Designing quality working class housing: Prince Albert!

The early C19th saw rapid indust­rial­isation & urbanisation in the UK. With it came a heap of related problems such as deficiencies in hous­ing, san­itation, public health and education. The dominant laissez-faire ideology suggested that unregulated market activity would ensure the welfare of all by providing the conditions for each individual to maximise their own individual success. So the deter­ior­ation of the liv­ing conditions of the urban working classes at a time of rising wealth was perplexing. Was there something seriously inept about the working cl­asses which prevented them seizing the opportun­ities pres­ent­ed to them, or was there was something wrong with the ruling anal­ysis and und­erstanding of a market economy?

Victoria and Albert married in 1840 when the nation already needed some sort of collective response. Many voluntary and charitable organ­isat­ions sprung up to address the issues eg Ragged Schools (starting 1844) which tackled education and SICLC which addressed housing.

HRH Prince Albert’s Secret Papers discussed how turmoil spread across Europe in 1848, and thousands of workers gathered in London demanding the right to vote. Albert understood that the world was chang­ing and felt deeply about the plight of labourers and the poor. But the Prince was ahead of many land­owners who approved of child labour and opposed Peel's repeal of the Corn Laws.

And another passion. The Great Exhibition of 1851 was a dir­ect result the annual exhibitions of the Society of Arts, of which Al­bert was Pre­sident from 1843. It is not overstating history to say that the brilliant Crystal Palace event owed much of its success to the Prince.

That the Prince was committed to the design and const­ruction of social housing should not have sur­prised the upper classes. He believed that building working class homes constit­uted the first step towards improv­ing the life of the working class. Providing them with cheery, com­fortable homes would result in imp­roved health, sobriety and dom­estic peace, especially in conjunct­ion with education and emp­loyment opp­or­tunities.

Because of the Prince’s keen in­t­er­est in work­ing cl­ass conditions, he became the Society for Improving the Conditions of the Lab­our­ing ClassesSICLC's first president in 1844. At exactly the same time, the SICLC’s honorary ar­ch­itect Henry Roberts was becoming very involved in the design of mo­d­el housing for the poor. The Prince com­missioned Henry Roberts to de­sign and build a 2-storey model working class house to display at the 1851 Great Exhibition Hyde Park. Paid for by Prince Albert, it became world-famous and Robert’s designs were exemp­lars for decades to come eg in Stepney and Kensington in London.

The model working-class house was placed out­side Crystal Palace at the Knightsbridge cavalry barracks; all visitors could enter for free, and 250,000+ people did! Each vis­itor received a floor plan of the model house to take away.

Henry Roberts’ model cottage housed 4 families, with two flats on each level. To improve conditions for the workers, Robert’s cott­ag­es had to pro­vide decent acc­ommodat­ion for the hardworking, lab­our­ing types: simple, robust and eco­nom­ical. As the plan shows, each fam­ily was given a living room, kitchen-scullery, 3 bedrooms, run­ning wat­er and an internal toilet but no bathroom. It prov­id­ed that separation which is so essential to family morality and decency.

The open staircase gave access to the flats on the upper level which has since been enclosed, and the doors on the left-hand side were lat­er bricked in. And a porch was later added to the back of the cottage when it was moved. Along the front of the house, mosaic tiles on the cornices spelled out Victoria and Albert’s initials intertwined.

Just as important as the social value of these prototypes was their ability to make a profit. A SICLC brochure calculated the house would offer investors a 7% return. The house personified the spirit of the Victorian era, combining philanthropy with efficiency and order.

Not surprisingly the houses proved very popular with the visitors, but not allThe Illustrated London News called the model houses "a contribution not less import­ant, and in many respects far more interesting than most of the works of art and utility within...His Royal Highness ... could have devised no more appropriate contribution to the extraneous utility of the Exhibition than this unpretending block of buildings". After the clos­ure of the Exhibition, construction of 2 groups of houses based on Prince Albert and Henry Robert's model began.

After the massiveChartist gathering seeking electoral reforms back in 1848, Kenn­ington Common had been fenced off. This all changed when Kennington Park be­ame South London’s first public park. The original Model Cottage was dis­mantled in 1852 and re-assembled on the edge of Kennington Park, in working class South London. Today it remains between Oval and Kenn­ing­ton tube stations. The gardens around the house were laid out in 1861, the very year Prince Albert died.

Photo credits: thelondonfile