Radical London in the 1950s by Mathieson David

Author:Mathieson, David
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Amberley Publishing
Published: 2016-10-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

RENTS, RATS AND RACHMAN

‘Tory talk about a property owning democracy is all bunk. One of the best examples of a property owning democracy is our great co-operative movement.’

Clement Attlee, Labour Prime Minister 1945–51

‘The Rent Act of 1957 probably caused more misery to ordinary working people than any other piece of Conservative legislation in the 1950s.’

Michael Stewart, Labour MP and former Foreign Secretary

‘Young couple with baby daughter desperately seeking …’, ‘young English couple urgently require …’, ‘couple willing to do decoration …’ Small ads like these in local newspapers of the 1950s tell their own tales in a pathetic line or two and hint at countless individual stories of despair. Without doubt, the biggest headache for many in post-war London remained finding a decent place to live. Immediately after the war, Labour had kicked off a massive building programme led by local councils and supported by central government (see Chapter 1). This was not the Tory approach, which became evermore dependent on the laissez-faire ideals of the free market to solve Britain’s housing crisis – several of the Tory housing ministers who piloted the policies later became pioneers of Thatcherism. From 1951 onwards, commercial speculators took centre stage in various roles, either developing offices or building for owner occupiers or as landlords in the private rented sector. St Pancras, like other councils, tried to push back against powerful market forces and the increasingly tight financial constraints set by national government: slum clearance, rebuilding after the Blitz and the provision of good housing at affordable rents remained their priorities. These two competing visions of housing – as a tradeable commodity like any other or as an indispensable bedrock of healthy communities – laid the foundations for a political clash, which led to the St Pancras riots.

Living in Limbo: Requisitioned Tenants

The first of the Tory measures to hit central London was the Requisitioned Houses Act (1955), which abolished the powers of local councils to take over – or requisition – empty property. The Act is almost forgotten now but was hugely important during and just after the Second World War. During the war, when wealthy owners of big townhouses frequently fled to the country for safety, local councils were allowed to requisition the empty property. The procedure itself was straightforward: a local authority simply needed to issue a requisition notice and send someone round with a hammer and nail to pin it to the front door of the property. The owners then had a week or so to move back in themselves or lose control of the building. In the collectivist, ‘all in it together’ spirit of wartime London, this drastic action was accepted. On just one day, for example, St Pancras’ borough surveyor requisitioned fifty large houses in Bloomsbury to provide temporary shelter for families made homeless by the Blitz. In Holborn, the indefatigable Labour leader of the post-war council, Ina Chaplin, went round in person to hammer in the nails and requisition the houses (see chapter 9). The spacious properties

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