THE WORKING-CLASS OWNER-OCCUPIED HOUSE OF THE 1930s

The Style Evolves.

There were two principal reasons for the evolution of the 1930s speculatively-built semi detached house. Firstly, the builder refined the semi so that it was different from the semi or terraced dwelling built by local authorities and it became about the most economical house that could be built for its cubic capacity, although the occasional bungalow and the flat roof house were possible exceptions. Secondly, costs were further reduced by the de-skilling of the labour force. This was a result of the difficulties of finding sufficient skilled labour, and also because the builder/developers were anxious to employ non-union labour in order to free themselves from the restrictive practices implied by unionised labour. Resolving the problems of a poorly trained labour force led to a greater proliferation of vernacular features in order to disguise poor workmanship. The 1930s speculative builder was not providing a hand-built or specially-tailored product. He was selling other things to the working classes, such as low-cost housing and convenience to a place of work and a design concept. His aim was to improve his profits, but profits only came when the sale of the house had been completed. He therefore had to give the buying public an acceptable house containing all the characteristics of the pre-First World War semi, but with improvements resulting from the modernisation of the building supply industry, the availability of electricity, and of kitchen and bathroom equipment. The style was also adapted to take into account the large numbers of houses being built and the lack of a skilled labour force with which to build them.

The working-class buyers had low expectations as far as the size and the fittings of their new houses. For the most part they occupied poor quality accommodation prior to moving into their new owner-occupied homes. Christopher Day observed that perhaps 'many people only choose those sorts of buildings because they are the only choice they can imagine' (49). The exterior treatments could be a pastiche of earlier styles so long as they were cheap and easy to build. The suburban temperament 'values those fragments of the past which in the course of this process are being incorporated into the present' (50). This was reflected in the tiling of parts of the elevations and possibly stained timber pieces fixed at first-floor level or above the windows to hint at a mythical tudor ancestry. Nailed planks imitating half-timbering might adorn the gables, and in many cases even the cheap houses would have a few panes of coloured glass. Its general aspect would convey, as far as cost would allow, an impression of welcoming cottage style, a 'tudorbethan' image. Brunskill has pointed out that more vernacular details were used in building in the fifty years after 1900, 'than in all the centuries before, the housing estates of the 1930s display more half-timbering than will ever be recorded in Worcester or Kent' (51). To the buying public the suburban villa persisted as a legacy of the romantic movement. They liked the reference to the 'Olde Englishness' and the notion of the Elizabethan tudor world, the yeomanry and beefeater image. Builders might not have been able to afford much of this imagery in the cheaper speculatively-built houses, yet it was always noticeable greater than in the houses built by the local authorities. Unwin urged the architectural profession to meet the needs of potential home owners in reproducing traditional designs, but it was the speculative builder who did 'take the old English village for his inspiration', not in the layout of the houses but in the features the houses contained (52). This was apparent in the design features which were fitted onto the houses rather than designed into them, which was not what Unwin had intended.

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(49) C. Day, Places of the Soul,, (London, 1990), p. 8.
(50) J. Richards, The Castles on the Ground, (London, 1973), p. 85.
(51) R.Brunskill, Illustrated Handbook of Vernacular Architecture (London, 1971), p. 190.
(52) M. Swenarton, op.cit, p. 12.