A Comparative Study of the Origins and Development of Municipal Housing in Liverpool and Newcastle, c.1835-1914



Dockerill, Bertie ORCID: 0000-0003-0582-9371
(2021) A Comparative Study of the Origins and Development of Municipal Housing in Liverpool and Newcastle, c.1835-1914. PhD thesis, University of Liverpool.

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Abstract

A longitudinal study anchored in deep archival research, this comparative work focuses upon the origins and development of municipal social housing in two of England’s most significant provincial urban centres, Newcastle and Liverpool, between c.1835 and 1914. This period tends to be overlooked within existent studies upon the history of British council housing, and where it is addressed, the spatial focus is usually overtly London-centric. With reference to both of these issues, therefore, this work contributes to addressing gaps within existent literature. The two Corporations of Liverpool and Newcastle were extreme counterpoints in terms of their mid-late nineteenth-century approaches to managing urban sanitation and health; the policy areas from which the local authority provision of working-class council housing emerged. Where Liverpool was (repeatedly) globally pioneering, Newcastle was far more laggardly in its approach to direct involvement in realms that, traditionally, were seen to be the preserve of the private sector. The study advocates that knowledge of local political contexts and culture is imperative to understanding the divergent policy-paths and records of individual authorities – especially in a period of robust corporate-civic individualism. In its analysis of the same, the work relies heavily upon the interrogation of archival sources at both local and national levels. Through so doing it challenges a range of existing academic interpretations whilst also offering fresh insights and new data. Whilst primacy is given to the analysis of local political contexts and individual policy debates (as well as the roles of specific individuals) in the development of the policies pursued by the two Corporations, local policies were also influenced by broader, national-level, developments. As this study details, the restructuring of local government alongside the passing of the 1890 Housing of the Working Classes Act fundamentally altered the ability of local authorities to demolish slums and construct working-class housing. Concurrent developments in the then protean discipline of town planning (such as the Garden City/Suburb movements), as well as heightened societal and central government expectations as to the style of accommodation in which the working classes should ideally be housed, and the rise of labour (issues and party) as an electoral force all further altered the parameters of debates pertaining to the municipal provision of working-class homes. Analysing the impact of these, and other, factors upon the nature, style, and location of the working-class (re)housing schemes constructed in Liverpool and Newcastle in the immediate pre-war period, the study concludes by considering the housing-challenges faced by the two cities’ authorities on the eve of the First World War.

Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
Uncontrolled Keywords: Housing of the Working Classes, Slum Clearance, Council Housing, Tenements, Artisan Dwellings, Nineteenth Century Liberalism, the Urban Poor, the Local Government Board, Tory Democracy, Irish Nationalists, the Rise of Labour.
Divisions: Faculty of Science and Engineering > School of Environmental Sciences
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 07 Sep 2021 15:19
Last Modified: 18 Jan 2023 22:47
DOI: 10.17638/03122615
Supervisors:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3122615