From the slums to the suburbs: Labour party policy, the LCC, and the Woodberry Down Estate, Stoke Newington 1934-1961

London Journal

Volumn 24, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 51-69

  Parker, Simon ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN; HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE; HOUSING POLICY; HOUSING PROVISION; SOCIAL HOUSING;

ENGLAND(LONDON); STOKE NEWINGTON; UNITED KINGDOM;

EID: 0033490962     PISSN: 03058034     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1179/ldn.1999.24.2.51     Document Type: Article

References (77)

1. M. Cahill, 'Labour in the Municipalities', in K.D. Brown (ed) The First Labour Party, 1906-1914 (1985), 89-104. On Labour's early involvement in the LCC , see Sue Pennybacker, A Vision for London, 1889-1914: Labour, Everyday Life and the LCC Experiment (1995). For an analysis of Labour's municipal success in London see D. Weinbren, 'Building Communities, Constructing Identities: The Rise of the Labour Party in London', London Journal 23 (1998), 41-60. Still among the best studies of radical municipal socialism during this period is Noreen Branson, Poplarism, 1919-1925: George Lansbury and the Councillors' Revolt (1979).
2. M. Cahill, 'Labour in the Municipalities', in K.D. Brown (ed) The First Labour Party, 1906- 1914 (1985), 89-104. On Labour's early involvement in the LCC , see Sue Pennybacker, A Vision for London, 1889-1914: Labour, Everyday Life and the LCC Experiment (1995). For an analysis of Labour's municipal success in London see D. Weinbren, 'Building Communities, Constructing Identities: The Rise of the Labour Party in London', London Journal 23 (1998), 41-60. Still among the best studies of radical municipal socialism during this period is Noreen Branson, Poplarism, 1919-1925: George Lansbury and the Councillors' Revolt (1979).
3. M. Cahill, 'Labour in the Municipalities', in K.D. Brown (ed) The First Labour Party, 1906- 1914 (1985), 89-104. On Labour's early involvement in the LCC , see Sue Pennybacker, A Vision for London, 1889-1914: Labour, Everyday Life and the LCC Experiment (1995). For an analysis of Labour's municipal success in London see D. Weinbren, 'Building Communities, Constructing Identities: The Rise of the Labour Party in London', London Journal 23 (1998), 41-60. Still among the best studies of radical municipal socialism during this period is Noreen Branson, Poplarism, 1919-1925: George Lansbury and the Councillors' Revolt (1979).
4. M. Cahill, 'Labour in the Municipalities', in K.D. Brown (ed) The First Labour Party, 1906- 1914 (1985), 89-104. On Labour's early involvement in the LCC , see Sue Pennybacker, A Vision for London, 1889-1914: Labour, Everyday Life and the LCC Experiment (1995). For an analysis of Labour's municipal success in London see D. Weinbren, 'Building Communities, Constructing Identities: The Rise of the Labour Party in London', London Journal 23 (1998), 41-60. Still among the best studies of radical municipal socialism during this period is Noreen Branson, Poplarism, 1919-1925: George Lansbury and the Councillors' Revolt (1979).
5. The London County Council was seen as an early model for the municipal socialism that Fabian reformers were to successfully promote at home and in continental Europe. See S. Webb, The London Programme (1891) and 'Some Facts and Considerations about Municipal Socialism' in The Cooperative Wholesale Societies Annual 1896 (1896). The Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission of 1909 also presented a detailed and rigorous case for a locally administered welfare state which would have decent, affordable housing as one of its key services. Sidney and Beatrice Webb (eds), The Break-up of the Poor Law: Being Part One of the Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission (1909).
6. J. Burnett, A Social History of Housing 1815-1970 (1980), 238.
7. J. A. Yelling, 'Expensive Land, Subsidies and Mixed Development in London, 1943-56, Planning Perspectives 9 (1994) 139-152.
8. B. Donoughue and G.W. Jones, Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician, (1973), 199.
9. On the White Hart Lane Estate see R. Thorne, 'The White Hart Lane Estate: An LCC Venture in Suburban Development', London Journal 12 (1986) 80-88.
10. Olechnowicz, Working-Class Housing in England Between the Wars: the Becontree Estate, (Oxford, 1997), 2.
11. Burnett, A History of Social Housing, 232-233.
12. Olechnowicz, Working-Class Housing in England Between the Wars.
13. H. Morrison, 'Plans for London', Geographical Magazine, December 1938, 83 quoted in K. Young and P. Garside, Metropolitan London: Politics and Urban Change 1837-1981 (1982), 180.
14. H. Morrison, 'Plans for London', Geographical Magazine, December 1938, 83 quoted in K. Young and P. Garside, Metropolitan London: Politics and Urban Change 1837-1981 (1982), 180.
15. Donoughue and Jones, Herbert Morrison: Portrait of a Politician, 199.
16. In 1935, Morrison introduced a £2 million LCC grants scheme whereby authorities outside London could buy land on which no building would be permitted, thus preventing the future outgrowth of London. The scheme was not entirely successful but Morrison did claim the policy to be the first attempt to contain the growth of London since Elizabethan times. Ibid. 202.
17. Young and Garside, Metropolitan London, 190-191.
18. Ibid. 188.
19. See Hackney and Stoke Newington Social Workers' Group, What Kind of Homes? (1944).
20. S. M. Gaskell, Model Housing. From the Great Exhibition to the Festival of Britain (1987), 109.
21. Cited in ibid. 110.
22. N. Bullock, 'Plans for post-war housing in the UK: the case for mixed development and the flat', Planning Perspectives 2 (1987) 71-98. For a good summary of the debate between traditionalists and modernisers see M. Hebbert, 'La rovinosa ricostruzione dell'inghilterra nel dopoguerra' Storia urbana (1995) 73-89.
23. N. Bullock, 'Plans for post-war housing in the UK: the case for mixed development and the flat', Planning Perspectives 2 (1987) 71-98. For a good summary of the debate between traditionalists and modernisers see M. Hebbert, 'La rovinosa ricostruzione dell'inghilterra nel dopoguerra' Storia urbana (1995) 73-89.
24. McAllister, Houses and Towns After the War (1944), 23.
25. The Labour Party, Your Home Planned by Labour (1943), 3.
26. Ibid.
27. 'Looking Ahead': Foundation for Housing, Interim Report of the Conservative Sub-committee on Housing, Central Committee on Post-war Reconstruction, (March 1944).
28. McAllister, Houses and Towns After the War, 26.
29. One notable exception to this was the Quarry Hill development in Leeds which was inspired by the prefabricated building techniques used in some HBM (Low rental public housing) schemes in Greater Paris. See A. Ravetz, 'From Working Class Tenement to Modern Flat: Local Authorities and Multi-Storey Housing Between the Wars', in A. Sutcliffe (ed.), Multi-Storey Living. The British Working Class Experience (1974) 122-50.
30. See N. Bullock, 'Fragments of a Post-war Utopia: Housing in Finsbury 1945-51', Urban Studies 26 (1989) 46-58.
31. J. H. Forshaw and P. Abercrombie, County of London Plan (1943).
32. McAllister, Houses and Towns After the War, 25. For the LCC Labour Group's response to the County of London Plan's implications for the work of the authority see the statement by Lewis Silkin at a special meeting of the group on June 8, 1943 [London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) ACC/ 2417/C/78]. Some councillors were critical of the way that an officers' report was presented as the collective view of the Labour Group. Opponents were, however, warned not to air their disagreement with the report in the council chamber.
33. Draft Notes of the Fourth Meeting of the Group 3 Local Authority Engineers at Shoreditch Town Hall 25 August 1943. London Borough of Hackney Archives Department, M 4387.
34. As Jim Yelling points out, in the struggle between the advocates of 'economy' and the promoters of higher specifications and amenities for flatted estates, it was the LCC's Finance Committee rather than Lewis Silkin's Housing Committee that won out in 1937 by insisting that sites costing over £10,000 per acre should be built at a density of 60 dwellings per acre. Since this fell within the 136 inhabitants per acre inner-London zoning contained in the County of London plan, north London estates continued to be developed with a large proportion of flats above three storeys. Yelling, 'Expensive Land, Subsidies and Mixed Development in London, 1943-56', 141. Despite the high cost of the site, Woodberry Down was not subject to such stringent density requirements.
35. Report of the LCC Valuer, Frank Hunt to the Housing and Public Health Committee, 29 January 1936. LMA, Woodberry Down Estate General Papers, 1936-1940 LCC/CL/HSG/ 2/55. All subsequent references to LCC Committees and Officers are from this source, unless otherwise indicated. Unfortunately, no records exist for the Woodberry Down Estate in the years between 1941 and 1957 in the London Metropolitan Archives, and in what follows I have made particular use of the excellent booklet produced by the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) Over 60s local history project, Woodberry Down Memories: The History of an LCC Housing Estate, (1989) for this part of the chronology.
36. LCC Valuer's Report, 29 January 1936.
37. LCC Housing and Public Health Committee, Report of the Housing and Public Health Committee, 29 January 1936.
38. Letter to the Clerk of the LCC from the Town Clerk of the Metropolitan Borough of Stoke Newington, 27 February 1936.
39. Ibid.
40. Victoria County History, A History of the County of Middlesex. Vol. III (1985) 157.
41. Stoke Newington Ratepayers' and Electors' Association, Letter to the Chairman of the LCC, Lord Snell, 4 May 1936.
42. Coumbe was one of the few Conservative members of the LCC to actively vote against the planning order in Council for which he was praised by the local Conservative Association in its annual report. Letter to Lewis Silkin, Chairman of the Housing and Public Health Committee, 25 March, 1936 from W.B. Farnsworth, Secretary and Agent to the Stoke Newington Conservative and Unionist Association.
43. LCC Housing and Public Health Committee, Report of the Inquiry into the Council's Application for Confirmation of the County of London (Stoke Newington) Housing Order, 1936 held 23rd to 25th November 1936, 2 December 1936.
44. E.P. Wheeler, County Architect, Summary of Estimate for the Woodberry Down Scheme, 20 July 1938 (but almost certainly prepared before that date - see below) for the LCC Housing and Public Health Committee.
45. Revised report of the County Architect, E.P. Wheeler to the Housing and Public Health Committee of the LCC, 20 July 1938.
46. Lifts had been introduced in public housing for the first time in the Quarry Hill flats in Leeds (see Ravetz, 'From Working Class Tenement to Modern Flat'), and in 1946 the Labour government passed legislation providing a more generous expensive-site subsidy to local authorities with an increment for flat building over four storeys with lifts. The clear intention was to encourage the higher housing densities that such developments would allow in urban areas. See P. Dunleavy, The Politics of Mass Housing in Britain, 1945-1975: A Study of Corporate Power and Professional Influence in the Welfare State (Oxford, 1981), 152.
47. 'Ceremonial Opening of Needwood House on the Woodberry Down Estate. By Mr John Edwards OBE MP Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade on Thursday 17th February 1949', LMA Pamphlet No. 160 LCC/CL/CER/3/8.
48. 'Council's Motion 8-Storey Flats - Families Would Be Packed Like Oranges', Hackney and Stoke Newington Observer, 4 March 1944.
49. L. Esher, A Broken Wave. The Rebuilding of England 1940-1980 (Harmondsworth, 1981), 103.
50. 'Eight Storey Flats. LCC to Retain Them in Woodberry Down Scheme', Hackney Gazette, 24 April 1944.
51. Report of the LCC Housing and Public Health Committee, 26 January 1944 cited in Woodberry Down Memories, 29.
52. LCC commemorative brochure for the opening of the John Scott Health Centre in 1952, LMA Pamphlet 166 LCC/CL/CER/3/8.
53. Woodberry Down Memories, 72.
54. Interview with Harriett Chetwynd, the first head teacher of Woodberry Down School, The North London Press, July 22 1966.
55. Woodberry Down Memories, 57-58
56. Ibid. 59.
57. Ibid. 64.
58. Ibid. 59.
59. Ibid. 60.
60. Ibid. 63.
61. Letter from Doris Hampton to Evelyn Denington, Vice-Chairman of the LCC Housing Committee, 27 February 1960. LMA LCC/HSG/2/76A.
62. Woodberry Down Memories, 63.
63. Quoted by Dina Morris, 'What's Happening in Woodberry Down? The Thousands Who Won't Come Out', Stoke Newington Observer, 18 December 1953. From 1953 Dina Morris wrote a regular weekly column about life on the estate for the Hackney Gazette.
64. Mass Observation (Tom Harrison Archive), People's Homes (1943),171.
65. Ibid. A recent study of Roehampton and Watling also points to the difficulty of sustaining community participation on LCC estates. D. Bayliss, Council Cottages and Community in Inter-War Britain: A Study of Class, Culture, Politics and Place (Unpublished Ph.D thesis, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, 1998).
66. S. Fielding, P. Thompson and N. Tiratsoo, 'England Arise!' The Labour Party and Popular Politics in 1940s Britain (Manchester, 1995), 39.
67. Nye Bevan writing in the Architects' Journal in 1948 quoted in Fielding et al., 'England Arise!', 103.
68. For reports of the protests in the local press see 'Increases in Stoke Newington Council Rents. Tenants Meeting of Protest', Hackney Gazette, 10 August 1949.
69. 'Refusal to Pay Increases. M.P. Denies He is Backing Tenants', Hackney Gazette, 31 August 1949.
70. Judgement on Council Tenants', Hackney Gazette, 18 November 1949.
71. M. Young and P. Willmott, Family and Kinship in East London (Harmondsworth, 1986).
72. Margot Jefferys, 'Londoners in Hertfordshire' in Centre for Urban Studies (ed.) London. Aspects of Change (1961 ), 235.
73. The allegation was made by the local vicar, Reverend Gardiner, on the opening of the new club room in 1959, and reported in a letter by a Mrs Jennings (who was possibly the wife of a local politician). The reply by the housing officer with responsibility for Woodberry Down stated that far from an annual turnover of 10 per cent, the estate had a turnover rate of 3.1 per cent (or 2.2 per cent if mutual exchanges were included). The officer felt that the vicar might be basing his figures on his own congregation rather than the estate as a whole. Letter from A.J. Allerton (LCC Housing Department) to Mrs. Jenkins, 8 December 1959. LMA LCC/HSG/2/76A.
74. Woodberry Down Memories, 76-77.
75. Memorandum of the LCC Architect to the LCC Housing Committee, 26 November 1958.
76. Woodberry Down Memories, 74.
77. Note from the LCC Director of Housing to the Chairman of the Housing Committee, 9 September 1960. LMA LCC/HSG/2/76A.