Cruel Habitations: A History of Working-class Housing 1780-1918

By Enid Gauldie

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0064923347
• ISBN13: 9780064923347
• Release Date: January 1974
• Publisher: Allen & Unwin
• Length: 364 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant and Compelling

This is page-turning writing. I thought it might be another Dickens-like, "wasn't it awful" book, something along the lines of Jack London's "The Abyss." "The Abyss" is also a great book, but "Cruel Habitations" is more interesting. Ms. Gauldie examines the roots of the housing problem, not just its disgusting results. The author tracks the trends in land and building speculation in Britain, and the lasting ill effects of the enclosures and sheepherding and the forcing of the "less desirable" peasantry off the land. She points out that the nineteenth century buildings which are still standing give us a false impression of the housing stock which so ill-sheltered the poor, for only the best buildings have survived. She points out that the Duke of Bedford, a great housing reformer, in building houses for his workers which were single-room, 14 foot square buildings with sturdy walls, roofs which kept out the rain, doors which closed, and wooden or flag floors, was accused of raising workers' expectations excessively. (These houses also shared privies and rain barrels for water with other houses.) Small-time builders could not "run up" housing stock to the standard of the great noble capitalists, and so their buildings sometimes fell down within months. Small-time builders also often needed to build on leased land instead of land they owned, so near the end of their leases, they could hardly be expected to make repairs. There is so much more in this book. It's brilliant.