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Marx Memorial Library 21 st November 2015

Radical and socialist campaigns for land, housing and planning reform – past and present Socialist History Society. Marx Memorial Library 21 st November 2015. The traditional historiography. Housing reform started with Octavia Hill Planning reform started with Ebenezer Howard

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Marx Memorial Library 21 st November 2015

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  1. Radical and socialist campaigns for land, housing and planning reform – past and presentSocialist History Society Marx Memorial Library 21st November 2015

  2. The traditional historiography Housing reform started with Octavia Hill Planning reform started with Ebenezer Howard Land reform started with Henry GeorgePurpose of this paper is not just to examine the prehistory to these ‘philanthropic initiatives’ but to explore the narratives of London’s working class radicals and early socialists campaigns and policies on these three key issues. Largely an untold history – many of the campaigns and pamphlets I have studied not even in the footnotes of recorded history

  3. History, Policy and Politics I have for some years been interested in more obscure by-ways of English radicalism collecting pamphlets and using for a history column in Chartist journal over the last 10. Used for talk in 2013 at Bishopsgate Institute and since published by SHS. Pamphlet on Politics of Development in Age of Austerity published in 2012,which looks at Liberal and Labour policy in 1909 , 1919 and 1945 as contrasted with New Labour era. Aim – somewhat ambitious - is to trace Radical and Labour policy on housing, planning and land from 17th century to the First World War. Partly out of historical interest but also to inform current political debates and policy making. Pamphlet for CLASS on social housing in 2014: Tackling Squalor. Work with London Labour Housing Group, Highbury Group on Housing Delivery Book – The Radical and Socialist Tradition in British Planning: From Puritan Colonies to Garden Cities (Ashgate early 2016)

  4. Prehistory The Radical and Jacobin inheritance on landWinstanley and the Diggers Ogilvie : Right of Property in LandThomas Spence: True Rights of ManThomas Paine : Agricultural Justice Ricardian economists and philosophers recognised importance of land and property: Charles Hall, William Thompson, John Gray, Thomas Hodgskin, John Francis Bray, William Thornton The Utilitarians and planning: Bentham, Granville Sharp, J A Roebuck, Thomas Maslen and J S Buckingham The Owenites and co-operative communities: New Lanark to New Harmony : Stedman Whitwell, T Craig’s community at Ralahine in Ireland in 1830’s John Thimbleby’s Monadelphia ,John Minter Morgan’s Christian Commonwealth,. Icarians (followers of Etienne Cabet) and Fourierists (followers of Charles Fourier) active in England. Jacob Etzler’s The Paradise within the reach of all men.

  5. The Chartists and Land Feargus O’Connor’s Chartist Land Company – - peasant proprietorship/ smallholdings - five settlements – company wound up in 1851; O’Connor died in 1855, sold off by 1858. Bronterre O’Brien as advocate of land nationalisation : Programme in National Reformer 1847 G J Harney. Land nationalisation in programme of Society of Fraternal Democrats in 1845 Thomas Cooper. Land for Labourers 1848 Ebenezer Jones. The Land Monopoly 1849 William Linton. The People’s Land and an Easy Way to Recover It 1850 Chartist Convention 1851 commitment to land nationalisation Ernest Jones. On the Landed Aristocracy 1856 Robert Dick On the Evils, Impolicy and Anomaly of Individuals Being Landlords and Nations Tenants 1856

  6. O’Connor, Harney, Ernest Jones, O’Brien, Cooper, Linton

  7. The beginnings of housing reform The early philanthropists:Lord Shaftesbury. The Society for Improving the Conditions of the Labouring Classes Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes George Peabody and Miss Burdett Coutts Christian Socialists: Charles Kingsley –Sanitary Essays and co-operative building 1866 Southwark Working Men’s Club – established company to build houses – W H Robinson, Robert Hartwell (Beehive) ,E Dresser Rogers (Metropolitan Board of Works),Thomas Twining and architect, Samuel Sharp

  8. Debates in the First International Engels on housing in Manchester.The Condition of the Working Class in England 1844; The Housing Question 1872Marx saw land nationalisation as diversion from nationalisation of means of production. Marx also did not see inheritance as key source of inequality 1868 Brussels Congress supported common ownership of agricultural land 1869 O’Brienite George Milner at IWMA General Council that all land should be nationalised. Supported by Martin Boon and John Weston.Marx argued against concept of ‘natural right to land’ saying that animals also had a natural right to the soil as they could not live without it. Collectivist ownership of land supported by Belgian socialist Cesar de Paepe and by French anarchist Elisee Reclus

  9. Marx, De Paepe, Reclus

  10. The Land and Labour League 1865 William Maccall The Land and the People: An Argument for an English Land League. 1869 Land and Labour League established by Martin Boon, John Weston, J G Eccarius with Patrick Hennessey as president (to avoid vote between Bradlaugh and Odger). Supported by Alfred Walton, William Maccall and John Hales. Argued for land nationalisation and home colonisation. Established to challenge J S Mill’s Land Tenure Reform Association, which was supported by moderate trade unionists ,George Potter and Robert Applegarth.Advocated reform of primogeniture, entail and the freedom of transfer of land, extension of facilities for workmen to acquire land and preservation of the commons (extended to include taxation of land value appreciation in an attempt to gain working class radical support)

  11. Mill, Potter and Applegarth

  12. Martin Boon as precursor of Ebenezer Howard and J M Keynes “ would give employment to builders, agricultural implement makers, furniture makers and in fact to all who are employed in any way making the necessaries and conveniences of life….. This money would eventually find its way into the hands of surveyors and contractors, who would be able to employ a large number of navvies, carpenters, bricklayers, iron workers and other mechanics, for making supplementary railways as feeders to our large termini and thus open up all the districts throughout the country , bringing about a closer union between the citizen and peasant; Home Colonisation (1869) working class did not need to emigrate as there was enough uncultivated land in England to provide work and food for everybody Pamphlet rejected by Beehive and Social Science Association National Rational League was based on the social system of Robert Owen and the political programme of Bronterre O’Brien . Pamphlet argued that investment of £120m to create on 20 m acres of wasteland would create 310,000 farms and 1.2 million jobs

  13. also, in making waterworks that would supply our towns with pure water – cutting irrigating canals throughout the length of the land, so that when we have hot and dry summers the crops should not suffer, and the supply fall short, making subways and sewers in all our towns, and erecting establishments to receive the excrements of our cities, to be converted into deoderised guano – making embankments to all our rivers, so as to utilize the mudbanks, which at the present time only create fever and pestilence – pulling down the worst parts of our towns and rebuilding them on a good sanitary system – building large schools, with playgrounds attached – and houses with all the latest domestic accommodation for our working classes , the producers of all our wealth – also in making cheap trains and railways to carry lime, clay, sand and rich alluvial soil of our river beds to the poor, bog, fen and moorlands, wherever situated. Men being employed on these useful works would be the means if increasing trade throughout the country, which would bring prosperity to all.”

  14. Martin Boon, Alfred Walton and Johan Eccarius

  15. The Home Colonisation Movement Boon in 1873 produced a second pamphlet – How to Nationalise the Commons and Wastelands, followed by a more detailed outline of how to fund his proposed programme in National paper money and its use Henry Solly (unitarian minister) Society for Promoting Industrial Villages 1884 . A Remedy for Crowded Towns and Deserted Fields Home Colonization: Rehousing of the industrial classes – village communities v town rookeries 1872 English Federation of IWMA supported ‘emancipation of land’ :Thomas Smith (Nottingham) and Gavin Clark (later Scottish radical MP and land nationaliser)

  16. Different PerspectivesHenry Solly v First International

  17. Divisions within working class radicalism 1869 Reform League wound up. Moderate reformers/ trade unionists set up Labour Representation League O’Brienites – Boon, Weston, Charles Murray: 1873 Mutual Land Emigration and Colonisation Society Thomas Mooney and British Democratic Convention 1873 “Nationalise the land – Sell or let it in small parcels to actual cultivators only; Property and income alone to bear all taxation, to be levied by an ascending scale to reach large accumulations of wealth; and Nationalise all Church, college and ‘charitable’ property”

  18. ‘Establishment ‘Radicals and land reform 1878 Richard Pankhurst speech on land reform 1878 Papers for the People: Our Land 1879 Henry George: Progress and Poverty 1880 Charles Bradlaugh’s Land Reform Convention Land Law Reform League. R Forder of the National Secular Society as secretary, the French republican and former IWMA council member, Le Lubez, as treasurer and Peter Taylor MP, Edward Aveling, Annie Besant, Joseph Arch, Alexander MacDonald, Stewart Headlam and Ashton Dilke all as vice presidents, Bradlaugh as president

  19. Richard Pankhurst, Henry George, Charles Bradlaugh and P A Taylor

  20. The Discovery of the East End 1854 George Godwin, editor of The Builder published Long Shadows: a Glance at the Homes of the Thousands. 1862 The Charity Commissioner, Thomas Hare, published a polemic Usque ad Coelum: Thoughts on the Dwellings of the People, Charitable Estates, Improvement and Local Government in the Metropolis. 1873, the Charity Organisation Society published its report on Dwellings of the Poor, based on the work of a committee of MPs, representatives of dwelling companies, Medical Officers of health and other clerics and professionals including Godwin and its secretary C B P Bosanquet. 1875 Octavia Hill published Homes of the London poor 1883, the journalist G R Sims published an illustrated book of How the Poor Live 1883 Congregationalist, Andrew Mearns, published The Bitter Cry of Outcast London: An Enquiry into the Condition of the Abject Poor. 1890 William Booth’s In Darkest England and the way out was published.

  21. Godwin ,Hare, Hill, Boothand the ‘Bitter Cry’

  22. The working class intervention 1878 Dan Chatterton: Homes of the Poor and the Board of Works Swindle 1882 London Trades Council appeared before Select Committee of the House of Commons on Artisans and Labourers Dwelling Improvements: the state should build working-class suburban housing, that rent payment should be postponed in times of depression, and that the artisan tenant should eventually become the owner of the house. Homes for the poorest should be subsidised from the rate 1884 George Shipton (LTC secretary) as witness at the Royal Commission of Housing of the Working Classes. “It is totally impossible that private enterprise, philanthropy, and charity can ever keep pace with the present demands, and those involved in the rapid increase of population…. What the individual cannot do the State municipality must seek to accomplish”.

  23. Diverse responses Local campaigns against Vestry inaction: Samuel Brighty and the Clerkenwell case Henry Broadhurst’s campaign for leasehold enfranchisement 1885 Mansion House Committee on the Dwellings of the Poor 1890 Housing of the Working Classes Act 1889 The London County Council takes up housing and land taxation

  24. From Campaign to Action 1881 Alfred Russell Wallace. Land Nationalisation Society English Land Restoration League (Georgite) 1884 Social Democratic Federation adopts land nationalisation 1885 Joseph Chamberlain’s Radical Programme 1889 London Liberal and Radical Union promotes housing for the working classes. Progressives win London County Council CC elections Progressive J Theodore Dodd on Housing of the Working Classes 1889 ILP supports land nationalisation Fabian Society ambivalence 1892 Sidney Webb’s London Programme 1897 Metropolitan Radical Federation’s Radical Programme 1895 LCC starts enforcing standards on private landlords 1898 LCC starts building housing

  25. Wallace, Chamberlain and Webb

  26. Some key points There is a long history of radical campaigns on land and housing – the home colonisation movement was a moved for planned new settlements and pre-empted the Garden Cities movement Late Owenites and Chartists moved beyond utopianism and peasant smallholdings Most working class radicals supported land nationalisation( not just taxation of land) Working class radicals influenced the progressive policies of the early LCC – moved beyond philanthropy to public ownership, public investment and control of land, housing and planning using legislation and the power of the state

  27. Current campaigns Defend Council Housing The Radical Housing Network Focus E15 Sweets Way, Barnet Heygate and Greenwich Millennium London Labour Housing Group SHOUT- Social Housing under Threat UNITE/CLASS ; London Citizens The new Labour Party leadership and London Mayoral Election Land, Ownership, Funding, Strategic Planning

  28. Further Reading Barry, E Eldon (1965) Nationalisation and British Politics : The Historical Background Bronstein, J (1999) Land Reform and Working Class Experience in Britain and the United States 1800-1862 Englander, D (1983) Landlord and Tenant in Urban Britain 1838-1918 Harrison, Royden (1964) Before the Socialists Bowie, D (2011) Politics of Housing Development in an Age of Austerity http://www.chartist.org.uk/about/chartist_housing_pamphlet.pdf Bowie, D (2013) Tackling Squalor: The Pivotal Role of Social Housing(http://classonline.org.uk/pubs/item/tackling-squalor Bowie, D (2013) Roots of the British Socialist Movement (Our History columns in Chartist since 2005) Socialist History Societyhttp://www.chartist.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Our-History-50-eBook.pdf Bowie, D (forthcoming) The Radical and Socialist Tradition in British Planning (Ashgate) Redbrick Blog: https://redbrickblog.wordpress.com/ London Labour Housing Group: https://www.facebook.com/LondonLabourHousing Radical Housing Network: http://radicalhousingnetwork.org/

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