Evidence from the New Survey of London on Home Ownership.
From an analysis of the survey details covering over six hundred homes conducted in the later months of 1930, it is possible to draw several conclusions related to the ability of the lower-paid to acquired their own homes. The survey was conducted during a period before the boom which commenced in 1933, and the houses in question were built in the middle to the second half of the nineteenth century.
Firstly, approximately 15 per cent of those interviewed were home-owners or were buying their homes (49). Secondly, the level of earnings among the London working classes was higher than the national averages used by Swenarton and Taylor, and earnings by those in the newer industries were substantially above the average. Clerks [ a profession excluded from the Ministry of Labour's survey] of thirty-two years of age with the Ministry of Pensions had a commonly recorded weekly wage of 90s. Van and lorry drivers earned 100s per week. Those on commissions appeared to be earning in excess of 100s per week, and policemen were paid housing allowance which ranges from 15/- per week for a constable to 17/- for a sergeant. Train drivers or firemen with the railway companies also gained housing allowances.
In addition, around 5 per cent of the households obtained additional income from pensions, unmarried children living at home and lodgers. Those employed in the building industry appeared to be earning around £4 per week. The level of unemployed was very low - only three of those interviewed said that they were unemployed, and even old men of seventy-five years of age appeared to be able to find work as night-watchmen at 50/- per week. The records in the New Survey of London show the differences between the wage rates paid in 1930 for those employed in the older and the new industries (50). Men of fifty years of age with job titles such as foundryman could be earning £3 per week, while a man twenty years of age whose employment was as a driver or electrician could be earning £5 per week. There are records of twenty-year-old women earning £7 per week working in a shoe shop, presumably on commission. The records show that none of the skilled men were shown to be unemployed and that wages paid to those in the new trades did not vary with their age as was often the case with those in the older industries, men of 25 years of age were paid as much as those men in their 50s. It was the younger families who were the main buyers of the new, small houses on the estates. The survey was conducted in the those areas of west and north London which would have been classed as mainly working-class areas except for one road, Ashtead Road [now London NW6] where the properties and occupiers were described as ' houses in the £1,000 type'.
(49) From almost 700 homes, 14.7 per cent of those interviewed indicated they were home owners or were currently buying their house.
(50) NSL parcels 12-14.
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