Built between 1921 and 1934, the London County Council's Becontree Estate was the largest public housing scheme ever undertaken in Britain, and, at the time of its planning, in the world. Using interviews with surviving tenants from the inter-year period, Dr Olechnowicz discusses the early years of the estate, looking in detail at the philosophy behind its construction and management, and showing how it eventually came to be denigrated as a social concentration camp.

This book presents an important episode in 20th century English history: the largest public housing scheme ever undertaken in England. Built between 1921 and 1934, the London County Council's Becontree Estate housing over 110,000 people in 25,000 dwellings.

In this insightful new study, Andrew August examines the British working class in the period when Britain became a mature industrial power, working men and women dominated massive new urban populations, and the extension of suffrage brought them into the political nation for the first time. Framing his subject chronologically, but treating it thematically, August gives a vivid account of working class life between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, examining the issues and concerns central to working-class identity. Identifying shared patterns of experience in the lives of workers, he avoids the limitations of both traditional historiography dominated by economic determinism and party politics, and the revisionism which too readily dismisses the importance of class in British society.

Law and Society in England 1750–1950 is an indispensable text for those wishing to study English legal history and to understand the foundations of the modern British state. In this new updated edition the authors explore the complex relationship between legal and social change. They consider the ways in which those in power themselves imagined and initiated reform and the ways in which they were obliged to respond to demands for change from outside the legal and political classes. What emerges is a lively and critical account of the evolution of modern rights and expectations, and an engaging study of the formation of contemporary social, administrative and legal institutions and ideas, and the road that was travelled to create them. The book is divided into eight chapters: Institutions and Ideas; Land; Commerce and Industry; Labour Relations; The Family; Poverty and Education; Accidents; and Crime. This extensively referenced analysis of modern social and legal history will be invaluable to students and teachers of English law, political science, and social history.

Exploring the politics of housing during 1890-1990, this fascinating study examines the interaction not only of national and local politics but also of local factors such as civic culture, key local players, local discourse and geographical and demographic problems. This book argues that increasingly, tenants acted as consumers of a public service, and it questions the way in which notions of consumerism shaped responses to the housing debate. An analysis of the impact of legislation on housing policy in different cities is provided, as well as a more detailed account of the politics of housing in Manchester, including the Victorian legacy, the emergence of local government intervention, post-war overspill estates, new system-built flats and their rapid deterioration, rising tenant anger and protests, and the beginning of a new approach based on consultation and partnerships. The book will be of value to anyone studying urban history, politics, governance, civic culture, social policy and society.

This book maps how working class life was transformed in England in the middle years of the twentieth century. National trends in employment, welfare and living standards are illuminated via a focus on Brighton, providing valuable new perspectives of class and community formation. Based on fresh archival research, life histories and contemporary social surveys, the book historicises important cultural and community studies which moulded popular perceptions of class and social change in the post-war period. It shows how council housing, slum clearance and demographic trends impacted on working-class families and communities. While suburbanisation transformed home life, leisure and patterns of association, there were important continuities in terms of material poverty, social networks and cultural practices. This book will be essential reading for academics and students researching modern and contemporary social and cultural history, sociology, cultural studies and human geography.

Reflecting on his own landslide loss in conservative suburbia, Oly Durose asks how we can transform the urban outskirts of the status quo into centres of transformative change. In December 2019, Oly Durose lost by over 25,000 votes as the Labour Party Parliamentary Candidate for Brentwood & Ongar. Revealing what it’s like to stand on a socialist platform in one of the safest Conservative seats in the UK, this book makes the case for socialism in the suburbs, unveils the challenges of its electoral realisation, and proposes a strategic revolution required to win. Suburban Socialism asks what it would be like to bring white picket fences under collective control instead. To convince suburbanites of this radical alternative inside the electoral arena, this book argues that we must revolutionise our strategy outside of it. From the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution to the shockwaves of the metropolitan youthquake, socialism has predominantly been framed as an urban struggle. Identifying the possibilities for suburban resistance, this book offers a more geographically inclusive invitation to the socialist struggle, revealing why the suburban struggle is global in scale. Turning a suburb that shares from a hopeless fantasy into an electoral reality, Suburban Socialism illustrates why the path to socialism around the world is through the heterogenous suburban terrain.