ABSTRACT
Without delving too deeply into the history of social housing in Britain, it is clear that, with the exception of a few 19th-century philanthropists and charities – Peabody, Guinness, Sutton, Octavia Hill and various almshouses – all rented housing until 1918 was provided by what we now call the private rental sector (see Chapter 2). Following World War 1, private landlords were no longer able to put a decent roof over the heads of the poorest in society, and the State stepped in to fill the breach. This was the birth of council/affordable/social housing and consisted of great estates of two-storey houses interspersed with mostly four- to five-storey blocks of walk-up flats. At the end of World War 2, a huge programme of new subsidised housing was instigated, later to be stigmatised, partly because of its appearance and partly because it became a refuge for the disadvantaged.
