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Abstract
Mounted annually at the Ideal Home Exhibition, a series of fire safety displays produced by the London County Council (LCC) in 1958–63 crystallized some of the key contradictions of the postwar consensus. The paper explores how the displays negotiate, in aesthetic and affective terms, two dissonant sets of concerns: on the one hand, the Ideal Home Exhibition’s celebration of homeownership and home-centred consumption; and, on the other, the LCC’s ‘high fire risk’ inspection programme, which focused on areas of multiple occupancy housing during a period when house fires were growing at an alarming rate. A visual-cultural history of the LCC displays demonstrates their contradictory testimony to a neglected history of housing inequalities. That history, it will be argued, was inseparable from the Conservative government’s so-called ‘property owning democracy’. At the same time, the LCC displays reveal the frictions and resistances inherent in this same moment.
Notes
1 M.B. Pohlad, ‘The Appreciation of Ruins in Blitz-Era London’, London Journal, 30 (2005), 1–24.
2 D. Sugg Ryan, The Ideal Home through The Twentieth Century (London: Hazar Publishing, 1997), 17. The vast and rich Earls Court and Olympia collection at the London Metropolitan Archives includes recently catalogued photographs, exhibition plans, press releases and other materials relating to the Ideal Home Exhibition, which unfortunately I have not been able to access due to lockdown conditions. See LMA/4484.
3 Town Planning Committee Report no. 2, 20 May 1957, in LCC Minutes of Proceedings 1957, 319, LCC Collection, LMA LCCU1740. Henceforth ‘TPCR 1957’. See also Town Planning Committee Report no. 2, 12 June to 25 Sept 1961, in LCC Minutes of Proceedings 1961, 570, LCC collection, LMA LCCU1744. Henceforth ‘TPCR 1961’.
4 D. Sugg Ryan, ‘The Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition and Suburban Modernity, 1908-1951’ (PhD diss., University of East London, 1995).
5 R. Glass, ‘Introduction’, in Centre for Urban Studies (ed.) London: Aspects of Change (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1964), xxxvi.
6 P. Malpass, Housing and the Welfare State (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 83; P. Saunders, A Nation of Homeowners (London: Unwin Hyman, 1990), Chapter 4 ‘A Property-Owning Democracy’, 204-62.
7 C. Hamnett and B. Randolph, Cities, Housing and Profits: Flat Break-up and the Decline of Private Renting (London: Century Hutchinson, 1988), 10; D. Eversley, ‘Landlords’ Slow Farewell’, New Society, 31 (16 January 1975), 119–21, 119.
8 P. Starkey, ‘The Feckless Mother: Women, Poverty and Social Workers in Wartime and Post-War England’, Women’s History Review, 9 (September 2000), 539–57; S. Todd, ‘Family Welfare and Social Work in Post-War England, c.1948-c.1970’, English Historical Review, 129 (April 2014), 362–87; A. Wills, ‘Delinquency, Masculinity and Citizenship in England 1950-70’, Past and Present, 187 (May 2005), 157–85; J. Davis, ‘Rents and Race in 1960s London: New Light on Rachmanism’, Twentieth Century British History, 12 (2001), 69–92, 71 and 77.
9 P.G. Gray and R. Russell, The Housing Situation in 1960: An Inquiry Covering England and Wales Carried out for the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (London: Central Office of Information, 1962), 25 and Hamnett and Randolph, Cities, Housing and Profits, 36.
10 Private rented housing in the postwar period has received surprisingly little attention. Exceptions include P. Child, ‘Landlordism, Rent Regulation and the Labour Party in mid-twentieth century Britain, 1950-64’, Twentieth Century British History, 21 (2018), 79–103; J. Davis, ‘Rents and Race in 1960s London’, Twentieth Century British History; J. Allen and L. McDowell, Landlords and Property: Social Relations in the Private Rented Sector (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) and M. Harloe, Private Rented Housing in the United States and Europe (Beckenham: Croom Helm, 1985).
11 ‘Wastage by Fire: The Costs in Lives and Money’, Fire Protection Association Journal, 55 (April 1962), 162–5.
12 Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and Fire Offices’ Committee Joint Fire Research, United Kingdom Fire Statistics 1962: Statistical Analysis of Reports of Fires Attended by Fire Brigades in the United Kingdom during 1962 (London: HMSO, 1962), 1 and 8. Henceforth ‘DSIR and FOC, UK Fire Statistics’.
13 S.E. Chandler, A Chapman and S.J. Hollington, ‘Fire Incidence, Housing and Social Conditions – The Urban Situation in Britain’, Fire Prevention, 172 (September 1984), 15–20, 18.
14 L. Nead, ‘The History in Pictures’, Cultural and Social History, 7 (2010), 485–92, 491.
15 L. Nead, The Tiger in the Smoke: Art and Culture in Post-War Britain (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017); B. Highmore, Cultural Feelings: Mood, Mediation and Cultural Politics (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017); H. Atkinson, ‘Imaginative Reconstruction: Designing Place at the Festival of Britain’, 1951 (PhD diss., Royal College of Art, 2006); R. Hornsey, The Spiv and the Architect: Unruly Life in Postwar London (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010).
16 Hornsey, The Spiv and The Architect, 105.
17 Atkinson, ‘Imaginative Reconstruction’, 21 and 51.
18 Highmore, Cultural Feelings, 8 and 60–66.
19 B. Highmore, Review of The Tiger in the Smoke: Art and Culture in Post-War Britain by Lynda Nead, Journal of British Studies, 57 (2018), 661–2, 662.
20 Nead, Tiger in the Smoke, 17–54.
21 See for example Ideal Home Exhibition catalogue (March 1960), 201–3, AAD/1990/9/27, Archive of Art and Design, V&A Museum. Henceforth ‘IHE 1960’. Also Ideal Home Exhibition catalogue (March 1963), 207, AAD/1990/9/30, Archive of Art and Design, V&A Museum. Henceforth ‘IHE 1963’.
22 Ideal Home Exhibition catalogue (March 1959), 59, AAD/1990/9/26, Archive of Art and Design, V&A Museum. Henceforth ‘IHE 1959’.
23 The 1962 offering by a company called Berg, for example, was conceived as ‘a complete guide to heating under one roof’, showcasing under floor electric systems, ‘ducted warm air’, oil-filled radiators and more. Ideal Home Exhibition catalogue (March 1962), 76–7, Archive of Art and Design, AAD/1990/9/29, V&A Museum. Henceforth ‘IHE 1962’.
24 British Pathé, ‘Ideal Home Exhibition’ (1959) <https://www.britishpathe.com/video/ideal-home-exhibition-13/query/ideal+home+exhibition> [accessed 20 October 1959]. See for example exhibits by Dimplex and Charles Portway and Son. IHE 1959, 37 and 41.
25 Sugg Ryan, The Ideal Home, 115 and 120–2.
26 Ibid., 202–3.
27 IHE 1959, 202 and Ideal Home Exhibition catalogue (March 1961), 212, AAD/1990/9/28, Archive of Art and Design, V&A Museum.
28 Sugg Ryan, ‘Ideal Home Exhibition and Suburban Modernity’, 75.
29 Ibid., 68.
30 Sugg Ryan, The Ideal Home, 44–5.
31 IHE 1959, 53.
32 Sugg Ryan, The Ideal Home, 141.
33 R. Banham, The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment (London: Architectural Press, 1984).
34 F. Hughes, The Architecture of Error: Matter, Measure and the Misadventures of Precision (Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2014).
35 Sugg Ryan, ‘Ideal Home Exhibition and Suburban Modernity’, 78–9.
36 ‘This is the week you can win a £5000 house’, Daily Mail (9 March 1959), 10. This and all subsequent references to the Daily Mail are from the Daily Mail Historical Archive, 1896–2004.
37 P. Keighran, ‘We want a house, say “blue blood” winners’, Daily Mail (6 March 1959), 12.
38 P. Keighran, ‘Biscuits take the fancy of Colin and bride-to-be’, Daily Mail (9 March 1959), 10.
39 Sugg Ryan, Ideal Home Exhibition and Suburban Modernity, 101.
40 See F. Mort, Capital Affairs: London and the Making of the Permissive Society (New Haven: Yale, 2010).
41 Nead, Tiger in the Smoke, 139–143.
42 A. Tenant, ‘A Black Ceiling? Don’t Say No Until You’ve Seen It’ Daily Mail (13 March 1957), 10.
43 A. Vidler, The Architectural Uncanny (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1992), 3–10.
44 G. Bachelard, trans. Maria Jolas, The Poetics of Space (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994), 72.
45 S. Todd, ‘Phoenix Rising: Working-Class Life and Urban Reconstruction, c. 1945–1967’, Journal of British Studies, 54 (July 2015), 679–702, 692–3.
46 ‘The Growing Cost of Loss by Fire’, Guardian (4 April 1960), 9.
47 G.H. Schram, ‘Reducing the Nation’s Fire Bill: 1 – Precautions with New Materials’, The Guardian (9 January 1962), 12.
48 ‘Dangerous Substances in the Home’, FPA Journal, 57 (October 1962), 264–7, 266–7.
49 ‘Growing Cost of Loss by Fire’, Guardian, 9.
50 A. Forty, Objects of Desire: Design and Society since 1750 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1995), 189–95 and Nead, Tiger in the Smoke, 256–9.
51 British Pathé, ‘Ideal Home Exhibition’ (1959) <https://www.britishpathe.com/video/ideal-home-exhibition-13/query/ideal+home+exhibition> [accessed 20 October 1959].
52 See for example ‘“Drain-Pipe” Rescuer Saves Four’, Kensington Post (19 December 1958), 1; ‘Basement Flat Blazes’, Kensington Post (30 January 1959), 1; ‘Fire Began under Floorboards’, Kensington Post (20 February 1959), 1; ‘Woman Died Trying to Get Warm’, Kensington Post (27 February 1959), 1; ‘Woman of 93 Died After Fire’, Kensington Post (27 March 1959).
53 Extract from report of the Public Health Committee, Royal Borough of Kensington (18 March 1964), 2, in ibid.
54 Report of LCC Divisional Health Committee [Division 3] on fires caused by oil heaters (6 April 1960). 2, in LCC Clerk’s Department, ‘Health Education – Fires Caused by Oil Heaters’, 1960–65, LCC Collection, LMA LCC/CL/PH/01/156.
55 C. Waters, ‘“Dark Strangers” in Our Midst: Discourses of Race and Nation in Britain, 1947-1963’, Journal of British Studies, 36:2 (1997), 207–38. See also Davis, ‘Rents and Race in 1960s London, Twentieth Century British History.
56 P. Jephcott, A Troubled Area: Notes on Notting Hill (London: Faber and Faber, 1964), 49.
57 B. Highmore, ‘Streets in the Air: Alison and Peter Smithson's Doorstep Philosophy‘, in M. Crinson and C. Zimmerman (eds.) Neo-avant-garde and Postmodern: Postwar Architecture in Britain and Beyond (New Haven: Yale, 2010), 79–102; S. Sillars, British Romantic Art and the Second World War (London: Macmillan, 1991), 50.
58 W. McKenzie [Lord McKenzie of Luton, President of RoSPA], ‘Foreword’, in P. Rennie Safety First: Vintage Posters from RoSPA’s Archive (Glasgow: Saraband, 2015), 1.
59 R. Titmuss, ‘Universalism versus Selection’ in C. Pierson and F. Castles (ed.) The Welfare State Reader, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Polity, 2006), 44.
60 DSIR and FOC, UK Fire Statistics 1963 (London: HMSO, 1963), 2.
61 ‘Fire Hazards in the Home’, FPA Journal, 52 (January–April 1961), 8–17.
62 See for example DSIR and FOC, UK Fire Statistics 1960 (London: HMSO, 1961), 28.
63 S.E. Chandler, ‘The Incidence of Residential Fires in London – the Effect of Housing and Other Social Factors’, Building Research Establishment, Information Paper 20/79 (Boreham Wood, 1979).
64 Chandler et al., ‘Fire Incidence, Housing and Social Conditions’, Fire Prevention, 18.
65 Chandler, ‘Incidence of Residential Fires in London’, Building Research Establishment, 1. Given that significant numbers of multiple occupancy houses would in fact have been demolished under slum clearance programmes in the intervening period, we can suppose that some of the ‘high risk’ inner city zones would, if anything, have experienced a greater incidence of domestic fires.
66 Appendix A from a report by the Superintending Architect titled ‘Means of Escape in Case of Fire – Inspection of Buildings’, 5 Jan 1956, 3, GPME.
67 Report by the Superintending Architect titled ‘Areas of Inadequate Means of Escape in Case of Fire’, 31 May 1956, 2, GPME.
68 Accommodation in multiple occupation here is defined as a letting consisting of part of a house or flat. P.G. Gray and J. Todd, ‘Privately Rented Accommodation in London: A Report on Inquiries made in December 1964 and June 1964 for the Committee on Housing in Greater London’, in Report of the Committee on Housing in Greater London, Cmd. 2605, Chaired by Sir Milner Holland (London: HMSO, 1965), 299–410, 312. Henceforth, ‘Milner Holland Report’. For average incomes during this period see Arthur Marwick, British Society since 1945, fourth ed. (London: Penguin, 2003), 88.
69 Milner Holland Report, 312.
70 J.B. Cullingworth, English Housing Trends: A Report on the Rowntree Trust Housing Study (London: G Bell and Sons, 1965), 27. Very low incomes being in this case heads of household earning £5 per week or less.
71 Milner Holland Report, 151.
72 59% of all private lettings in what was defined as the ‘London Conurbation’ consisted of ‘parts of houses or flats’. Gray and Todd, ‘Privately Rented Accommodation in London’, in Milner Holland Report, 306.
73 P.G. Gray and R. Russell, The Housing Situation in 1960: An Inquiry Covering England and Wales Carried out for the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (London: Central Office of Information, 1962), 25; Hamnett and Randolph, Cities, Housing and Profits, 36.
74 Joint report by the Fire Brigade Committee and Health Committee titled ‘Incidence of Fires Originating from Oil-Heaters’ dated 1 and 7 November 1961, found in LCC Minutes of Proceedings 1961, LMA, LCCU1744, 724, LCC collection.
75 TPCR 1957.
76 Ibid. and TPCR 1962.
77 O. Marriott, The Property Boom (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1967); Simmonds, ‘Raising Rachman: The Origins of the Rent Act, 1957’, The Historical Journal, 45 (2002), 869–98.
78 ‘Means of Escape in Case of Fire – Dwellings’, 28 March 1961, in LCC Minutes of Proceedings 1961, 203, LMA LCCU1744; and ‘Fire Risk in Buildings in North Kensington – Survey’, 17 December 1963, in LCC Minutes of Proceedings 1963, 810, LMA LCCU1746. See also Michael Abdul Malik, From Michael de Freitas to Michael X (London: Andre Deutsch, 1968), 97–100.
79 T. Vague, Rachman: An Absolute Beginner’s Guide (London: London Psychogeography, 2010), 17; and S. Green, Rachman (London: Michael Joseph, 1979), 139.
80 J. Yelling, ‘The Development of Residential Urban Renewal Policies in England: Planning for Modernization in the 1960s’, Planning Perspectives, 14 (1999), 1–18; Child, ‘Landlordism, Rent Regulation and the Labour Party’, Twentieth Century British History.
81 Joint report by the Superintending Architect and Medical Officer of Health titled ‘Means of Escape in Case of Fire and Safety in the Home Publicity at Ideal Home Exhibition, 1961’, 5 September 1960, 1, GPME.
82 Malpass, Housing and the Welfare State, 49–55 and S. Merrett, Owner Occupation in Britain (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982), 28–30.
83 Cullingworth, English Housing Trends, 32.
84 See for example ‘Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition’, Daily Mail (13 March 1929), 4 and ‘The King's House’, Daily Mail (21 March 1935), 19.
85 ‘Home Ownership by means of Assurance,’ Daily Mail (11 April 1934), 20.
86 P. Scott, ‘Marketing Mass Home Ownership and The Creation of The Modern Working-Class Consumer in Inter-War Britain’, Business History, 50 (January 2008), 4–25, 10–12.
87 J. Hall, ‘In Economy Village’, Daily Mail (26 Feb. 1952), 6.
88 V. Mulchrone. ‘The House that Multiplies by Two’, Daily Mail (15 November 1963), 10. See similarly P. Whaley, ‘An answer to that problem: Baby or car?’, Daily Mail (9 August 1963), 3.
89 H. Williams and S. Duncan, ‘Beating the Ups and Downs of building’, Daily Mail (5 March 1963), 10.
90 Sugg Ryan, ‘Ideal Home Exhibition and Suburban Modernity’, 83.
91 P. Keighran, ‘A Couple Walk in to a £100 Spree’, Daily Mail (25 March 1959), 5.
92 P. Keighran, ‘It's Open! And the Enthusiasts are Rolling in’, Daily Mail (6 March 1957), 3.
93 A. Ron, ‘Visions of Democracy in “Property-Owning Democracy”: Skelton to Rawls and Beyond’, History of Political Thought, 29 (Spring 2008), 168–187, 170–80.
94 Quoted in A. Davies, ‘“Right to Buy”: The Development of a Conservative Housing Policy, 1945-1980’, Contemporary British History, 17 (December 2013), 421–44, 424.
95 Ibid. See also J. Doling and R. Ronald, ‘Home Ownership and Asset-based Welfare’, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 25 (2010), 165–73.
96 IHE 1962, 99.
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Alistair Cartwright
Alistair Cartwright recently competed a PhD at Birkbeck College, University of London, on the history of postwar London's rented rooms. He is a Steering Committee member of the Stop the War Coalition and writes for Counterfire.org.