arch., 11 Jan.

1893; LCC, MP, (24 Jan. 1893), 43; LCC, PHHC, Papers,
1893-94, A2T7 LCC arch., 25 Jan. 1893; LCC, PHHC, Minutes,
III (30 Jan. 1893), 219; LCC, MP, (7 Peb. 1893), 109-16.
to reduce the rehousing requirement to the statutory

minimum— in this instance it was 485. Whitehall

prudently nudged the Council to reconsider its move.

The Home Office suggested that if the land in Cable

St. were subdivided into lots then these would be within

the reach of smaller builders. In this way, three

storey buildings with three rooms per floor would

easily rehouse 720 persons. The valuer agreed that

the Council's object was to rehouse the largest number

possible, but ordinary builders could not accept the

responsibility because they lacked the capital for such

projects. And the architect challenged the Home

Office's proposal on public health grounds. He pointed

out that three storey buildings limited light and

ventilation to some rooms while his four storey design

gave every room sufficient light and ventilation.

Then he reminded the Public Health and Housing

Committee of its conclusion when it had seen the clay

models of three and four storey buildings for Brook St.;

it had opted unanimously for the four storey blocks.

Moreover, if the Home Office refused to modify the

rehousing requirements, he would have to redesign the

 213

buildings considerably.1^

The Home Office eventually reduced the rehousing

requirement to 485. In the meantime, however, the ICC

had asked for authority to erect municipal housing,

which was granted two weeks after the reduction. Once

responsibility passed to the Council it ordered the

architect to prepare plans for four as well as five

storey buildings in order to accommodate the required

number. Plans were quickly submitted to the Public

Health and Housing Committee. The architect proposed

five storey blocks with lower ceilings and narrower

staircases— eight feet six inches and three feet six

inches, respectively. He argued that the financial

saving would be considerable, and that they were a

substantial improvement over Yabsley St. The ICC

accepted the recommended changes despite its

regulations,11

For the County Council to breach the four storey

LCC, MP, (24 May 1892), 464; LCC, PHHC, Papers,

1889-92, A9-TT, Whitehall, 22 June 1892; LCC valuer,
4 July 1892; LCC arch., 2 July 1892.

1:LLCC, MP, (22 Nov. 1892), 1102; LCC, PHHC, Papers,

1889-92, A9-TT, Whitehall, 2 Pec. 1892; 1893-94, AST
LCC arch., 9 and 26 April 18935 LCC, MP, (16 May 1893),
531.
 214

limit was more difficult than it seemed. The Home

Secretary was pleased that the Council was trying to

rehouse as many as possible now that it no longer needed

to attract private developers. Yet he held firmly to

the four storey limit in spite of the architect's

reasoning that artisans' dwellings companies erected

five to eight storey blocks. The LCC pleaded in letters

and sent a special delegation arguing that to get a 3$

return it needed to erect five storeys. The Home

Secretary relented "under the peculiar circumstances

of the case"; however, he stipulated that mechanical

means for raising and lowering dust pails must be

provided and that there must be a back as well as a

12
street entrance to each block.

One more case came before the Home Office before

five storey buildings became accepted as a permanent

feature of municipal housing in London's urban land­

scape. Back in December 1892 the Public Health and

Housing Committee had toyed with the idea of five

storeys in the Boundary Street estate and had postponed

it. The question was raised once again in February

1893; then in July the decision had to be reached.

12LCC, PHHC, Papers. 1893-94, A9, LCC arch., 5

July 1893; Home Office, 31 July 1893; Public Record
Office, HO 45/10198/B31375, pp. 51-52.
R. M. Beachcroft favored five storeys in the Boundary

Street estate and Rev. C. Flemming Williams counter­

moved for four. The committee carried Beachcroft*s

motion. In the meantime the LCC had submitted to the

Home Office a revised plan for the whole of the Boundary

Street estate, which was an initial attempt at planning

urban redevelopment. For the moment it is best to omit

the layout aspects and stay with the height problem.

Four storey blocks would provide accommodations for

4,124 persons and five storeys would accommodate 4,700.

The Home Office asked D. Cubitt Nichols, its

arbitrator, for his opinion. His only objection to

building five storey blocks was the “habits and

occupations of the probable occupants.” Nichols was

willing to accept the five storey dwellings if the

Secretary of State was because the rearranged layout

and improved surroundings might raise "the character

of the neighbouring occupants." The Home Secretary

13
sanctioned five storey buildings. From then on the

London County Council built five storey tenements or

cottages as best suited for the site.

13LCC, PHHC, Minutes, III (12 Bee. 1892), 166-67*.

Ill (13 Feb. 1893)7”23T? Ill (10 July 1893), 405; Public
Record Office, HLG 1/14 pt. 2, T,1184A, Nichols, 28 Aug.
1893. B 56
 Another standard which gave way was the width and

finishing of sta:' cways. They were an expensive part

of any tenement block. They took a lot of space,

raised construction costs and required daily maintenance.

The LCC standard required that a stairway be four feet

wide, provide access to no more than four dwellings on

each floor, and help ventilate flats. Glazed or hard

pressed bricks were to be used on the walls for finish.

The first buildings had stairways which met the four

foot requirement but they were exposed to the elements

and had walls of hard concrete. The pressure of

rising costs, the principle, and rents forced the

LCC to compare its minimums with the artisans' dwellings

companies. Their dimensions varied between three feet

three inches and three feet six inches. The Cable St.

block in 1893 was the first to have these narrower

staircases. In some blocks the Council used glazed

or hard faced bricks. As it was an expensive initial

investment it was not always included; instead many

blocks had stairways of hard concrete and distemper.

Maintenance costs over the years rose and the Council

found that tiling was cheaper. In fact, it put tiles

 217
14
on many of its first buildings to cut maintenance.

Thus, ideal standards for height of ceilings,

number of floors, and width of stairways gave way

immediately to financial considerations. The staunch

idealism of Murphy and the Home Office yielded to the

reality of building costs and rising prices. The ICC

practiced what it forbade private companies but used

the companies’ reasons to justify the measures.

Another area of conflict between the London County

Council and the Home Office was the question of

balconies. The first LCC buildings did not have them,

except for those in Mount St. on the Boundary Street

estate. Balconies, similar to those designed for the

Peabody Trust, which stretched the length of the

block and doubled as entrances to the flats, were

introduced into plans for the Lowood and Chancery

Buildings in 1895. This was the second half of the

Cable Street project. The valuer contended that

balconies would reduce costs and in turn reduce losses

from empties. Back in 1893 the Public Health and

Housing Committee complained that staircases could

14LCC, MP. (3 Dec. 1889), 953; LCC, HWCC, Minutes,

VI (12 Nov. 15*02), 447-48.
* N « n m g ctooa ^ o t m x
 219

cost as much as one-fifth of the construction cost.

Prom the architect’s point of view, one stairwell left

more space for rooms, and it seemed that tenants in

the Mount St. blocks of the Boundary Street estate

valued them highly. Granting that balconies did not

reduce rents, the architect noted they increased

comfort and accommodation. In hot weather mothers and

children got fresh air, in the evenings men used them

for smoking, and they were a convenient place for

keeping birds and flowers. The Home Office reluctantly

approved the Gable St. plans and warned the LCC not to

think this was a precedent. In fact, they were a

15
retrograde movement in working class housing.

In 1899 the balcony question was debated again.

The Home Office disliked the style. In 1900 it

challenged the LCC’s building plans for two blocks in

Preston's Rd., Poplar. Steward, the Home Office's

adviser, noted that out of London's 72,000 laboring

class families residing in blocks only 4,500 were in

the balcony type; and none had been erected recently.

15LCC, PHHC, Minutes. IV (27 May 1895), 178; LCC,

PHHC, Papers, 1893-94, E3» special report, 13 Dec. 1893;
1895-96, a 9, LCC arch., 15 May 1895; LCC, HWCC, Papers,
1898-1900, 5 Home Office, 6 Oct. 1898.
 220

Moreover, London medical officers of health were against

them because they restricted light and ventilation.

Balconies were useful for restricted sites where

economy and numbers to be rehoused were at a premium.

The Home Secretary, therefore, advised the County

Council to abandon this type of building which private

enterprise considered "undesirable according to the

modern view of sanitary requirements of town dwellings."

Although the Preston's Rd. site was not restricted the

Home Office relented and let the LCC erect balcony

type blocks on the condition that the natural light

which reached the lower floors was equal to the light

reaching the lower windows of buildings without

balconies and which were separated at the minimum

distance. Large scale drawings were requested to

judge the amount of light the lower floors got. The

Council misconstrued the request to mean that the

Home Office accepted the new standard. Only after a

deputation from the LCC went to the Home Office did the

Home Secretary relent, and then on the condition that

16
no buildings be erected on the intervening space.

16LCC, HWCC, Papers, 1898-1900, 5, Home Office, 14

March 1899; Home Office, 28 June 1900; LCC, 13 July 1900;
Home Office, 23 July 1900; Home Office, 5 Nov. 1900;
Public Record Office, HO 45/10198/B31375, p. 316.
 221

Thus the rule that a staircase should serve a

maximum of four families per floor went by the board.

Balcony type buildings became a part of the LCC style

and underwent a major redesign in the interwar period.

Today many Council flats have balconies, yet they are

usually private; they are not substitutes for passages

to connect tenements.

Room dimensions give a clue to the accepted

standards of the period. Today's ideal for a family

of four is about 750 square feet of floor space and

17
for three is 610 square feet, excluding storage.

The ideal minimum in the 1890s for a working class

family of four was 240 square feet. In the first

blocks and cottages the LCC nearly always exceeded

this. It is worth keeping in mind that at the turn of

the century it was assumed that each room in a working

class home could accommodate two persons. In Brook St.,

the average living room in the Beachcroft Buildings was

152 square feet and a bedroom was 113 square feet. In

Goldsmith Row the rooms were 149 square feet and 111

square feet respectively; in Cable St. 145 and 97 square

feet; and in Yabsley St. 157 and 98 square feet. The

17
Sir Parker Morris, Homes for Today and Tomorrow
(London, 1961), p. 35.
largest living and bedrooms were 196 square feet and

117 square feet which were in the Cookham Building and

184 square feet and 132 square feet in the Wargrave

Buildings of the Boundary Street estate. The architect

reasoned that the LCC had to set the pace for private

enterprise; nor could he accept "the proposition that

buildings intended to be occupied by the poor should

be reduced. . .in dimensions." By the end of the

decade the Council incurred the ire of the Home Office

because it had reduced room dimensions. The Collerston

and Idenden cottages for Blackwall Tunnel in south

London had 141 square feet of living room space and

113 square feet of bedroom space. The Mulready and

Landseer Buildings of the Millbank estate were 141 and

101 square feet respectively; while the Lawrence and

Maclise Buildings were 142 and 102 square feet

respectively. In each example the living rooms were

below the minimum and the bedrooms were slightly above.

In the Clare Market development the floor space

IQ
coincided with the minimums. These decreases were

the product of the vise of economy: housing

18
LCC. Housing Question in London, pp. 306, 316-17,
326-27, 332; ICc, Ptffl<5, Papers, 1893-94. E3. LCC arch..
10 Jan. 1893 and 20 0ct."18'93.
 223

accommodations were whittled down while clamped between

the jaws of rising prices and the principle.

In general, the increase in bedroom dimensions and

decrease in living room area space resulted from

continuous negotiations between the Home Office and

the County Council. Evaluations by the valuer and the

medical officer recommended greater flexibility in

bedroom dimensions, but no increase from the minimum

of 96 square feet. By retaining the minimum, awkwardly

shaped sites could be used. Also more bedrooms,

smaller in size, permitted segregating the sexes and

maybe giving the parents a bedroom. If there were

three or four bedrooms then one should be large enough

to hold two beds. What the valuer and medical officer

believed was needed, however, was a wider range in

design and accommodation not a change in minimum

standards. This would facilitate renting the

19
tenements.

As the LCC increased the number of self-contained

apartments, room dimensions were reduced. Criticism

of this in 1896 led to building larger rooms and the

architect had agreed with the Home Office that living

^ L C C , PHHC, Papers, 1895-96, E59, LCC valuer and

medical officer, 26 June 1895.
 224

rooms should average 160 square feet and bedrooms 110

square feet. Then in 1898 smaller rooms were designed:

the living rooms averaged 155 square feet and bedrooms

102 square feet. It seems that the larger flats were

difficult to let because of higher rents. Larger flats,

i.e., those with four or more rooms, were difficult

to rent because many laborers could not pay for the

additional rooms. The Home Secretary's office, alert

to this decrease, immediately informed the Council that

the rooms were smaller "than in the buildings he had

approved for erection by railway companies." The LCC,

based on experience from the Boundary Street estate,

held that the most practical size for a living room

was 160 square feet and for a bedroom 110 square feet

or where there were two bedrooms one 100 square feet

and the other 120 square feet. Pressure to get the

average bedroom up to 120 square feet was defeated by

economics. The necessity of keeping rents down

compelled the LCC to negotiate with the Home Office in

1898 and 1899 to revert to the minimum standards laid

down in 1889. The Home Office agreed and assented to

permit minute deviations, when site shapes and building

designs demanded them. So from 1899 all municipal

housing in central London was designed on these lines.

The LCC's building program for central London was just

 225
about completed until after World War I; consequently,

it had little effect. The tone of the official LCC

housing history makes it sound as if higher standards

originally were forced on the Council. On the other

hand, the Home Office's attitude was that it never

raised its minimum; rather the Council voluntarily

advanced dimensions until it found them too difficult

20
to maintain. The Home Office’s interpretation

appears the more reasonable one.

As the Council's building and management program

gained momentum as well as experience, the proportion

of self-contained tenements was increased. By 1898-1899

demand was greater than supply. Self-contained

tenements were slightly more expensive to construct,

yet were let easily at economic rents. On the other

hand, self-contained flats were beyond the reach of

poor laborers. What the poor needed were subsidized

flats or inexpensive single rooms. Since subsidized

housing was out of the question, the focus of the

discussion turned to some form of associated dwellings

with single rooms. The architect reviewed the vestry

20LCC, HWCC, Papers, 1896-97, 39, LCC arch., 29

Sept. 1897; LCC, Housing Question in London, pp. 49 and
51; LCC, HWCC, Minutes, III (£9 .tune 1899), 143; Public
Record Office, H& 43/10198/B31375, p. 398.
of St. Pancras and reported that single rooms were

difficult to get in the district. His advice was that

single room tenements could be designed and constructed.

At the same time a special subcommittee report of the

Public Health and Housing Committee recommended that

common sculleries be designed for working class housing

as they in no way contravened the building regulations.

Despite this flurry of activity nothing happened. The

number of single room tenements in municipal housing

in the East End was quite low and remained so. There

were 15 in the Culham block of the Boundary Street

estate and 22 in Cable St. By 1900 in London the

Council had 124 single room tenements out of a total

of 4,038.21

A Local Government Board memorandum suggested

standards for working class housing. It preferred

separate houses or cottages with a living room,

scullery, pantry, two or three bedrooms and the

necessary conveniences. Por urban districts it

recognized that two storey cottages were more economical.

And for densely populated areas it urged that blocks

21
LCC, Housing Question in London, pp. 49 and 51;
LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1893-9'4."£3',"LCC arch., 8 Dec. 1893;
special r e p o r t , 13 Dec. 1893, LCC, Housing Question in
London, pp. 304, 306, 314-15, 324-2T.
 227

be limited to three or four storeys unless great

distances separated them, that the length of buildings

be restricted to enable air to circulate, and that the

water closets be located so that they were practically

22
outside the flat.

Despite these recommendations the County Council

by 1907 had provided mostly two and three room tenements,

i.e., one and two bedroom ones, not the three or four

room flats recommended. 3*407 tenements were two room

and 3*298 were three room, while only 183 were single

room, 668 were four, 247 were five, and 3 were six

room. In the Tower Hamlets 1,001 were two room, 758 were

three room, only 40 were one room, while 101 had four,

6 five, 3 six rooms. The total was 1,570 tenements in

the East End constructed by the London County Council.

Of the flats erected by the County Council in London

and in the East End, 61$ were entirely self-contained

in each area. And if the more limited form of self­

containment, which had a private but detached water

closet, is included, then 75$ of London's municipal

pp
LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1895-96, E3, "The Housing of
the Working Classes Act, 1890, memo with respect to the
provision and arrangement of dwellings", abridgement of
Local Government Board memo July 1894, 16 Jan. 1894 (sic).
 228
23
housing was self-contained and 74$ of the Bast End's,

The Streatly Buildings, Boundary Street, emphasize

the importance attached to sanitary arrangement. The

medical officer believed that it was "far in advance

of anything that has yet been done." And he was

pleased that the northeast corner of the estate had

been "reserved for the plainer buildings to accommodate

the poorer classes." The rents for two room tenements

rt i
were 5/6 and for three rooms 7/9.

The Public Health and Housing Committee reviewed

working class housing design and studied what private

companies provided, especially how they differed from

LCC standards. Some did not provide private water

closets or, when they did, there were no efficient

lobbies separating the toilet and the living room.

They provided sculleries only if they could charge for

them as living rooms. They adopted internal staircases

with long and often dark corridors for economical

reasons. Also ventilation was not as thorough as in

the LCC's blocks. Murphy's inspection of tenements

3LCC, London Statistics XVIII (1907-08), 151; LCC,

Housing Question in London, pp. 304, 306, 315-17, 330,

24LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1895-96, E59, LCC arch., 30

Jan. 1895; A3, LCC valuer, 15 May 1895.
 229

designed by Messrs. Joseph and Smithem brought the

complaint that the Stepney Green block was on the back

to back principle. Most windows were positioned so as

to hinder through ventilation and the bedrooms, he was

sure, would become close and stuffy. He also disliked

water closets opening into the lobbies. Associated

tenements in Page's Walk, Bermondsey, which he also

inspected were similar and one block had an internal

staircase which restricted air circulation even more.

Interestingly, a study of the LCC's floor plans reveals

that in some although the toilet was properly separated

from the living room it usually was reached through or

was next to the scullery. Moreover, the Council's

standards were not always as high as they claimed.

Under the Customs and Inland Revenue Acts the LCC could

be relieved from the inhabited house duty if it

provided "'suitable accommodation' for each of the

families or persons inhabiting it." The Council was

denied a certificate for relief from the income tax by

the sanitary inspector of Bethnal Green. His inter­

pretation of "suitable" was a separate water closet,

sink, water tap, copper, and dust recepticle for each

tenement. The Culham and Sonning Buildings, Boundary

Street estate, failed to meet this demand. Eventually,

 230

with support from Shirley Murphy and alterations, he

25
granted a certificate for the Culham Buildings.

Proper planning of land use and environment played

a minor role in these years. Open spaces in working

class districts were considered mainly from a sanitary

view. Priority went for ventilation and light. So

the vacant spaces required for these purposes were

defined in the 3 December 1889 regulations and again

in the London Building Act, 1894. On redeveloped slum

sites buildings had to be separated by an area directly

proportional to their height, or a maximum angle of 45°,

and if possible one and a half times apart. The

Building Act dictated that the rear open space be at

least ten feet deep; where frontage was fifteen feet

the space had to be 150 square feet; and frontages up

to twenty feet required 200 square feet in the rear.

Prom the discussion of the Preston's Road buildings it

is apparent that the County Council considered erecting

buildings above this figure; and the space between

blocks was less. If the angle was measured to the

windows rather than to the base then there was a

25LCC, PHHC. Papers. 1893-94. E3, LCC arch.. 10 Jan.

1893 and 6 Nov. 1895; 1^95-96, E3, LCC medical officer,
26 Feb. 1896; Bethnal Green, Report of the Sanitary
Condition and Vital Statistics. 1897. PP. 5l-5^.
 231

smaller open area between buildings. The official

history talks about 45° of light and most people never

stop to think whether this meant to the base of the

building or the window sill on the ground floor.

The open space between buildings was usually paved.

The paved courtyards became play areas. And as the

habits and needs of children differ from adults they

were poor substitutes for proper playgrounds. Children

like to make noise and run about; paved yards surrounded

by tenement blocks magnify noise and irritability.

Moreover, families on the ground floor were not always

delighted to have children under their windows.

Gardens, open spaces, and playgrounds were

provided. They usually were in an area that either

was unsuitable for housing (and then was granted only

because local residents pressed for it) or where the

LCC failed to sell it to private interests. By the

Wapping Docks, in Tench St., St. George in the East,

for example, were two and three-quarter acres of

cleared slum. The Metropolitan Board of Works failed

to sell it and had decided to keep it as an open

space in 1888. The local community, however, was

divided. Some wanted housing and others an open

space. Herbert Day of Toynbee Hall led the forces

which wanted only half the area devoted to an open

 FIG. XIV
T E N C H S T R E E T S C H E M E .

PLAN No. 17. I

PARISH OF ST. GE OR G E IN T H E EAST.
A

(L o n d o n D u c k s )

61 JohniChurcIi

Scale
Artw jo 0 too too tfjo ** jOQfbeC

Source; UOX, Housing Q u a t i * n in kondort.

 233
space and the other half redeveloped for working class

housing. He argued that the neighborhood was in

immediate need of "good and cheap houses." On the other

hand, there was no need for a large scale open space

for gardens as two church yards were within walking

distance, and even less need of the open space for

ventilation because the river was on one side and the

docks on the other. He had Messrs. Martineau and Sly,

both LCC members, and clergy behind him. Lay even

tried to pose as a moderate force of reason with his

scheme. When he proposed it he also forwarded one

plan which demanded all land retained for housing and

another which wanted only an open space. Nevertheless,

the LCC went ahead with the Metropolitan Board of Works'

program and turned the area into a playground with gym

equipment for children and an open space with trees and

26
shrubbery for adults. This was a wise move as a

walk through this dock area reveals high walls

surrounding the docks, imposing warehouses, and bleak

tenements. True, "fresh air" from the river was

available, but there was hardly an open space for the

26
LCC, Housing Question in London, p. 167; LCC,
PHHC, Papers, 1889-^2, a I, Day, 24 May 1890 and 20 June
1890.
 234

residents or a break from the monotony. Furthermore,

the Tench St. gardens have been expanded a bit and are

a delightful retreat from bricks, mortar, and pavement.

Again in the East End the second plot of the

Brook St. site was considered for an open space, but

in the end it was covered with working class dwellings.

Only the Favonia St. slum, which was about a quarter of

an acre, was retained for an open space. In the

Boundary Street estate an open space was provided so

as to raise the level of the neighborhood. It was

seven-tenths of an acre mound developed as a circular

garden in tiers with benches and eventually a bandstand

was erected on the top. It is girdled by a road.

Rumor has it that this mound was a plague pit. The

most appealing and satisfying garden of the estate is

the old church cemetery of St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch

at the fringe.

Open spaces, therefore, served primarily public

health and sanitary purposes. Planners rarely considered

an open space on a redeveloped site on its merits for

relaxation or relief from congestion. Instead they

labored to rehouse as many as they could. This was

justified by a parliamentary stipulation that redevel­

oped slum land should rehouse as many as were displaced.

The Home Secretary had discretionary power to reduce

this number to a half if he was convinced of the

necessity and that the original inhabitants were

properly housed in the adjacent neighborhoods. Since

the LCC's regulations hindered sales to private enter­

prise the Council took advantage of the law and had

the number to be rehoused reduced to three-quarters and

then to one-half the original figure in certain instances.

Even this failed to attract purchasers. When the LCC

accepted responsibility to build it quickly dropped

the lower density schemes. The Home Office, pleased

that the Council returned to the original number for

Cable St., said: "Having no longer to hold out

attractions to the builder they were able to devote

their attention to re-housing as many of the persons

displaced as possible. . . .This was a step in the

right direction. ..." At the same time, it frowned

27
on the decision to erect a five storey block.

Later the Home Office reproached the County Council

for decreasing the number to be rehoused in its

experimental redevelopment plan on the Boundary Street

estate.

27Public Record Office, HO 45/10198/B31375, p. 51

 The population density in municipal housing estates

went as high as 674 per acre; it averaged 226 per acre.

The greatest densities in the East End were found on

the Ann St., Poplar estate with 602 persons per acre
OQ
and '■m Preston's Road with 505 per acre. If Ann St.

and Preston's Rd. had been fully occupied, based on

two persons per room, then the population densities

would have been 801 per acre and 766 per acre respec­

tively. Some of the semi-philanthropic trusts actually

housed up to 700 persons per acre. By today's

standards this was high. Contemporary projections set

the desired net density for the East End of London at

136 per acre.

Finally, the purpose of slum clearance was to

sweep away an old environment and create a new one.

This presupposed improving streets and resiting

buildings, which the LCC did in order to get government

approval for a scheme. Streets were scheduled for

widening and straightening to facilitate traffic flow,

land was set aside for working class dwellings, and

parcels not required for housing were slated to be sold

28
LCC, Working Class Dwellings Statistics for the
year 1919-1920, P. 15.
 237

for commercial use. Half of "the sites the County Council

dealt with were one acre or less and the overwhelming

29
majority were two acres or less. This severely taxed

the officers' ingenuity for redesigning an area. In the

main courts, alleys, and passageways were closed

permanently and model workmen's cottages were planned.

This was not much more than the Metropolitan Board of

Works' consolidation of titles, widening of streets, and

29Number of clearances initiated and completed by

the Metropolitan Board of Works, the London County
Council, and the Local Authorities under parts I and II
of the Housing of the Working Classes Acts, 1890, 1900,
and 1903, and preceeding acts in Greater London and in the
Tower Hamlets.
(By Acreage)

IN GREATER LONDON

1 2 5 10 15

MBW 7 7 5 3 0

LCC & Loc. Auth. 11 7 3 0 1

IN THE TOWER HAMLETS

1 2 5 10 15

MBW 1 1 2 2 0

LCC & Loc. Auth. 6 0 2 2 1

(Source: LCC, Housing Question in London and Housing of

the Working Classes.)
 238

parceling and selling of land for housing and commercial

purposes.
After the Council accepted total responsibility

for redevelopment as it had for clearance it retained

the street; improvement aspect but switched from cottages

to tenements. Planning at this time implied care to

ensure proper ventilation and natural light for each

room. While population density as well as building

coverage were high the tenements were well sited. On

Brook St. the two blocks were at right angles with an

intervening courtyard. In Cable St. the Dellow and

Bewley Buildings are short blocks and are parallel to

each other with a decent court separating them. The

worst layout is in Preston's Road. These six blocks

are austere and have only a small yard between them.

By running parallel to each other they accentuate the

planning weaknesses and create a depressing atmosphere.

Even less can be said for the Council Buildings, which

are down "the street; they are isolated by warehouses and

docks. Only the Lawrence Cottages break the monotony

and add human dimensions to this complex. The

Brightlingsea Buildings in Ropemakers Fields are merely

a long continuous block of tenements. It is difficult

to evaluate its original relationship to the neighborhood

 239

FIG-. XV. 8EACHCR0FT BLV&5. f B R OOK ST.

Fl fr. XW. CRANFORD C0TTA6E$>t BROOK ST.

 240

FIG-. XVII • DEkuOW BUD6-. CABLE ST.

PIG-. XVIII. W/WNIPE6- BU>G-SV PRESTOti'S RD.

 241

FI&. X1X\ ST. L M R e NCE CGTT.+C-ES, PRE STON'S R.D.

F I G . XX- ST. M W R EflC E C O T T A ^ t S , P R E S T O N 1* RD.

 242

BRl&HTiW/V&SEA BLT>GrS.t K O P E M AKE/IS F lB u D s

I30UNDARV STREET ESTATE

FIS. Mill. QOUNVfiHy STREET ESTATE

Fl&. XXIV. BOONDARX STREET ESTATE

 244

because demolition has cleared most of the surrounding

buildings.
The Boundary Street estate, Bethnal Green, and the

Millbank estate, Westminster, are the only sites with

decent acreage which permitted imaginative and experi­

mental reconstruction. Each is differently designed.

In Boundary Street the initial idea was to retain the

original street pattern. Grasping that the fifteen

acre site offered many possibilities, the architect

seized the opportunity. He created a radial street plan

focusing on the circus. It was hoped that this plan

would open up the district which desperately needed a

break from the monotony of its buildings. Although the

Home Office agreed to this experiment it did not think

much of the "small circular spot" which was hardly

"large enough to justify the inconvenience and cost."

D. Cubitt Nichols advised the Home Secretary that the

experiment was worthwhile for it might improve the

neighborhood and occupants.^ Except for unsuccessful

central gardens the experiment was an achievement.

The baroque facades were unique for working class

30LCC, MP, (10 March 1893)t 268; LCC, PHHC, Papers,

1893-94, A3,”lTome Office, 27 May 1893? Public Record
Office, HLG 1/17A1184A.
B-6'6..
 FlG- X X v
^ - .BOUNDARY STRUT SChEMt
pWN /v? "Z4£

r\ttr

c 0 | 9

■Xr

,/ • r o v » H i c r * » r •“ « i"'r -- 'J^3 : I x J t ^ f i >

I t’
-j;j§p,j5?>*'
■
• ^ •g
^rzrT^^-i^ry
^CvTv3v5 u ii3-. w-jf.'va1
0

iMCnnSrasiS^^iifc
h?Mk

p5^f
r.O
5 -T 8 C E T
» ^ - ,,.fl p' j ,^ j

5 f i« f ’ ' •■jsj^'-:

W ' &!
TU
^i
IC m ' ‘m
LJx
o'.'. FIG xxvf ;
BOUNDARY STREET SCHEME
> 7\ PUN N»27.

1 ® r y.,m r t t m e w
NAU GREEN >*
 247

districts and radically different from other LCC

architecture. Boundary Street was the LCC's pet

project. It was a model for Englishmen, Europeans, and

Americans. Its completion was important enough for

Prince Edward to attend the dedication ceremonies.

In Westminster the London County Council applied

its talents differently to a similar but smaller site.

The national government closed Millbank prison and sold

ten acres of it for working class housing, the rest

went for other public purposes among these the Tate

Gallery. A modified grid or rectangular system was

used for the street pattern. The tenements are tasteful

but oversized Georgian. Architecturally these facades

are quite pleasant, but they are too crowded on the site

and the Council failed to provide sufficient parks or

play areas. One suspects that the Georgian style was

used in Westminster to blend with the city’s archi­

tecture, while the heavy baroque was passable for the

East End. Besides these two projects the County Council

did no imaginative planning of redevelopment sites in

central London.

In this period the artisans' dwellings companies and

the semi-philanthropic trusts failed to make a signif­

icant contribution to planning, too. Prom archival

material available, which is not much, one can glean

 248

a pattern. These companies stressed that their aim

was to house the poor at the lowest rents possible and

still earn a 5$ profit— with Peabody Trust the return

was 3$. Housing sites were developed as intensely as

permissible by the artisans’ dwellings companies; and

if they purchased slum cleared land, parliament stipu­

lated high density. This meant that economics determined

planning while politics and aesthetic considerations

played a weak and narrow role. The Goldsmith Row site,

discussed in Chapter V, is a good example of how

thoroughly the East End Dwelling C o . hoped to utilize

space. But one need not rely on unfulfilled plans to

realize that such thinking dominated the age. A walk

through the Tower Hamlets and a fortunate glance at a

company’s records reveals how thoroughly the high

density principle was applied. The Katharine block is

built right to the pavement with its yard backing on

the Royal Mint. The Cressy and Dunstan Buildings,

composing the company's Stepney Green estate, lack

sufficient yard space. Nor did the East End Dwelling

Co. consider play areas or open spaces on the Victoria

Park Square site. On the compact Gretton and Merceron

estates, bounded by Old Ford Road, Globe Road, Sugar

loaf Walk, and Victoria Park Square, blocks were erected

over the first decade of the twentieth century. On the

 249

Flfr. XKVU. KATH A U I WE B i-DfrS-

FIG-. XftVUI. R A V E M S C R o ft 8kD£. , E E PC.

other side of Globe Hoad, on the Moravian Trust estate,

the company erected cottages. This seemed to be

determined by overconstruction in the neighborhood as

well as the growing supply of houses in the suburbs,

and is reflected in a series of rent reductions by the

company. On the Moravian Trust parcel the East End

Dwelling Co. did modify a street plan in order to use

the site more efficiently. Earlier the company had to

revise plans for the Mendip block in Kirkwall Place.

It could not erect a one storey cottage on land between

Park St. and North Place because of difficulties with

the district surveyor of Bethnal Green. Hope of closing

Park St. existed if the London School Board cooperated.

In the end, the vestry agreed to close only part of

31
Park St. The rearrangement of streets was more a

matter of economy than a desire to create a suitable

environment. However, it must be mentioned that the

company did plant a few foregardens and trees and did

sponsor through its rent collectors window box garden

contests.

According to John Nelson Tara, the Peabody Trust

strived to provide an open space where children could

^ E a s t End Dwelling Co., Minutes, V (10 July 1905).

318; IV (3 July 1899), 245} V 'CB'TugT 1899), 4-5.
 251

play and he presumes that these were forerunners to

today's pedestrian districts. He believes that the

Peabody Trust devised the space "from a desire to

segregate the people of the Peabody estates from the

evil influences of the surrounding slums, just as much

as from a desire to provide play spaces.” The Trust,

he concluded, was able to develop its estates so

because it alone had the capability to finance land

32
purchases on such a large scale.'

The final example of limited planning is the Bethnal

Green estate of Sydney Waterlow's Improved Industrial

Dwellings Co. These nine acres bounded by Wilmot St.,

Ainsley St., Cornfield St., and Three Colts Lane, were

redeveloped in the 1870s. Small cottages were torn

down and block tenements replaced them gradually. There

33
is no environment planning and the streets are ribbons.

The buildings are not ugly; but they are long rows

which become monotonous and heavy. There are no trees

to soften the facades and no green to lighten the view.

32
John Nelson T a m , ”The Peabody Donation Fund:
The Role of a Housing Society in the Nineteenth Century,”
Victorian Studies X (Sept. 1966), 37.
33
-^John Nelson Tarn, "Housing in Urban Areas,
1840-1914.” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Cambridge, 1961),
pp. 254-55.
 252

When seen from the railroad viaduct these weaknesses

are magnified.

The policy of the County Council emphasized physical

health, decent dwellings, and profitability. Public

opinion determined its attitude toward subsidized

housing, and it was always interpreted within a frame­

work of the poor law rather than as an aspect of social

economics. The reduction of room dimensions, the

increase in number of floors, the introduction of

balconies, etc., were controlled by financial calcu­

lations. There was no real understanding of mental

health and housing or of need. While the LCC gradually

abandoned some of its standards in favor of those of

the semi-commercial ventures, it tried not to sacrifice

sanitary and physical health needs. Here Murphy kept

a watchful eye on the architect and valuer. The LCC's

significant contribution to artisans' dwellings design

was the increase in the number of self-contained flats.

On the other hand, none of the groups involved in

working class housing was awake to urban redevelopment

problems in mid-twentieth century terms. Together they

led the public to an awareness that housing was a

social necessity, yet they could not crystallize the

idea that government expenditure for housing was a

prerequisite to providing it, and that thorough environ­

mental planning was essential if they were to come

closer to realizing their social aims.

 CHAPTER VII

TOWARD COMPREHENSIVE URBAN REDEVELOPMENT

Despite a commitment to slum clearance and improved

housing the London County Council did not conceive of

urban renewal within a deliberate framework of compre-

hensive redevelopment. That is, it did not coordinate

transportation and roads, parks and open spaces,

commercial zoning, community services (garbage collection,

public baths, mortuaries), and social services (schools,

churches, hospitals, settlement houses) when replanning

urban core areas. This does not mean that the Council

was unconscious of these needs. Rather each improvement

project was designed to appeal to a narrow political

spectrum. Lack of coordination turned out to be an

asset in redeveloping slum sites. During the early

years of the Council, had the services been integrated

into a massive urban program they would have faced

stiffer opposition because it would have appeared to

benefit one group at the expense of the community.

A typical example of this resistence to comprehen­

sive urban renewal was found in the East End News. A

254
 255

speaker at Toynbee Hall envisioned clearing away the

overbuilt areas in East London and erecting in their

place "tall block dwellings, with open spaces reserved

for gardens, terraces, fountains, museums, swimming

baths, recreation grounds, etc." The East End News

agreed that they were "all desirable and necessary

things in their way, but are not paying quantities."

The News' basic principle was that there should be no

charge on the rates, which was possible only if

economic rents were charged. It added pessimistically

that laborers in existing municipal tenements were not

paying economic rents.^

Not only was comprehensive redevelopment politically

unfeasible, it was also virtually impossible for

economic reasons. The traditional liberal attitude was

that the state should act like a night watchman and at

the most provide relief for social distress. Peacock

and Wise say the same thing differently: "The real

struggle in Parliament was not with expenditure, but

with methods of raising revenue,. . .the object of

minimizing the level of government expenditure being

^East End News, 6 July 1906.

 256
2
taken for granted." This is a reason the national

government gave no grants-in-aid for slum clearance,

housing, and environmental services.

Legislation specifically designed to facilitate

town planning was enacted in 1909, and was limited to

new areas. In the meantime the Council had to coordinate

underground rails and trams, make them operate effi­

ciently, and preserve open spaces without arousing the

wrath of those who favored laissez faire principles.

Rapid transit to suburban developments seemed to

untie the Gordian knot of overcrowding, slums, traffic

congestion, and dearth of amenities and community

services in central London. The Council attacked the

transport problem on three fronts: workmen's trains,

the underground, and trams. The Cheap Train Act of

1883 stipulated that railway companies provide

reasonable train schedules for workmen between 6 and

8 am and not charge more than Id per mile. In return

the railroads received remission from the passenger

tax. The London County Council, aware that some

companies reneged on their obligations, on 3 December

2
Alan T. Peacock and Jack Wiseman, The Growth of
Public Expenditure in the United Kingdom (2nd ed. rev.;
London, 1967^, p. 35 and chapters 3 &
 257

1889 instructed the Housing of the Working Classes

Committee to investigate transportation in London.

Prom this time, the Council continuously tried to

3
shape London's transport policy.

The three fundamental objectives stressed in the

housing committee's reports of 1891 and 1893 were

improved workmen's train service, uniform fares, and

a uniform ticket system. Existing service was already

overburdened. Slum clearance programs and enforcement

of sanitary laws could be implemented only if additional

trains were scheduled and they ran at more convenient

hours. The railway companies were censured for failing

"to meet the present and growing wants of the population."

On the other hand, the committee was not blind to the

voluntary strides in improving railway service.

According to the 1883 law, companies were obliged to

provide 47 miles and in that year they actually

provided 763 miles. By 1891 the mileage more than

doubled to 1,807 with 264 trains carrying workmen.

The most public spirited companies were the Great

Eastern, Great Northern, and South Western. Under the

Council's prodding railway companies improved their

3LCC, MP, (28 July 1891), 874-77; (22 Feb. 1898),

243-46.
 258

service. In 1897 there were 3,257 miles and 469 trains

and in 1906 there were 6,019 miles and 801 workmen’s

trains.4 Thus, from the time when the Council accepted

responsibility to lobby for better workmen's train

schedules, there was a threefold increase both in

mileage and trains.

This was not an easy fight. Three companies— the

Great Western, the Midland, and the London and North

Western— failed to provide any service in 1891. The

most notorious examples were the Great Western and

Midland lines, because by 1898 they still had refused to

budge. Each received a remission of the passenger

duty annually. The Great Western, for example, got

£68,400 to provide service and, despite pleas from

workmen and their representatives, nothing was forth­

coming. The Soard of Trade looked into the matter

only after a district board of works appealed. The

Midland Railway, on the other hand, scheduled one

train at the most inconvenient hour for which it got

£53*000 annually. In addition to companies that

refused to honor their commitments, the majority were

4LCC, MP, (28 July 1891), 874-77; (28 March 1893),

347-50; (I8“ffct. 1904), 2209.
 259

self-satisfied. They claimed that service was sufficient

to meet workmen's requirements. On the question of

time schedules the railway managers reminded the Council

5
that the Board of Trade settled such matters.

The Council also wanted trains run into areas in

advance of demand in order to encourage housing

development. The railway managers merely promised to

extend service as the dwellings were erected. The

Council was not satisfied with this reply because it

had ample evidence that service in excess of demand

stimulated house construction and it cited the success

of the Great Eastern.

The Board of Trade was approached time and again,

but very little was accomplished. The housing committee

was convinced that the Board of Trade needed additional

powers to carry out its work. The Board hesitated,

interpreting its role as passive, and consequently

acted only on complaints. The committee realized the

burden of responsibility fell on laborers who had

neither time, means, nor facilities to make inquiries

5LCC, MP, (28 July 1891), 874-77; (22 Feb. 1898),

243-46. “

6LCC, MP, (28 July 1891), 874-77.

 260

and follow them up with appeals. However, the Council

lacked authority to go directly before the board for

additional service, so it usually worked in conjunction

7
with petitioning workmen.

While service improved gradually under LCC pressure,

there was no success in getting uniform fares and

uniform tickets. There was much in favor of uniform

fares with a maximum of 2d per day. When a workman's

rent and travel expense were added up they took a

substantial portion of his wage. The Council's

statistical officer reported that it was cheaper to

live in the suburbs than in central London, For

example, a new three room tenement in either Bethnal

Green or Stepney let at 9s 8 3/4d. A similar tenement

in the suburbs cost 7s 3 3/4-d in Tottenham or 6s 9 3/4d

in West Ham plus Is fare which raised the expense to

8s 3 3/4d and 7s 9 3/4d respectively. The statistical

officer concluded that suburban living was cheaper by

Q
Is 5d and Is lid respectively. However, to be able

7LCC, MP, (22 Feb. 1898), 243-46; (28 March 1893),

347-50. T.”7T. Barker and Michael Robbins, A History of
London Transport. Vol. I. The Nineteenth Century
(London, 1963), PP. 616 ftnt.no. 2 and 611"
8
LCC, Housing of the Working Classes. 1908. Report
of the Statistical Officer to the Housing of the Working
Classes Committee on the Present Aspects of the Housing
Question in London, p. 3.
to afford a new three room tenement a laborer needed an

income of more than 10s per week; in fact, his income

had to exceed 20s per week. Thus the Council did not

argue the case well; nevertheless, low fares were

imperative if cheap rents for low income workers could

be found in the suburbs. Another argument favoring low

fares was the success of excess service provided by some

companies. This service would not have been provided if

it were subsidized. The East London Advertiser under­

scored low fares as an income earner and noted that

the G-reat Eastern's work was not from "brotherly love"

or "unselfish friendship." Barker and Robbins concluded

that the Great Eastern made a profit on its suburban

9
lines but that it was not as much as assumed. Clearly

then, profits were made and subsidies were accepted,

so demand for additional service was not unreasonable.

In addition to improving train service for

workmen, the County Council became deeply involved in

the question of the operation and construction of

underground railways. Parliamentary proceedings were

followed closely in order to insure that private bills

9LCC, MP, (28 July 1891), 874-77; East London

Advertiser,~?0 May 1893; Barker and Robbins, liondon
Transport, p. 272.
 262

reflected not only the interests of private enterprise

hut the interests of Londoners as well. For example,

in 1901 a joint parliamentary committee listened to a

number of schemes put forth by syndicates. A few

duplicated other schemes or were limited in scope. In

the end, parliament authorized only 4 of the proposed

82 miles. This paucity of authorization struck the

Council as inexcusable. The LCC's Parliamentary,

Highways, Housing of the Working Classes, and Finance

Committees met jointly to discuss the problem. They

opposed the piecemeal schemes; they thought parliament

was in a disadvantageous position without a general

transport plan to guide it; and they decried parlia­

ment's procedure as inadequate since it sanctioned only

four miles. The ad hoc committee rejected the idea of

promoting its own underground scheme because there was

insufficient time to complete the planning; more likely,

however, because of expense. Thus, the joint committee

recommended a full parliamentary inquiry into London's

transportation problem. This commission would decide

whether there was a need for a general plan and how to

coordinate London's transport system in the county and

with the suburbs. It would also consider the housing

question within the framework of cheap fares. Further­

more, it would investigate methods of construction and

 263

raising capital. Although this report was printed in

the Council's minutes, it was set aside.10

The Bast End News at this time also believed that

transit was directly tied to the housing question. But

it argued that the problem was too great for the LCC to

grapple with; and that only the national government

should undertake it. Reliance on cheap transport up to

1901 failed to offer a satisfactory answer because no

sooner had workmen moved out "than rents [were] raised

to prohibitive rates." It therefore advocated "fixed

rents and cheap and rapid transit to and from dwellings

in the country."11 The Bast London Advertiser also

wanted cheap municipal transit and wanted the ICC

candidates to make an election issue of it. The

solution, according to the Advertiser, to the housing

problem for the Bast End was to be found in transpor­

tation. To have access to living in the suburbs, it

was imperative that transport costs be low and travel

12
time moderate.

However, it was not until 1905 that the Royal

10LCC, MP, (28 Oct. 1902), 1536-37? (4 Nov. 1902),

1579-81.

11East End News, 19 Peb. 1901; 26 Feb. 1901.

12
East London Advertiser, 25 Jan. 1902.
 264

Commission on London Traffic met to consider these

questions. Although the commission did not recommend

a comprehensive plan, it condemned the inadequacy of

terminal distributions in London because railways were

excluded from central London. It also disapproved of

individual interests having priority over London’s

corporate needs which in turn resulted in poor design

layout and connection of lines. The commission

recommended that when the lines under construction in

inner London were completed then precedence should be

given to interchange stations where east-west lines

crossed north-south ones in order to accommodate the

13
public.

Trams and omnibuses penetrated more neighborhoods

and carried local and long distance passengers, unlike

workmen's trains or undergrounds. The Royal Commission

on Transport in 1905, however, discerned the weakness

in this system, even though by then part of it was

controlled by the County Council. Tram lines dropped

passengers off at dead-end terminals in the city;

there were no through lines. The County Council under

13
Royal Commission on London Transport, PP, 1905
[Cd. 2597J, XXX, 63 and 69. Henceforth cited as RCLT.
 265
Progressive leadership began a campaign in 1891 to

municipalize trams. Progressives believed that "the

tramways represented an important means of social

14
reform." And with trams, the ICC made an immediate,

direct, and lasting contribution to London's transport.

Local newspapers, swelled with civic pride when trams

plied their streets, demanded improved means to

transport workers to the suburbs. However, newspapers

were divided on the question of public or private

ownership.

A clause in the Tramways Act of 1870 granted local

authorities an option to purchase the companies

usually after 21 years and without compensation for

goodwill. As the County Council began to take advantage

of this in 1891 newspapers expressed their views. The

Pall Mall Gazette had a consistent opinion. Trams

should be municipally owned, for this was preferable

to municipal housing; however, the trams must be leased

back to private enterprise to operate. It was angered

15
when the Council decided to operate one line itself.

14RCLT, PP, 1905 [Cd. 2597], XXX, 50; Barker and

Robbins, London Transport, p. 269.

^^Pall Mall Gazette. 13 Jan. 1891; 18 May 1898;

13 July 1898. ‘
 266

On the other hand, the East London Observer at first

could not even digest municipal ownership with private

management. It admitted that transport was essential,

yet it condemned the County Council for deciding to

purchase the North Metropolitan Tramways Co.: "There

is nothing more startling, nothing more strange,

nothing more revolutionary." By 1904 the Observer

accepted municipal ownership but not management. The

advantage of this system, it said, was that the County

Council had absolute control, yet was "freed from great

expenditure, risk, and responsibility." An additional

advantage was that the Council was freed from the

municipal workmen's votes, i'inally, the newspaper

16
chastised the LCC for not getting favorable contracts.

The East London Advertiser avoided polemics. It

praised private enterprise but did not criticize

municipal ownership. When the North Metropolitan

Tramways Company lowered its fare in 1891 from 4d to

Id on workmen's trams, the East London Advertiser

praised the action because it would alleviate the

pressure in overcrowded ordinary cars and make them

~^East London Observer, 22 Oct. 1892; 24 Aug. 1904.

 267

more select.*^

Despite the conflict of opinion the County Council

purchased routes whose options matured. The 1895

election, when the Progressives lost their absolute

majority, however, forced the LCC to modify its position

on the purchase of lines. Instead of ownership and

management, it had to lease the lines to private

enterprise to manage. The County Council purchased

48 miles of the London Street and the North Metropolitan

Tramways Co. lines. It leased the whole back to the

North Metropolitan Tramway Co. to operate until 1910,

at which time the County Council could exercise its

option and purchase the remaining tram lines. As of

1899 the LCC owned the majority of the lines and from

then on it had to unify the system, connect the

sections north and south of the river, and electrify

them. The Royal Commission on Transport reiterated

the Council’s policy and gave its stamp of approval.

Within a year of the royal commission's report the

LCC purchased the rest of the North Metropolitan

Tramway C o ., three years before the option date.

17
East London Advertiser, 11 April 1891. It seems
that the Nor'fch Metropolitan Tramway Company had an
ulterior motive; it tried to dissuade the LCC from
purchasing the company.
 268

The Council demanded that the North Metropolitan

Tramway Co. electrify and modernize the lines it

leased. The company refused to approve such capital

expenditures since it knew the Council would take

ownership and most likely manage the whole system in

1 Q
1910. Therefore it decided to pull out.

Conscious and articulate demand for parks and open

spaces came late in the history of metropolitan London.

Gradual growth had permitted London to ignore the

question and to wink at violations of Elizabethan

legislation forbidding the new construction within

three miles of the gates of the city. So long as the

area was sparcely settled and open fields of rural

London were in walking distance there was no serious

crisis. The monarchy, fortunately for Londoners, had

extensive estates which have been preserved as parks.

And as estates of aristocrats were developed for

middle class residences they included squares. Both

were concentrated in the West End. The East End, on

the other hand, was substantially working class. It

was composed of street after street of terraced

housing which lacked trees or lawns and the rear had

either minimal space or dwellings were back to back.

18
Barker and Robbins, London Transport, p. 270;
RCLT, PP, 1905 [Cd. 2597], *XX, 50.
Or it was a maze of courts, alleys, and passageways.

Thus, while the West End had a good allotment of parks,

in the East they were scarcely visible. There was

Victoria Park with its 244 acres, located in the north­

east and having a common boundary with Bethnal Green,

Poplar, and Hackney. There were in 1891 twenty-nine

open spaces, mostly church yards, each averaging two

acres. This for an area of 4,852 acres with a population

of 581,105. In other words there was half an acre of

open space per 1000 population in the East End while

the average in London was more than double, one and a

19
quarter acres. Today's ideal is four aeres per 1000.

Parks and open spaces, however small, were needed

to improve working class neighborhoods and to provide

refreshing breaks in their monotony. One commentator

in The Builder pessimistically noted that local parks,

open spaces, and slum clearance did not provide

20
laborers with sufficient fresh air. The Pall Mall

Gazette argued that without convenient open spaces no

one had peace and quiet from the activity of the

"^LCC, London Statistics, 1891-92, II, xvii, 427-34;

Porshaw and Abercrombie, County of London Plan, p. 255.

20The Builder. ICI (8 Sept. 1906), 300.

 270

streets or "escape from the suffocating air in the

summer." For a park to get continual use it had to

he within a three-quarter to a mile radius; and to be

useful to old people and children, the limit was a half

mile. The Pall Mall Gazette used this yardstick to

determine London's situation and concluded that

Londoners were without parks and possessed only streets.

"The children play in the streets; . . .the old people

take their walks about in the streets; the workingmen

21
lounge and smoke their pipes in the streets."

During the last half of the 19th century social

reformers, sensitive to this shortage, strove to

preserve any available open space or square. Octavia

Hill, an early leader in this movement, in conjunction

with the Eyrie society, as well as the Metropolitan

Public Gardens Association, preserved many of the acres

and turned them over to local government for maintenance.

The Metropolitan Open Spaces Act, 1877, declared that

commonly held spaces could be turned over to a public

body if every owner agreed. In 1881 consent was

reduced to two-thirds of the owners and the local

authority received permissive power to improve the site

^ Pall Mall Gazette, 14 March 1884

 271

on the condition that no buildings were erected. The

Kyrle society worked hard to preserve any land that

had common rights before freeholders converted the

sites into commercial uses. While legislation

provided means to save open spaces, it was not until

1906 that the ICC got parliament to enact the London

Squares and Enclosures Preservation Act. This was a

triumph for the LCC after years of struggle with

conservative interests in the House of Lords. This

22
act, too, was dependent on owners' consent. Most

squares that had been saved were the product of

negotiation and private acts of parliament.

Newspapers, when they finally awakened to the issue,

supported the Council as well as local authorities and

private groups in this quest. The East End News

pointed to the small green spots dotting the city in

1904 as a positive improvement over the past. It

praised the Metropolitan Public Garden Association's

work despite the "cold water and good humoured

indifference" on the part of some of the public. When

York Square and Arbour Square were acquired and Beaumont

22
I. G. Gibbon and R. W. Bell, History of the London
County Council. 1889-1939 (London, 1939), p. 513.
 272

Square was accepted on a long lease the East End News

was elated. And it was pleased that there was a

movement to preserve Grove Hall as a recreation ground;

23
it was twelve acres.

The vestry of Bethnal Green angered the Eastern

Argus with its policy of inaction and procrastination.

The Metropolitan Public Garden Association offered to

lay out Ion Square and the Oval as public gardens if

Bethnal Green accepted responsibility to maintain it.

Bethnal Green rejected this. It also rejected

reopening St. Peter's Churchyard. The owners had

kept it as an open space for years; the vestry

concluded it was an open space for all intents and

there was no need to take it over and burden the

ratepayers.24

Newspapers also made further favorable comments

about the County Council's work. Albert Square, the

only open space between Limehouse and the city,

received the support of both the East London Advertiser

and the East London Observer. The Advertiser condemned

2^East End News, 12 April 1904; 22 Nov. 1904;

24 July l90i. “

24Eastern Argus, 24 Feb. 1894.

 273
the owner for his high price, while the Observer wanted

the Limehouse District Board to make a substantial

contribution toward the price. In the end the Council

purchased it and the Observer followed the bill through

25
parliament and arbitration.

The Council was far from united on the question of

preserving squares. The Works Committee advised that

Sidney Square and Bedford Square should be saved since

neither was suitable for building purposes; so the

Council could just as well rent them at £5 per year

and maintain them as parks. Some members of the LCC

preferred to sacrifice the squares for housing because

the roads in the area were very wide. After the County

Council voted in favor of retaining the land the

Advertiser commended it. The Advertiser*s philosophy

seemed to be that no space should be parted with, and

it wisely recognized that although the roads were wide

the tendency was "to replace small houses in Stepney

by model dwellings and thus increase the density of

26
the population, and consequently lower its vitality."

OC
?Eaat London Advertiser, 30 Sept. 1899; East London
Observers 23 Sept. 1833; 2 June 1900; 4 May 1901.
26
East London Advertiser, 8 Feb. 1902; 15 Feb. 1902.
 274

And finally, when the County Council redeveloped

Brickfield Cardens in Limehouse, the Bast End News

thought the £3,670 was well spent: "There will thus

he created another of those oasis in the dense

conglomeration of bricks and mortar and humanity of

East London for which we should all feel duly

grateful."^

Thus, in this piecemeal fashion, the London County

Council and private groups began to save the last

green spots in the East End— as well as metropolitan

London. By 1907 the County Council had added about

54 acres or another 22 open spaces. In accordance with

present day standards this was a long way from the post-

World War II comprehensive schemes which plan for

parks and open spaces. Nevertheless it was an advance.

Another aspect of uncoordinated public action was

community services like baths, garbage collection, and

mortuaries. These were services which individuals

could not provide and as the population of London grew

they became essential. Living in rent the workers

had to accept whatever the landlord provided. As most

laborers' dwellings lacked bath facilities the

^ Bast End News, 21 July 1903

 275

difficulty of taking a bath even once a week was

enormous for many living in one or two rooms in East

London. Garbage was collected since early in the

century. Usually this was done under contract and

many times the contractor looked upon it as a profit

making salvage operation rather than an essential

community service. Finally, mortuaries were needed

not only to check on the cause of death but to remove

the dead from overcrowded homes and from the streets.

Many working class homes lacked convenient bathing

facilities, and the poorer ones even a copper. Land­

lords were not prepared to increase their capital costs

by remodeling when it was not mandatory. Consequently,

parliament enacted the Bath and Washhouse Act which

empowered local authorities to meet the need.

Permissive adoption by vestries or district boards was

the inherent weakness. When Mile End Old Town rejected

the chance to adopt the act, the East London Advertiser

peevishly questioned the appointment of a committee in

the first place. It staunchly advocated public baths

for the working classes who lacked even a chance to

keep themselves moderately clean. The Advertiser

concluded that morality and cleanliness went hand-in-

hand: "Dirt and general uncleanliness are, perhaps,

more responsible than many imagine for vice and

 276
pO
im mo r a l i t y . ” Earlier the East London Advertiser

bitterly rebuked the vestry of Bethnal Green for

refusing to adopt the act. While "the great unwashing

of Bethnal Green will continue to go unwashed," the

Advertiser noted, two churches were supported from the

rates without it being considered extravagant; and it

charged that cleanliness, which was next to godliness,

29
was neglected. The Eastern Argus, on the other hand,

was against adopting the public bath act because it

would increase the rates, and because laborers viewed

cleanliness as an extravagance; moreover, the Argus

disparagingly envisioned any bath erected as an

imposing edifice "such as would have delighted the eyes

of a Cleopatra." Bethnal Green vestrymen cherished

this view. They doubted that workers who needed the

baths would use them and considered that the rates

were too high. Even a deputation of workmen pleading

for the adoption of the act brought no change.

Eventually the act was adopted. In 1898 Bethnal Green

vestrymen debated two bath proposals and enacted only

one due to limited funds. The Eastern Argus's comment

2ft
East London Advertiser, 22 Feb. 1896.

29Ibid., 1 July 1893.

was one of doubt; it questioned whether the people

would appreciate the hath and whether it would become

self-supporting. After borough councils replaced

vestries, some enlightened Bethnal Green councillors

complained that bath house hours were inconvenient for

laborers and many did not even know of its existence.

This was quickly remedied: evening and weekend hours

were extended to accommodate laborers. An interesting

insight into vestrymen's minds is gotten from the fact

that the bath house had first and second class baths.

One would not have thought that class distinction was

necessary in a working class district, especially as

the first class baths were underused.

Garbage collection, or dust collection as it is

known in England, was more vital to the community.

Vestries and district boards were delegated responsi­

bility in this area. A few established dust

collection divisions; most, however, contracted the

work. Contractors hauled refuse down to sidings along

the canals or river where an army of dust pickers—

usually children and women— sifted it for salvageable

^ E a s t e r n Argus, 6 July 1895; 17 June 1893; 6 Jan.

1894; 8 Jan. 1898; 30 March 1901; 6 April 1901; 4 Jan.
1902; 16 July 1904.
material. Bethnal Green, a vestry which contracted this

work, discovered in the 1890s that dustmen failed to

fulfill the terms of their contract. When dustmen

skipped a number of streets, the vestry in November 1891

fined the company £10 in spite of the excuse that bad

weather and illness of its foreman were the causes. In

1892 the contractor was fined £27. Some vestrymen

wanted the fine to be £1 for every house missed; they

concluded that such fines would quickly add up to

£1,000 per year. This irresponsibility by private

enterprise became an issue in the vestry when fines

failed to improve service. Some representatives wanted

the vestry to collect refuse by direct labor and

pointed to neighboring Shoreditch as an example. When

the issue was put into abeyance the Eastern Argus, very

pleased with itself, said: "If Bethnal Green were an

outlying town, with heaps of room for disposal of

refuse, or the erection of a dust destructor it might

be policy to undertake the work, but as it is not,

experience teaches us to allow the question to remain

in status quo." The vestry thus bequeathed to the

borough council a very poor collection service. The

Bethnal Green council, more responsive and responsible

than the vestry, introduced dust collection by direct

 279

labor in 1901. The refuse was hauled to a dock site,

31
loaded on barges and shipped out.

Mortuaries were needed to remove the dead from the

streets. This is not as crass as it sounds. A number

of Londoners were homeless; they slept in doorways or in

parks or on the Embankment. When a cold spell came

they easily froze to death. They had to be removed

somewhere until burial. In addition, many working

class families practiced the upper class custom of

putting the dead body on display in the parlor. In a

laborer's home this usually had many ramifications

which were unhealthy. If a family lived in one or two

rooms this added to the overcrowding. If a person

died of illness or disease the body was dangerous to

the health of the family. Moreover, the psychological

effect on children was not measurable, but is self-

evident. One enterprising gentleman tried to help

the Public Health and Housing Committee overcome the

shortage of morgues in a simple manner. His company,

Eastern Argus, 28 Nov. 1891; 18 June 1892; 30

July 1892; 3 March 1900; 15 June 1901. An incidental
sidelight on how refuse was disposed of. Some author­
ities dumped and burned it, others towed it out to sea;
a few, however, had incinerators which converted the
refuse into steam which in turn generated electricity.
LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1893-94, A3, The British Steam
Generator and Refuse Utilisation Co., 16 Oct. 1894.
 280

"The Preservation Syndicate, Ltd.," offered the LCC

"The Sahlstrom Caring and Pickling Apparatus," which

was "specially designed for Bacon and Ham Carers and

Picklers of Meat." He suggested that this apparatus,

with minor modifications, could he used as an inexpensive

"means to preserve bodies for identification. The

32
existing methods being both expensive and inadequate."^

Needless to say, his proposal was relegated to the

archives and morgues were constructed.

The last category of modern planning is community

services. Schools, hospitals, and community settlements

are essential foundation stones for a neighborhood.

During most of this period elementary education was

administered by an independent public authority.

Hospitals were provided by voluntary effort and by

poor law guardians. Settlement houses, which supple­

mented churches as community centers, appeared in the

last two decades of the 19th century and were dependent

on voluntary effort. In the main, there was little or

no coordination between the LCC and the various agencies.

The London County Council cooperated with the

32LCC, PHHC, Papers, 1889-92, E10, Capt. George

Hallett, The Preservation Syndicate, Ltd., 25 July 1892.
 281

London School Board to help the Board plan for

elementary schools. It informed the Board of the

numbers it planned to rehouse and in this way the

School Board could plan its primary school requirements.

In the Boundary Street estate the Council permitted the

two schools to remain and rebuilt around them. After

the London school system was taken over by the LCC in

1902 there was possibility for greater coordination,

but there were no new clearances in central London.

Hospitals, although vital to the community, were

not given due recognition in planning. Mildmay

Hospital, for example, was located originally in the

proposed Boundary Street clearance. The site was

purchased compulsorily and the hospital was not given

any assistance to relocate. Eventually it rebuilt just

a few blocks north of the site and is still a going

concern today. There also were hospitals which were

operated by poor law boards. Whitechapel located its

St. Andrew's hospital in the northeast corner of Poplar.

Mildmay had located in Bethnal Green to carry on

charitable work among the poor, but the poor law

guardians went out into the country where the land

was cheap, the air fresh, and far removed from the

local inhabitants.
 282

Finally, settlement houses or community centers

aimed to create mutual acquaintances and to influence

the lives of local residents through a personal touch.

These organizations tried to improve working class

standards through religion, education, and recreation.

They provided clubs for children, young people, and

adults. They were also centers for social work. The

philosophy behind the settlements was that the upper

classes had an obligation to the lower orders. In

order to effectively help, slummers had to live among

the workers and observe local conditions. Usually,

this was for but a short period. The first settlement

in England was Toynbee Hall. It was founded in 1884

in Whitechapel. Shortly afterwards Oxford House was

established. By 1914 there were ten settlement houses

in East London; most were definitely religious; some

worked strictly among men, women, boys, or girls;

others were mixed.

33

There was a casual attempt by a settlement and

the LCC to work together. The Cheltenham Ladies

College of Oxford formed St. Hilda’s East in 1889 in

Old Nichol Street, Bethnal Green. It was religious and

33
"^Werner Picht, Toynbee Hall and the English
Settlement Movement (London, 1914), pp. 1, 216-37.
basically devoted to girls. When the Boundary Street

area was cleared it was forced to find new quarters.

It wanted to remain in the district. The settlement

committee failed to find a suitable piece of property

to rent. So it petitioned the LCC to retain the corner

site of Boundary St. and Old Nichol St. for a coffee

house. At first, it seemed, the LCC thought the ladies

desired to operate the coffee house as part of their

social work. However, the ladies of St. Hilda's East

did not plan to run the establishment; instead they

wanted the housing above the coffee house reserved for

a place to live. They lacked the funds to purchase

the freehold but were willing to pay a good rent. The

LCC's housing committee was willing to cooperate if it

had legal power to erect a coffee house on land

reserved for commercial purposes and to be auctioned.

The committee delayed a final decision; the Corporate

Property Committee preferred to keep the site on the

auction list yet it was willing to recommend private

negotiation with Canon Barnett, who, according to rumor,

 284
was interested. Unfortunately, nothing further
34
occurred.

While the Council was willing to cooperate with

settlements on a commercial basis, it did not do much

itself. In the Boundary Street estate two club rooms

were provided in the central laundry building. However,

the club had to be organized and run by residents over

fifteen years of age. Not even outside groups could

35
rent the halls. The Boundary Street activities were

more than the ICC attempted in other housing estates

in East London. Even the East End Dwelling Co. did

more than the Council. Its lady collectors ran annual

window gardening contests. The company leased rooms to

Rev. Barnett in the Lolesworth Building for a men’s

club and for a mothers’ club. It was also willing to

let the clergy of Christ’s Church and St. Jude's use

the club rooms when vacant at 2s a meeting including

■^Picht, Toynbee Hall, p. 232; LCC, HWCC, Papers,

1897-98, no. 1,' ICC valuer, 20 Jan. 1897; LCC, HWc'fl,
Minutes, I (20 Jan. 1897), 271; LCC, HWCC, Papers,
1897-98, no. 1, Cheltenham Ladies College of Oxford
Settlement Committee, 24 Jan. 1897; LCC, HWCC, Minutes,
I (2? Jan. 1897), 286; LCC, HWCC, Papers, 1897-Wi
no. 1, LCC clerk, 1 Feb. 1897.

35LCC, HWCC, Papers. 1897-98, no. 1, LCC valuer,

27 Jan. 1897.
 285

gas and cleaning. Mr. Aitken of St. Jude's rented the

clubroom for Sundays, Thursdays, and Saturdays at 5s

per week. In the Mansford St. block the East End

Dwelling Co. under the lady collector’s guidance

provided a library. The company, however, turned down

Oxford House’s request for an auxiliary ladies settle­

ment house in the Victoria Park Square site on grounds

Og
that the plans had already been approved by the LCC.

True, there was no rational approach to planning

settlement houses, but this was a beginning to meet

local needs.

The London County Council could not have provided

all these services in its early years let alone have

tried to coordinate them. The cry of socialism would

have been louder and residents would have resented the

rates. The Council was able to improve streets or

rationalize tram transport by acquiring control. It

was able to lobby for better train service for workmen,

to help save squares and open spaces by buying them,

renting them, or accepting maintenance after the

Kyrle Society or Metropolitan Carden Association

•^East End Dwelling Co., Minutes, II (21 March

1892), 241; I (7 March 1887), 14?; t (2 May 1887),
151-52; I (23 May 1887), 154; II (6 Jan. 1890), 53-54;
II (20 Jan. 1890), 57; IV (25 April 1898), 175; V
(28 May 1900), 42.
 286

preserved them. Other services were definitely out of

its scope and within that of the vestries. But most

important, the concept of collective responsibility

and planning was beginning to emerge as Londoners

faced their urban crisis.

Environmental planning in these years referred to

the narrow area of housing and slum clearance. Only

as other aspects of urban life emerged as politically

essential were they integrated into the concept.

Nevertheless, the LCC, in its first sixteen years

under Progressive leadership, tried to meet its

obligations to the working classes. And simultaneously,

it nudged the local authorities to be more responsible

and responsive to working class needs.

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 292

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