Summary
The speculative builder in the 1930s was driven by the profit motive. In order to build large numbers of small, cheap houses to satisfy the demand he used as many pre-made parts for the house as possible. Even roof trusses and staircases were available in a ready-made form and could be fitted to the house with a crane. Skilled labour was not necessary to fit factory made items as they were more accurately produced than those made on site. Skilled bricklayers were only used where the bricks they laid would be seen, other areas could be constructed using bricks or blocks laid by unskilled labour and covered with rendering or plaster. The building-worker began to resemble the worker in a car factory assembling parts made by others. As the figures show there were skilled building workers available but the speculative builder would not accept them either because they were unionised, wanted higher rates of pay, or would not accept employment on a piece-work basis.
The speculative builder used very few directly employed workers, this kept his costs low. He bought his materials and fittings where he could with more an eye to price than quality. He used well-tried gangs of piece-workers or labourers working on the 'lump'. There was very little control exercised by the local authorities in respect to town planning or building regulations as they had too few employees to cope with the numbers of houses being built during the boom; this allowed the builder to be very flexible in what he built. There were many speculative builders who were drawn to the industry by the profits made in the early part of the 1930s but the majority of houses were constructed by builders\developers who were experienced.
The semi-detached house built by the speculatively developer/builder of the 1930s has proved to be soundly built for the purpose to which it was intended and has provided good accommodation for several generations of working people. |
