Working-Class Housing in Barrow and Lancaster 1880-1930

WORKING-CLASS HOUSING IN BARROW AND LANCASTER 1880-1930 Elizabeth Roberts, B.A. T is only in the last few years that social historians have turned their attention to surveys of working-class housing,1 an area Ipreviously somewhat neglected. A. Sutcliffe, in 1974 argued that the study of the social history of housing in industrial Britain is still in its infancy.2 S. D. Chapman in 1971 had already written of the paucity of published material and suggested that ‘ an adequate appreciation of the subject must be founded in a series of local studies of the problem’.3 The research already done tends to concentrate very considerably on the large conurbations; as yet there is little published material on medium-sized towns like Barrow and Lancaster. This article is an attempt, using both documentary and oral4 evidence, to describe the changing pro vision of working-class housing in Barrow and Lancaster in the fifty years between 1880 and 1930. Although direct comparisons of Barrow and Lancaster with the large conurbations are not possible, the histories of them all had a common theme. S. D. Chapman writes of ‘the endless difficulties involved in the improvement of working-class housing in the second half of the nineteenth century.’5 These difficulties are equally apparent in Barrow and Lancaster, for the provision of working-class housing depended on a complex and sometimes fortuitous interaction of many factors; government legislation, locally initiated legislation, the actions and attitudes of local councils, industrialists, builders, the Medical Officers of Health, the Inspectors of Nuisances, public opinion in general and that of the working classes in particular and changing economic circumstances. The difficulties of providing adequate working-class housing not surprisingly resulted in a generally slow movement towards improvements and by 1930, a century after central government had first dis played an interest, however limited, in working-class housing and had established the Central Board of Health, some working-class people in both towns were still living either in grossly overcrowded 109 I IO Elizabeth Roberts conditions or in houses hazardous to health, or indeed in homes afflicted with both problems. There are considerable difficulties in attempting to assess the degree of severity of both towns’ housing problems by comparing them with other similar urban areas partly because published evidence is so directly concerned with large cities and also because the nature of the housing problems in both towns changed from decade to decade, so that for example Barrow throughout this period cannot be described as a town suffering particularly from overcrowding. Indeed it is not only impossible to compare Barrow and Lancaster with other areas; it is also difficult to compare them with each other because despite their geographical prox imity, comparable sizes and the similarity in their social life and customs, Barrow and Lancaster had housing problems created by different factors and dealt with in very different ways and it is less confusing if they are examined separately; common themes which emerge are summarised in the conclusion. BARROW Barrow’s housing, built in general after i860, had a higher standard of amenities than that in Lancaster and there was consequently little need for slum clearance, but there were recur ring housing crises created by gross overcrowding. It is in fact impossible to discuss the provision of working-class housing in Barrow without considering the extreme rapidity with which the town grew. The Census of 1871 gave the population as 18 ,9 11, which was six times the total of 1861, but the most rapid growth was yet to come; by 1874 the population was estimated at 4o,ooo.6 The 1881 Census enumerated 47,259 people crowded into 6,789 houses which gave an average of 6.96 persons per house (compared with 6.7 persons per house in 1871). These figures meant that Barrovians were more overcrowded than the inhabitants of any other city in England and Wales with the exception of London (7.85 persons per dwelling), Newcastle (7.17) and Sunderland (7.24).7 Although these figures were never equalled again8 they mean that Barrow began this fifty-year period with an appalling problem of overcrowding. One of the major difficulties in solving the problem was that there was no consistency in the figures for overcrowding because there was a direct correlation between the provision of housing and the state of Barrow’s basic industries, iron and steel, shipbuilding, and heavy engineering. These industries were liable to periodic slumps and booms in demand for their products. In the years when industry was depressed (e.g. 1884, 1891, 1893, 1895 and 1897) Workitig Class Housing 1 1 1 houses stood empty as workers left the town. In boom years there was a desperate shortage of houses. This family migrated from Scotland in the booming 70s, the father being a skilled ship wright. ‘Anyhow he hunted around and there wasn’t a house to be had so in the end of all places he got a loft over some shipping offices in Fisher Street. M ’dad got the use of this loft which was the only place he could get to put his family in. Of course there was no water tap or anything and when they went to bed they could see the stars through the roof. This was in the 70’s’.9 The late 1890 s saw another boom and more migration into the town and in 1899 the Medical Officer of Health10 wrote, Never before in my recollection has it been so difficult for the working-class population to find suitable house accommodation. Building of new houses has been lamentably short of demand.’ The following year he wrote somewhat astringently: ‘ There has been no adequate provision to relieve the congested condition of the town spoken of in the last report. I believe that 1,000 additional houses would have been filled at once so great seems the over population of nearly every working man’s house.’11 The 1901 Census figures are interesting because while giving a total of 5.58 persons to a house, which apparently compared favourably with 6.91 persons in the 1891 Census, they also show that the number of persons to a tenement of less than five rooms was 1.65 compared with 1.58 in 1891,12 thus indicating that overcrowding in the smaller houses had increased significantly. The Medical Officer of Health’s criticism of the builders’ failure to match the supply of houses with demand was not a new one. At the height of both the building and the migration boom of the early 1870’s the Barrow Times remarked that despite the liberal exertion of private enterprise in building speculations and despite the efforts of employers ‘houses are crowded to an incredible extent and an empty home is regarded as a sort of traditional curiosity’.13 Thus there was from the earliest days of Barrow a realisation that private builders could not, by their own efforts, provide sufficient houses; they were physically unable to build enough in boom years and because they were interested in profits and not charity, would not build houses in years of slump when no one was prepared either to buy or rent them. Therefore although private speculative builders continued until the First World War to provide the greater part of Barrow’s housing, there was also a significant proportion built and owned by leading industrialists. They were not acting idealistically or altruistically; they were men who had come to Barrow in search of profitable investment and this remained their chief concern. They discovered, however, that to guarantee their profits they had to attract and keep labour 112 Elizabeth Roberts in the town and that the absence of adequate housing was an obstacle to its recruitment. Sir James Ramsden, first Mayor of Barrow and Director of the Furness Railway, said in 1873:14 ‘ Up to the present time I have been in fact obliged to discourage persons who desired to settle from the want of accommodation for their people. This is the drawback to the doubling of the popula tion tomorrow. I have no hesitation in saying that if tomorrow houses could be found for 60,000 people, people could be found to fill the houses’. The occasion of Sir James’ remarks is signifi cant, for the Barrow-in-Furness Corporation Act of 1873 did provide for the Corporation to build artisans’ dwellings. But the demands on the rates were so immense for such basic necessities as sewerage, water supplies and street making that the whole question of municipal housing was shelved. In the meantime the housing situation was desperate and the major industrial concerns began to buy houses. By 1873-4 the Furness Railway Company had 194 houses, the Haemetite Iron & Steel Company 696, the Shipbuilding Company 437 and the Flax and Jute Company 160.15 The most significant (because they were built to order and not purchased from a speculative builder) and the most notorious constructions were the ‘Barrow Island Huts’ erected jointly as a temporary expediency by the Furness Railway Company and the Shipbuilding Company in 1871.16 These insanitary hovels were cleared away by the early 1880’s17 and it is probable that the public resistance and hostility to such sub-standard dwellings18 was instrumental in ensuring that subsequent house building by industrialists was of an appreciably better standard. (These huts, in standards of design, construction and in health and hygiene compared very unfavourably with earlier railway housing de velopments in Crewe, Wolverton and Swindon.19) In the 1880’s the Furness Railway Company built the huge sandstone tenements always referred to as the ‘ Barrow Island Buildings’.

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