Richard M. ANDREWS
The Development of the Residential Suburb in Britain 1850 -1970

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The Origins of Modern 'Suburbia'
Throughout the histoiy of civilisation, tliere have always been residential ai-eas fomiing Uie major basis of urban settlements, but as the size, nature and fiinction of settlements changed witli Uie coming of industrialisation, so did tlie character and location of residential areas and the housing typologies that evolved with those changes. This paper attempts a brief analysis of the histoiy of the development and spread of suburbs aroimd the established towns and cities of Britain, from the time Üiat they began rapidly industrialising, early in the 19th. century.
The rapid growth of industries, from the 1780's onward, had created an Lmprecedented demand for unskilled labour in tlie expanding towns, which in turn generated the 'mushroom' growtli of cheap urban housing for this new working population, coming in from Üieir previous rural eraplo}inent. 'lliis housing for wor-kei-s was in shai-p conti'ast to the genteel 'Georgian' townhouse terraces epitomised by tlie examples of planned squares and crescents seen first in London, Bath, Cheltenham and Edinburgh. By the 1840's the resulting ai-eas of congested, 'back-street' high-density housing, olfering only basic shelter. wiUi little or no sanitary provisions, were becoming a major public healtli issue with strong political implications (Burnett 1980 pp.92-4; Olsen in Dyos «S: Wolff 1978 pp.333-357; Dyos & Reeder in Dyos & Wolff 1978 pp.359-386). hi line with Üiis üi-creasing awareness and concern for Uie quality of residential areas, an impetus grew for new fomis of segregated suburban aieas. designed
to enable escape away from the increasingly congested urban slums of what rapidly l^ecame tlie 'inner city' suburbs of working-class clo-ses, yards and back-to-back' tenements.
llie new 'rural' suburbs, which pri-mm-ily originated for the new 'middle-class' of the Victorian era (following on from the "Georgian' models of tlie early IBOO's), were usually speculative developments built to a common set of design principles and concepts. These design ideas were based partly on a 'rtu-al idyll' deriving from 19tli Cen-tuiy society's romantic yearnings, as seen expressed Uirough the 'pure' images of'honest' goUiick toil of the medival agricLiltural labourer (against the dirt and squalor of 'in-dustrialisation')(akin to tlie colonial 'noble savage' image prevalentin the concepts of Empire), and pai'tly on the puritanical philantliropy of'improving' the working person's environment so they would lead 'better" lives. The ideas of prescribed 'improvement' were to grow tliro-ughout Uie ninteenUi centuiy, and prockiced forais of residential layoLit and house types which were to continue in Britain right up to 1939: a model for urbanised 'countiy' living qLiite unlike Uie more urban oriented fonns of residential development previously established by the Georgian developers of the lal!e seventeenth centuiy, that were the more nonnal model for Lirban development throughout conUnental Europe.
Thus in Uie latter half of Uie 19Ui cenluiy, a wide vaiiety of suburban developments was generated, wiUi the coLuitiy's growing prosperity (wiUi the growUi of Empire), political influences (philanthropy and tno-ralism). and consequent sorial
HoiLsmg Housing estates Suburb Great Britain
Throughout the history of civilisaiion, tìiere have always been residential areas forming the major basis of urban settlements, but as the size, na-twe and function of settlements changed with tJie coming of indu-sùialisaticn. so did t}\e character aiui location of residenUal areas aiid the housing typologies that evolved with those changes. This paper attempte a brief analysis of the history of the developmeixt and spread of suburbs around tiie established towns and cities of Britain, from the time that tìiey began rapidly industrialising, early in the 19th. ceiUury.
Richard M. Andrews Razvoj stanovanjskega predmestja v Veliki Britaniß 1850-1970
Stanovaiya Staf\ovajyska naselja Predmestja VelOca Britcuiija
V zgodovini civilizacije so vecbio obstajala stanovanjska obmoga. ki so bila osnovno tkivo urbanih naselij. Začetek industrializacije je povzročil spremembe v velilcosti lastnosti in funicciji naseli. Nato so se spren\enäe zimčilnosti stanovaiyskih območij ter lyü-iovegalociranja, spremeinlapa se je tudi stanovanjska tipologija, ki se je sočasno razvijala. Prispevek je kratka analiza zgodoviiie razvoja in rasti predmestij okdi marysih in večjih mest v Veliki Brìtanyi, ki ju je povzročila nagla ùìdustrializacya na začetku 19. stoletja.

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changes, tliat were occurring throughout Britain in the period up to tlie Fü-st World War.
Attempting the Utopian Idyll
To give a brief histoiy of planed residential development in the early industrial era in Britain, and hence tlie origins of tlie design of suburban housing layouts, it is necessaiy to commence examination with Uie early examples of residential estates and housing layouts developed exclusively for that pui-pose.
Speculative housing estate developments built specifically for the new middle classes had appeai-ed on tlie outskirts of many of tlie major in-dustiial cities by the 1840's. If one takes as example Liveipool, a city in rapid growtli at tliat time, from both ü'ade and mdustrialisation. one can see cleai'ly the change-over in 'sLib-urban' typology, from Üie classical late 18th Centuiy 'Georgian' uiioan fomiality of merchants' housing close to the city centre, in Rodney Sti-eet, Hope Street, Catlierine Street, Canning Street, and Huskis-son Street, through the grand 'boulevard' of early Victoria n town-houses on Princes Road, to the planned infomiality of detached housing ai'ound Prince's Pai'k. laid outby Joseph Paxton in 1842 (a year before his better known scheme for Birkenhead Pai'k). In complete contrast were Üie 'genteel' semi-rui-al culs-cle-sac of Fulwood Parle, Gras-sendale Park, and Cressington Park, laid out at tlie same time.
Many cities witnessed this shift in character of suburban housing developments for the well-to-do. 'ilie "Avenues' in Hull is anotlier instance, althoLigh more fomial, as is tlie late 19tli. century development based on Didsbury, bordering Manchester. Many such developments were set up purely as speculative land development ventures, and, to take the example of the competition scheme for the development of Liveipool's Sefton Park, in 1871, (promoted by tlie City Coi-poration) which followed the eaj'lier Prince's Park example (created at the behest
of Richai-d Vaughan Yates, a weal-tliy Livei-pool philanthropist), and tliat in Birkenhead (a municipal pai'k enabled by private finance), it was ollen llie c-ase tliat large estates of previously undeveloped farmland, usually on a city's outskirts, were subdivided into building plots, linked to the creation of a major community-oriented enterprise, in Uie fonii of a large public park. TTius such developments acquired an air of respectability, and upperclass status, to help sales.
In principle, Uiese developments were continuing in the development tj-adition of tlie Georgian specula-tore of Bath, Cheltenham, and, in tlie nortli, Edinburgh, but departed from tlieir 'classical' urban fonnality of ten-aces of housing around cii--cuses and squai-es, by creating much more iiifonnal layouts of freestanding houses in deserete plots, oRen in rui-al or paik-land surroundings. Similar examples of 19Ü1 centLiry 'estate' developments may be found around many of the tlien increasingly prosperous northern industi'ial cities. That Uie chai--acter of these newer speculative ventures did NOT evolve from the Georgian 'urban' townhouse fomis of Bath, Cheltenham, and Uie Edinburgh New Town, is significant. They developed new fomis of informal grouped housing schemes in semi-mral envii'onments. with cha-racterisUcs tliat were to reach their most effective expression later in Uie centuiy (Tarn in Sutcliffe 1980 p76). llie speculaUve villas of Noilh Oxford, developed in the 1850's, and influenced by Ruskin's 'goUiick' ar-chitectiual and social thinking, were precursors to tlie much more cleai'ly defined 'romantic' concept behind tlie well-documented and complete example of Bedford Park (Bolsterli 1977 pp.3-13; Darley 1978 pp.117-121), a speculative scheme developed for the growing middle class of London. Commenced in 1876, and complete by Uie eaiiy 1880's, this 'park' estate epitomised the basis on which many 'semi-planned' private speculative housing schemes were by Uien being developed, to Ibnn the majority of the growing middleclass suburban ai'eas.
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The Origins of Social Planning
Of the housing typologies developed during the latter part of the 19tli Century, this fonn of'leafy' residential suburb for the middle-class stands in contrast to the more specialised and self-sustaining indu-stiy-related 'workers residential community' schemes, which might be said to have evolved from the 'social' principles of Owen's New I^-nai-k (where tlie principal of'cooperative' living for the workers was promoted, with medical services, albeit pilmitive. and schooling for tlieir children). Examples such as Saltaire (1850 - 63), Boumville (1879- ), and, later, Port Sunlight (1888- ), which, amongst othei-s, were developed primailly under the paternalistic philanthropy of noted 19th. centuiy industrialists CTitus Salt, Uie CadbLuys, tlie Levers, res-pectivefy). In all instances these individuals were looldng. with not a litUe self-interest, for Uie improvement of the physical healUi and living conditions of their workforce, and often also to influence and dictate Uie workers' 'moral welfare' (BeU 1969 pp.111-213: Burnett 1986 pp.54-96; Darley 1978 pp. 122-147,156-158; Edwai'ds 1981 pp.54-65, 79-82: Pugh 1983 pp. 13-17, 27-31, 36-39) while promoting the beniflcance of their phi-lantliropy in avoiding tlie growing slum problems of other industrial centres.
With the rapid increase of random urbanisation relating to the growtli of industry during the eai'Iy 19tli. centuiy. there had been a virtually imregulated spread of basic housing for the new populations of industrial workers, witli absolutely minimal standards of construction and layout, leading to the creation of massive ai^as of substandard and insanitaiy slum housing around many cities. The worst skuns had invaiiably been developed cheek-by-jowl with the sources of industrial employment, witli Uieir accompanying pollution (Hall 1982 pp.25-29). llius most of Uie cheaper basic housing built before 1875. was to forni a legacy of slum housing
problems for the next himdred yeai-s, that even as it was built was being recognised as such.
The slums were first to be tackled by private charitable trusts (such as the Peabocly 'li-ust in London) and philantliropic housing associations, well-established by the turn of the centuiy. but subsequently, at the end of tlie First World War, as new prol:)lems of labour and material shortages forced up the cost of replacement dwellings, responsibility was transfeiTed, by legislation, to the loical Authorities, who were granted new powers to tackle tliese problems, following tlie Report of tlie Tudor-Walters Committee.
The Influences on the Spread of the Middle-Class Suburb
-The slums had frequently developed close to tlie grander houses of the pre-industrial wealthy. The expanding groups of the new managerial and owner classes of British society were now increasingly wealUiy. and thus sought new aj-eas for their we-altliier residential locations, fajilier away from Üie insanitary afid polluted industrial centj-es. In Britain, the resulting OLitward movement of this wealthier middle class population from the centres of Üie more indListrially developed towns and cities, was often in a soutli-westerly dii-ectlon (wherever the topography was not a hindrance), avoiding the air-bonie pollution of the coal-buming industiles, earned on the p revailing so u th - wes terly wind. This inevitably established a pattern of location for the newer residential developments which effectively 'leap-frogged' over Uie closely-laid-out, high-density, insanitary inner suburban slums of the industrial workforce (Burnett 1980 pp.89-92; Dyos & Reeder in Dyos & Wolff 1978 pp. 362-3).
These movements of resideniial population and inner city growth patterns have been theorised in several standard land-use system models, developed successively since Burgess firet put foi-wai'd his simplistic

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'concentric ring' theory of urban expansion in 1925. Ulis was to be countered later by Hoyt's 'sectoi-al' model in 1939. Haiiis and Ulman Uien further explored the complexities of iirJ^an growUi patterns with their 'multiple nuclei' model of 1945 (Meyer & Huggett 1981 pp. 147-155), perhaps the most appropriate for English towns and cities.
Tlius the outcome of the 'leap-frog' movement was that tlie new middle classes abandoned Üie ah'eady existing, fully-developed central aa^as of earlier, pre-industrial housing of the fonner rich land-owners (Burnett 1986 pp. 11-18, 191); as a consequence, tliese older ai'eas were to change, initially by a decline of upperrclass occupancy leading to property subdivision to enable higher densities ofworking-class households. This often brought a co-n-esponding decline in standai'ds of public healUi. which in turn supported redevelopment for more commercial uses, as the demand for commercial premises in the centiTil core of each town grew with the rising population. London is Üie most easily perceived example of Ulis process, which was to continue in a veCriety of ways up to the outbreak of the Second World War.
Planning controls had begim to be introduced to halt tliis growth in tlie 1930's but it was really Uie ftm-damental change in tlie regulatoiy powers over development, (the removal from land owners, by Uie State, of the Right to the Development of land, or the Establishment of New Land-Uses) embodied in Uie 1947 Town & Country Planning Act, Uiat was to have the most dramatic effect in the post-world-war-ll period (CliI-lingworth 1982 pp. 1-7; Sutcliffe 1980 pp.71-94; Jackson 1973 pp. 312-324)
Two Views of the Problem
To return to tJie 19tli century, the-consequent problems of the resultant segregation of housing for Uie different social classes was being recognised by the mid 1870's. In
particular, the plight of the working class, stemming increasingly from tlie substandard and slum housing (Mayhew 1861), created by unfeeling and greedy indusüialists and indiscriminate development speculators, was gradually recognised, and, in some areas, the problems were tackled (Dyos & Reeder in Dyos & WoUr, 1978 pp.372-381); the pracUcal result of this growing awareness was the emergence of two views of the manner in which the problems should be addressed.
On Uie one hand, as already indicated, several philanthropically inclined industrialists came to the fore. who were prepared to experiment wiUi tlie provision of 'improved' housing schemes, ostensibly for Uie benefit of their workforces (Bell 1969 pp. 163-213). This sphere of acüvity, reinforced by the theories of such writers as John Ruskin (1819-1900), Philip Webb (1831-1915). William Monis (1834-96), and, of coui-se, the ultimately influential Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928), took, as a fundamental star-Ung point, Uie view tliat the urban residential fonns which industrial urbanisation had created in Britain up to Uiat Ume, were, in Uie main, iiTetrievably inapiDropriate for the well-being of the hinnan condition, either physical or moral. There was a growing feeling that the tlien current concepts (such as they were) of industrial urban physical structure, geared primai'ily to entrepi'eneurial economic endeavour, should be abandoned, and that Üiere should be a complete reversion to forms of residenUal layout Uiat were based not on urban forms at all, but on an idealised, raUier English Renaissancevision from Uie pre-industiial era, more akin to Uie low density, open-spaced, mral settlement patterns of that former agrarian economy, but linked with the ideas of conti-olled landscape estates stemming from Tudor times. These concepts, running in tandem with the 'GoUiic' atUtudes of a tme 'work eUiic' tliat became prevalent in the later 19Ui. Century Victorian era, created an 'utopian' branch of thinking on residential layouts, reinforced by visions of Arcadia,

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which was to culminate wiüi the 'Gai'den City' concept
On the otJier hand, many of those becoming direcUy concerned with the environmental, physical and medical plight of the urban worker, of necessity took a more pragmatic and technically 'progressive' view of the problems, and felt that the situation could best be improved by a gradual process of new development and redevelopment, continually raising, through legislation, the minimum standai'ds of specification for tlie built physical environment, and the essential physical infrastructure now perceived as necessary for such densities of residential areas. Such standaixls were to be brought into elTect by centralised national legislation, linked together with the use of model bye-laws establishing 'good practice' consti'uc-tion and planning, to be applied locally. Tlie intj-oduction. following Uie 1875 Public Health Act. of codes of practice (under the model bye-laws) for building construction and public healtli and hygiene standards, geared to overcoming the symptoms and results of overcrowded and insanitaiy conditions, had considerable impact; and compliance was often made mandatoiy, at least in theoiy. ITie effects were not merely to improve the public health aspects, but to markedly change tlie character, and envii-on-mental quality, of what were tlien peripheral housing estates, in what is now more geneially seen as the 'inner submits' of our major indu-stiial centres. The main product was the 'bye-law housing' of tlie post-1875 era, with fonns and character quite unlike the high-density Urban Tenement models prevalent throughout the rest of Europe, and indeed in Scotland. This alternative view of the way forwaixl for British residential development could be termed the 'technical/pragmatic' branch of thinking (Burnett 1986 pp. 158-164); this avenue of tliought was to have profound, and far-re-aching effects, on tlie {perception of designers and engineers responsible for the built residential environment in Britain, which is still holding a commanding influence, right up to tlie present day.
The Practical Evidence
As already mentioned, there are four 'Utopian' schemes of pai Ucular significance, by virtue of their differing characters, the characteristics of tlie earlier layouts irom those which followed: the schemes and developments at Saltaire, near Bradford (1853-63, promoted byTi-tus Salt for his mill labour force); Bourneville, on the outskirts of Birmingham (initiated 1879, main village proper commenced 1893, started by George Cadbuiy to house, in pai t, tlie workforce of his new chocolate factory); Poil Sunlight, on the Winal (1888, stalled by W.H.Lever, the first Lord Leverhulme. for tlie families of the workers in the I^ver Bros, newly relocated soap factoiy); and New Eai-swick, nortli of York (1902, stalled and mn bya ti-ustset up by Joseph Rowntree for tlie welfare of his workforce)(Buniett 1986 pp. 180-183; Sutcliife 1980 pp.78-94).
In the Saltaire scheme, tlie architects, lojckwood and Mawson, from Bradford, produced a neat but regimented and uninspiringly compact urban fonn of low-rise development, of a type similar to but pre-dating (by twenty or more yeai-s) the housing schemes resulting from the widespread introduction of model bye-laws, after the 1875 Public Health Act. Thus, while Saltaire can be seen to have been both the result of 'Utopian' tliinking, and a model for the 'technical/pragmatic' approach, and despite tlie raised standards that it represented for the time, tliere was little gained in tenns of environmental quality otlier than in pLiblic health temis. Certainly, except for a small public park, in-coiporated into the original scheme, and tlie open garden areas in front of tlie alms-houses, there is little or no concession to the fact that the site of Saltaire was originally green fields set in Uie rural outskirts north of Bradford.
By way of complete contrast, and showing signs of the change in awareness regaixling the quality of residential environments, Boumville was. from Uie start, developed on tlie lines of anon-ud^an. low density

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suburb, with more than adequate provision of landscaped open space, for public use, as well as large private gardens (with similarities to the Bedford Park model). Ulis conscious philosophy of George Cadbury's was to be maintained throughout its entire development period, until well into the 1960's. despite rising densities after World Wai- II. In tlie manner of its physical inteipreta-tion. BoLunville's development can be seen as a pre-emptive model supporting the 'Garden City' concepts of Ebenezer Howard, which he had formulated by the same year that Bouniville was commenced, but which were not publish until 1898, ten years later (Fishman 1982 pp.52-63).
New E^arswlck, planned by Raymond Unwin and Bany Parker at the invitation of Joseph Rownü-ee, and stalled in 1902, carried tlie inteipretation of layout ideas and management concepts foi-ward yet again, talcing advantage of Uie now published tliinking of Ebenezer Ho-wai'd (Tomorrow: A Peaceful Palli To Real Refonn, 1898, republished as Garden Cities of Tomorrow in 1902) which had effectively established him as tlie father of the Garden City movement. Tlie layout principles evident in New Eai^wick show much of the same 'mral village' character later embodied in Letch-woilh, Uie fìi-st full realisation by Howard of a 'Garden City' as such, also designed and laid out by Pai'ker and Unwin, and commenced in 1903. llie provision of public open space in New Earswick is designed to reinforce tliis chaj-acter, complementing Uie large amotrnt of private gaixlen space created by the low density. 'Hie gardens were initially incoiporated, no doubt, to provide adequate space for residents to cultivate their own vegetables, as would have been noniial in rui-al communities at that time, and in keeping with the basic Gai'den City economic ideal, 'llie green 'pocket-handkerchieves' of lawn with their hed^aceous boixlers, now commonly identified with the 'subiirban' image of a garden, and veiy evidently replacing the vegetables in New Earswick today, were a product of tJie 'aestlieUc ai-proach to garden-
ing. populaiised by William Robinson and Gertruide Jekyll. and the Arts & Crafts movement, in the last quarter of the 19th century, but derived, via tlie idealised versions of tlie cottage garden, from examples on the estates of the wealthy classes in Tudor limes.
New Earswick was also the example Uiat vindicated Unwin's premise that low density development was, in reality, more economical overall than the more common higher densities that had prevailed in the inner 'bye-law" suburbs (Edwards 1981 p.87; ScolTliam 1984 p.6). Incidentally, a variation of this 'economical' ai-gument reappeai'ed in the mid-1970's in support of the layout ideas embodied in the Cheshire County Council's Residential Roads Design Guide.
Port Sunlight, another of the earliest 'Utopian' schemes to take on board tlie concepts of suburban development inherent in tlie residential aspects of the Gai'den City ideal, was conceived in the same vein as Boumville, as a loosely structured, low density housing community for the workers in the I.£ver BroUiers' new 'Sunlight' soap factory, but with a much stj'onger emphasis on the style and quality of architectui-al aesthetics to be employed in a corporate manner throughout the development. This 'architectural mo-ralism' was deliberately incorporated to influence the sensibilities of tlie 'working classes', and 'improve' tlieir lives, witli its overt references to the philosophies of Ruskin and Monis and intei-pretations of tlie Arts and Ci-aRs movement, intermixed with Üie Gothic revival influences, to express the under-cuiTent of the moralising, 19th cen-tuiy Pi'otestant 'work etliic": less tliought was given initially to the more relevant aspects of open space provision and its functional value. Subsequently, however, in 1910, a more formal and elaborate 'Beaux Alls' style of layout, with its grand vista public open space, was applied to the second phase by Sir Charles Reilly, complementing and reinforcing tlie strong architectural character ab-eady established in the early buildings, and producing a-plan-

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ned. open environment on the 'Grand Manner' theme, eventually to incorporate a monumental, classical style art gallery. These open spaces were of little functional v^ue to the residents, however.
The Decline of the 'Suburban Village' Ideal
From these noteworthy schemes promoted by private philantliro-pists, and after the building of Letchworth. promoted directly by Howai-d tliroLigh his 'Fii-st Garden City" company, the influence and evolutionofthe Garden City concept can be seen to decline into fonns of pattern-book layout designs, applied to doimitory suburban developments, to become recognised as 'Garden SuburlDs', with little or nothing of the 'self-sufllcient community' still retained.
This was largely due to the influences of Raymond Unwin, Uirough his later schemes, especially Hamp-stead Garden Suburb, and it was the dilution of tlie original design philosophies to suit the middle-class 'suburban" market for speculative housing, that principally contributed to tlie loss of the basic social and economic reasoning behind tlie 'Utopian" Gaixlen City concept of Ebenezer Howard, in favour of a simple design oriented imageiy, apparently more appropriate to tlie commercial demands of the times (Scoffliam 1984 p.7). The creation of a speculative housing supply for doniiitory suburbs, aimed at tliis market of rather superflcial styles, gave added impetus to Uie 'technical/pragmatic' lobby, and saw the eflective decline of the philanthropic support for promoting 'Utopian' concepts of suburban community development. Tlie revival of 'Pa-ttem-book' styles was. in turn, a dii'ect throwback to many of the design practices of early Victorian house builders.
The technical/pragmatic' approach, having become flnnly estalD-lished following the 1875 Public Health Act, was given a major consolidation witli the Housing of the
Working Classes Act 1890, the Housing, Town Planning, etc.. Act of 1909 and, of major significance, the Housing and Town Planning Act, 1919 (Cullingworth 1982 pp.2-5). The 1919 Act brought into operation the added powerof lojcal AuUioiities to bLiild housing for rental to the working classes, at SLibsidised rates. This important change was the beginning of the 'council house" provision established for Local Authorities to cater for tlie housing need of those "working class' poor, no longer adequately served by tlie private builders and investors. The lucrative returns for private landlords from private house building for rent, Uiat had created the boom in 'bye-law' housing in tlie inner suburbs in the last decades of the 19th. century, vii'tually disappeai^ed by 1918, due to a number of related factors: tlie rise in joint-stock companies and 'friendly' societies, prior to 1914, Uiat, with tJie growing post-world-war-1 'stock market', had created a more flexible way of earning money from investments; the rising cost of house construction to the higher standards demanded l^y increasingly stringent and comprehensive local bye-laws; tlie rapid rise in costs of materials for con-stixiction, especially at the end of tlie war; and, as much as any otlier factor, the loss of the cheap, trained, craftsman workforce, due to the ravages of tlie 1914-18 wai", and the loss of continuity in tlie apprenticeship system during those war yeai-s. As was to occur again, after the second world war, this redLic-tion of the ti-aditional labour force at a critical time forreconstrucUon. led the government of the time to lake an intense, in-deptli look at the whole question of housing provision at the bottom end of Uie maj-ket.
By late in the war, it was cleaj'ly evident Uiat the veiy section of the population upon which industiy and reconstruction would ultimately depend, was to be the worst effected by these factors. Thus, urgent provision of subsidised housing would be needed, and in order to establish a benchmai'k to which local autlioritles should work, both to uphold a basic quality of provision while establishing national niini-
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mum standards, aiid to ensure maximum economy, the government had set up, in 1917. a committee under the chainnanship of Sir John Tuidor Walters. M.P. (which included Raymond Unwln among its members). The outcome of the committee's recommendations was to formalise the standards of density, layout, accommodation and construction to be applied to tlie new 'council housing'; tliese standards established fundamental basic layout pilnciples for the public sector, for at least the next two decades (despite inroads made by subsequent legislation in tJio '30's, which eflectively reduced Üie minimum level of these standaixls). To a lai'ge extent, by example, they also set a similar basic level of constrtiction specification, and (to a lesser extent) of public open space provision, for tlie expanding output of the private specLilative builders now seiving tlie growing middleclass subuii^an housing mai'ket, over Uie same period.
The Course of Private Development
To recapitulate on the origins of Ihe private sector development of housing 'estates', it is the significance of the ideas first seen in the scheme at Saltaire, combined with tlie speculative principles that fully manifested in the example of Bedford Pai-k (1876) (Burnett 1986 p.206). tliat established the concept of housing developments as complete commimities for tlie new professional middle class residents (of which an increasing proportion were owner-occupiers), and thatwe-re built up to tlie social ideas embodied in Ebenezer Howaixl's concept of the 'Garden City". But Üiese speculative schemes had established the general character ^d financial basis of much of tlie mid-die-class housing of the latter half of tlie 19th century, and tlius Howard was only able to bring his revolutionary tlieories for a series of complete, balanced, and economically self-sufficient townships, the "Garden City' ideal, to anytliing like a full practical implementation in one sig-
nificant example, Letchworth, effectively completed by 1912. However, after the first world war, the difficulties of land assembly in the right place for such a venture, under the new private open market conditions by then prevailing, conti-ary to the proclaimed analysis of Alfred Marshall, Howard's main influence in economic theoiy in tlie 1880's (Fish-man 1982 pp.45-7), were sufficient to effectively 'kill off Howard's second endeavour, at Welwyn Garden City, before tliat had achieved a self-sufficient capability: Welwyn was tliLis to remain principally a dormitory suburb town seiving London. until after the second world war, when the ideas underlying the Gardén City ideal were given a new lease of life, when the post-war Socialist government in Britain set up the New Town progranmie, and implemented the 'New Town Development Corporations'. Welwyn was to fonn tlie focus of one of the eight New Towns in the South-East. acting as self-sustaining satellites, to provide for the expected post-war London ovei"spill, and avoid Uie relentless advance of subui-bia that had occurred in the I930's. Before tliis. in the internar period, Welwyn had effectively become the ideal model for the physical layout characteristics promoted in the 20's and 30's as the 'Garden Suburbs'.
nius was created, in various degenerated fonns, tlie commonly held image of middle-class suburbia, furiher promoted by the expanding transport networlcs of the South-East in the 1930's; the 'Greenline' paradises, Üie little 'Metropolitan' country residences of John Betjeman's 'Metroland'; the 'Bijou residences of Colindale', explored with some sensitivity by Michael Frayne in his T.V. documentary on the interwar development of subui-ban housing speculation south of London (B.B.C. 1979: Three Streets in the Country").
It was the standards of layout and provision of open space of the Garden Cily schemes, geared directly to tlie principles of economic self-sufficiency for Üiese proposed town "units' of 30,000 population, that were tlie firstaspects to be forgotten

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in the dilution of Howai-d's original ideals (Fishman 1982 p.38). The basic principles of low density and large plots had created layouts that were far superior in flexibility and character to the urban 'bye-law' housing of tlie end of the 19th. cen-tuiy, where densities of over 100 houses per hectai'e were common, when it is seen that both LetchworUi and Welwyn were designed to maximum densities of 30 houses per hectare. The spaciousness thus created enabled the introduction of va-rjnng incidences of public open space for communal use, combined into the fonnal layouts that maintained the cohesion of Uiese schemes, without losing the open rural atmosphere, thus avoiding what by this time had been idenüiied by many as the soul-destroying, monotonous character of the rows of bye-law terraced workers housing of the 1880's and 1890's.
In general, however, especially in the Edwardian period, and Just l>e-fore and immediately aller the fu'st world war, the visual imageiy of the middle-class suburban concept was to be the major feature taken up for Ulis style of development, as epitomised in the 'free'. Queen Anne architectural styles evident in Bedford Park, and subsequent schemes, that leant heavily on the vernacular interpretations of tlie Ai'ts and Crafts movement. Hie financial and economic theories that were the basic features of tlie 'alternative' Garden City development concept promoted by Howard and his followers, were increasingly ignored, as irrelevant to 20Ui- century living. Thus was spawned tlie 1930's suburban housing estates, usually in expedient locations with ill-thought-out and piece-meal layouts, but displaying a host of neo-ver-nacular, neo-Gothic or Arts & Crafts based derivatives of architectural style. It is interesting to see that the wheel is coming around in the same manner, yet again, some 60 years later. This architectural plagiarism was to spread throughout private speculative schemes up to 1939. and the public sector designers of tlie newly established 'council' houses were, in their turn, to come under these derivative influences.
which, however, often borrowed from the highest examples; elements of Lutyens neo-vemacular, Voysey's Arts & Crafts, and hints of Port Simlight Tudorbetlian can be seen up and down Britain, established In the building boom of the 1930's in the south-east, or the local authority expansions of tlie same period further nortli.
The Rise of National Planning Control
The 1930's saw the development in tlie souUi-east of faster, 'pollution-free' electric commuter line railways. radiating further and further out from London. togeUier witli tlie rapid growtli of car ovmership amongst the better-off This created an insatiable demand for suburban housing at increasing distances into the coimtryside. and it was only the advent of war in 1939 thatputastop to Ulis headlong development rush, that was actually swallowing up the very countryside, with its open spaces, upon which the speculators were attenipUng to capitalize (Michael Frajme: 'iliree Streets in Uie Country": B.B.C. 1979). Because of this increasingly mythical notion that such developments were located in 'Uie open country', the provision of a reasonable proportion of open space, if any at all. within the new residential developments, occurred more by accident, than by any conscious design policies, and the result was the virtual repetition, in a lower-density suburban manner, of the ad-hoc spread of doniiitory housing schemes, with all the ensuing problems of inadequate infrastructure, that had already been seen in Uie bye-law housing of the 1880's and'90's.
This aspect of unplanned residential development, together with problems to do with imequal land-use resource provision generally, coming on Uie heals of the eflects of the depression, especially in the north, led to government concern in the late 1930'sUiat was to surface inthe fonn of three influenUal reports prepared just before and during tlu- war years: the Barlow report on Uie dis-

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tribuüon of indu-stry, tlie Ulhwatt report on Compensation & Betterment (1942), and the Scott report on rural land-uses (1942).
These reports were to be crucial in setting tlie scene for Üie complete shake-up in the contj'ol of development that was embodied in Üie 1947 Town & Country Planning Act (Cullingworth 1986 pp.5-23), to be introduced in the wave of social reforms that were estalDÜshed by tlie first Labour Government, following Üie Second World War. WiUi Ulis act, the power to plan for all development, on a national basis, passed to Uie Local Planning Autliorities, and a sti'ingent system of Development Control was instigated, Ihat, for tlie firet time, gave tliose local autliorities tlie power to insist on minimum standards (established nationally) for housing developments, conli-olling density, space provision for each dwelling, infrastrticture layout requirements and public open space provision. Tlius efTective coii-tj ol of speculative housing development was introduced, which would help avoid further repeats of Uie problems of infrastructure commonplace in the 1930's. But with tlie pressures for reconstruction and a new housing target of300,000 houses annually, far more cmcial circLUiis lances existed in tlie 1950's. thatwere to completely alter Uie character of suburban council house estates.
The 'Modern' View of Suburbia
But to review the design origins of much of the suburban housing development in Uie inteiAvar period, it is important to identify, within the lower density developments, two distinct 'typology' groups, or philosophies of design of the physical environment, as Scoflliani has suggested (ScoHham 1984 p.2). Hie first group, that stemming from Üie Arts & Crafts derivatives of the 19th century philosophies of John Rus-kin. through William Morris, Philip Webb, and W. R. Lethaby (1857-1931), has already been mentioned, nie second group, which is really
more evident in the massive suburban developments of local authority housing, that only fully developed in the reconstrucüon and slum clearance programmes after world war II, has its roots flrmly embedded in the deterministic, revolutionary architectural ideologies of the modem movement, as they had developed Uiroughout Europe.
Since the turn of Uie centuiy, a strong movement for mass housing provision had giown up in central Europe, quite different in character and culture to Uie Uiinking on housing that evolved in Britain during the same period. Tliese influences, initially led by the design revolution evident in Vienna before tlie first world war, subsequenUy spread through Germany and France, from Uie 'Secession' movement (primarily led by Otto Wagner's influence), and Uie evoluUon of the Art Nouveau exponents, through to the Bauliaus (Walter Gropius and Mies Van Der Rohe) and the International Style (CL\M). llie design ideas can be seen to culminate in the work and influence of I.e Corbusier, with his concepts of the ideal, regimented workers' city, buüt to high density using highrise blocks on stilts, to release the ground for parkland: his Ville Radieuse' (1935). This movement was a complete anUthesis to Uie 'garden city' ideas of Howard wiUi their rural community origins, and lent support to a very different view of the future of urban and suburban housing for Uie twentieth century.
The European Vision
Tlie evoluUon of models for mass housing Uiroughout Western Europe during Uie first half of the 20th century, was strongly linked to the pressures for egalitarian refonns (stemming from such events as the Communist revolution in Russia), and Uie raising of urban housing standards (principally for public health reasons), of which Vienna holds many seminal examples from Uiat period (Karl Marx Hof is perhaps the best known 'modem' example). The IntemaUonal style that pervades much of the British local
authority urban reconstruction housing of the late 1930's and early 1950's was an ainalgain of many diverse influences, some from as far afield as the U.S.A., and Japan: and its protagonists helped billig about a somewhat hasty abandonment of much of the üied and tested craft traditions with vernacular origins, that had been fLindamental to design pilnciples (even in üidustry) in Britain up until the 1940's.
This was especially so of housing, where, as has been established, Uie rural character of low density layouts, stemming from countiy community traditions, had been reiterated in theGaixIen City layouts and subsequently, Üie 'garden subudD' developments. But these native models were lai'gely abandoned after the second world war, in favour of the new ideas of high-rise, evoked by imagery of a 'modem' world. 'Illese new ui-ban models of blocks of flats, capable of rapid erection, were perceived to be more economical on landuse groLinds, were heavily promoted by a construction industiy tliat needed economical means of higher productivity. Tliey also had the tacit support of the modem architecture movement throughout Europe, and were epitomised in the fonn of Le Corbusier's famous completed hoiising block example: the Unit d'Habitation in Marseille.
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The Failure of the Future Model
Le Corbusier's mass housing Uie-ories, expressed through the ideas of La Ville Radieuse, only really make sense when related to a very 19Ui century view of society, wiUi a rigidly hierarchical view of class and social structure: and to explore them in terms of the elements applicable in the post-war British contend, it can be seen that his principle idea, that the open space created by the use of such high-rise buildings would be made public, regimented and 'co-mmunalised' on a vast scale, is in direct conflict to Uie 'houses round the village green' community "image embodied in the low-density Garden City ideals of Howard's original con-
cept, geared much more to the reinforcement of small-scale 'neighbourhoods'. supporting Uie 'mral idyll' philosophy. It was perhaps these veiy dissimilarities tliat enabled tlie 'modem movement' to gain so much credibility for housing in post-war Britain, in tlie face of the Gai-den City model (theoretically much more appropiiate), which, as can now be seen, actually came far closer to the perceptions of popular demand, that have resurfaced in Uie last 20 years. But in the 1950's nish for 'modemistic' progress in town reconstiTiction, Ulis Garden City model was not seen to provide a suitable morphological fonn. in the drive to overcome Uie large-scale rehousing problems of Uie post-war period. By Uien, it was the apparent overall cheapness (MHLG 'Density of Residential Areas' 1952 p.52) created by Uie increase in density allied to greater height, and the speed of erection using prefabricated systems (Iieavily backed by the construction companies' political lobby) that brought about the abandonment of Uie older, tried and tested styles of layout, using low-rise. low density designs: Uie popular 'garden suburb" model, the doyen of the 1930's 'spec.' builder.
The Flawed Ideal
In Uie public sector implementation of Uie new ideals, it is worUi noUng that, except for the earliest post-war local authority high-rise schemes (L.C.C.'s Roehampton Lane, in 1950 is the seminal example), it was fre-quenUy Uie case that the original concept of a high provision of open space to numbers of dwellings, created by the low site coverage of high-rise dwelling blocks, cmcial to Cod:)usier's concept, was completely lost in most of Uie British high-rise examples, in Uie pressure to develop at ever higher densiUes, in order to save on the high-cost inner city site areas. This, in turn, led to the complete denial of Uie 'grand public open space' basis of Uie "Ville Radieuse', and produced the large numl^er of randomly sited system-built high-rise blocks of Uie 1950's and 'eO's, that by Uie 1980's became totally unacceptable for pubi i rally
no. 28, 29/1995
stibsidised mass housing in British tenns, both socially and physically. Butat the time of tlieir construction, botli for the local auUiorities with urban renewal problems, wishing to rehouse people on new suburban estates, and for the newly created New Town Development Corpom-tions. these 'instant* factory-system prefabricated solutions provided higher nmnerical totals of houses, at a rate that was not thought possible imder the more traditional means of implementation assumed for the Garden CiUes. Even Üie New Towns, created by statute in the rush of parliamentary socialist idealism immediately afler tlie end of the war, and theoretically taking over tlie mantle of the Gaixlen City movement, were not long in modifying the details of Howard's original basic 'Utopian' concept, and hence tlie housing layout design practices, to suit political perceptions of the changed social and economic cir-cimistances of Britain in tlie 1950's.
By the mid-1960's. the realisation began to emerge tliat tlie headlong rush into highrise development (which has never been taken up by private sector developers, except briefly in the '30's in the centre of ijDndon) had not solved [he housing problem, but had acttially exacerbated socially based urban and sub-uri:)an problems of poorer families. Ihis was brought into abrupt focus wiÜi the Ronan Point disaster of 1968 (Scofniam 1984 p.76). which helped to turn attention on the inadequacies of the high-rise concept, as implemented in Britain, both in Uie inner areas housing redevelopment schemes, and in Uie mixed density peripheral suburlDan estates. The hidden dangers of Uie virtually absolute command economy, that controlled almost all housing provision in tJie late 1940's, and governed tlie large public sector provision through the 1950's, 1960's. and into Uie 1970's had become apparent by Uie late 1970's, and while much of the public sector suburban housing of the 70's had made attempts at saUsfying 'public demand' wiUi schemes relying heavily on 'retro-vernacular' traditional images of housing types, the boom in home-ownership had ensured Uiat
Uie speculative builders had got there first and that the country was being covered with suburban estates not dissimilar to schemes first developed for Essex (to try to retain some 'ti-adiüonal' regional character to new developments in the coimty) 'Ilius once again we are entering a 'back to the future' period of quasi-traditional styles and inappropriate housing forms in the house-types and layouts being created on our SLibui-ban estates. We are left with the question: "what have we leamt about housing provisions for the fii-st half of Uie next century, that will avoid the kind of problems that we inherited from the first half of Ulis'. Certainly we have not developed a clear view of how to solve Uie problems of the last fifty years, and are no nearer to a model of appropriate domestic fonn for the future Uian were Üie designers of one liLindred years ago.
Richard M^Andrews, B. Arch. '{Hons.), M. Sc. (T&CP); Senior Lecturer; Course Director: Post-Grad. Dipl. in Architecture; Birmingham School of Architecture, Faculty of the Built Environment, UCE Birmingham
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