Article contents
Tenements to bungalows: class and the growth of home ownership before ‘World War II’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 June 2009
Abstract
Which social groups were moving into owner occupation in Britain before the Second World War is a matter of controversy, with opposing claims that this involved mainly white-collar or skilled manual workers. Although reliable figures showing the growth of home ownership in this period are rare, data are available for Edinburgh which indicate that tenure development in the city probably resembled that of England and Wales rather than the rest of Scotland. The relationship between income and the cost of home ownership is examined and this suggests that the main social group to move into owner occupation were probably white-collar workers. However, an analysis of occupational information from housing across a range of values in the city shows that this movement also affected manual workers and that there was a strong association between the proportions in each social class and the average rateable value of areas of housing.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997
Footnotes
I would like to thank Alan Murie for his help with the research on which this paper was based. Its revision has benefited from comments by Liam O'Carroll and two anonymous referees.
References
1 Kemp, P., ‘Some aspects of housing consumption in late nineteenth century England and Wales’, Housing Studies, 2, 1 (1987), 13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 Swenarton, M. and Taylor, S., ‘The scale and nature of the growth of owner occupation in Britain between the wars’, Economic History Review, 38 (1985), 373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3 Bowley, M., Housing and the State (London, 1945), 85.Google Scholar
4 Swenarton, and Taylor, , ‘The growth of owner occupation’, 373.Google Scholar
5 Cleary, E.J., The Building Society Movement (London, 1965), 185.Google Scholar
6 Swenarton, and Taylor, , ‘The growth of owner occupation’, 375.Google Scholar
7 Ibid., 377.
9 Central Office of Information, The British Household (The 1947 Social Survey) (London, 1947).Google Scholar
9 McCulloch, A., ‘A note on the British Household Survey of 1947’ (unpublished, 1989), 4.Google Scholar
10 Swenarton, and Taylor, , ‘The growth of owner occupation’, 391.Google Scholar
11 O'Carroll, A., ‘The development of owner occupation in Edinburgh 1918–1939’ (unpublished Heriot-Watt University/Edinburgh College of Art Ph.D. thesis, 1994), 135–40.Google Scholar
12 City and Royal Burgh of Edinburgh, ‘Report on a survey of housing conditions’, 09 1948.Google Scholar
13 Morgan, N.J. and Daunton, M.J., ‘Landlords in Glasgow: a study of 1900’, Business History, 25 (1983), 264–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14 O'Carroll, , ‘Development of owner occupation in Edinburgh’, 149–50.Google Scholar
15 O'Carroll, A., ‘The influence of local authorities on the growth of owner occupation 1914–1939’, Planning Perspectives, 11, 1 (1996), 55–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16 O'Carroll, , ‘Development of owner occupation in Edinburgh’, 150.Google Scholar
17 Marwick, W.H., Economic Development in Victorian Scotland (London, 1936), 214–15.Google Scholar
18 Byrne, D., ‘Working class owner occupation and social differentiation on inter war Tyneside’Google Scholar, in Lancaster, B., Working Class Housing on Tyneside 1850–1939 (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1994), 89–90.Google Scholar
19 Daunton, M.J., Coal Metropolis: Cardiff 1870–1914 (Leicester, 1977).Google Scholar
20 Swenarton, and Taylor, , ‘The growth of owner occupation’, 391.Google Scholar
21 Ibid., 391
22 Byrne, , ‘Working class owner occupation’, 89–90.Google Scholar
23 Craig, P., ‘The house that Jerry built? Building societies, the state and the politics of owner occupation’, Housing Studies, 1, 2 (1986), 87–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
24 McCulloch, A., ‘A millstone round your neck? Building societies in the 1930s and mortgage default’, Housing Studies, 5, 1 (1990), 43–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
25 Bellman, H., Bricks and Mortar (London, 1949), 157.Google Scholar
26 Nevin, E.T., The Mechanism of Cheap Money: A Study of British Monetary Policy 1931–1939 (Cardiff, 1955), 295.Google Scholar
27 Swenarton, and Taylor, , ‘The growth of owner occupation’, 386.Google Scholar
28 Burnett, J., A History of the Cost of living (Harmondsworth, 1969), 311.Google Scholar
29 Richardson, H.W. and Aldcroft, D.H., Building in the British Economy Between the Wars (London, 1968), 89.Google Scholar
30 Craig, , ‘The house that Jerry built?’, 94.Google Scholar
31 Central Housing Advisory Committee, Private Enterprise Housing (London, 1944), 10.Google Scholar
32 Richardson, and Aldcroft, , Building in the British Economy Between the Wars, 102.Google Scholar
33 O'Carroll, , ‘Development of owner occupation in Edinburgh’, 99.Google Scholar
34 O'Carroll, , ‘The influence of local authorities’, 61.Google Scholar
35 Richardson, H.W., Vipond, J. and Furbey, R.A., Housing and Urban Spatial Structure: A Case Study (Farnborough, 1975), 61.Google Scholar
36 Craig, , ‘The house that Jerry built?’, 94.Google Scholar
37 Edinburgh Corporation, Minutes of the Treasurer's Committee Property Loans Subcommittee, 17 01 1933.Google Scholar
38 Richardson, et al. , Housing and Urban Spatial Structure, 61.Google Scholar
39 Campbell, D., ‘Changes in Scottish incomes 1924–49’, The Economic Journal, 65 (1955), 225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
40 Cmd. 625, 21st Abstract of Labour Statistics, 1934.
41 Cmd. 6595, The Scottish rating system, 1945, 10Google Scholar; also EC Minutes of the Housing and Town Planning Committee, 28 02 1927.Google Scholar
42 Lockwood, D., The Blackcoated Worker (London, 1958), 46–8.Google Scholar
43 EC Minutes of the Treasurer's Committee, 1933.Google Scholar
44 Massey, P., ‘The expenditure of 1,360 British middle class households in 1938–39’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 105, 111 (1942), 160–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
45 McCulloch, , ‘A millstone round your neck?’, 43–58.Google Scholar
46 Williams, N. and Twine, F., A Research Guide to the Register of Sasines and the Land Register of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1991).Google Scholar
47 Daunton, M.J., ‘House-ownership from rate books’, Urban History Yearbook (1976), 21–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gordon, G., ‘Rateable assessment as a data source for status area analysis: the example of Edinburgh, 1855–1962’, Urban History Yearbook (1979), 92–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rodger, R. and Newman, J., ‘Property transfers and the Register of Sasines: urban development in Scotland’, Urban History Yearbook (1988), 49–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
48 Smith, P.J., ‘Site selection in the Forth Basin’ (unpublished University of Edinburgh PhD. thesis, 1964), 270.Google Scholar
49 Rodger, R., ‘Urbanisation in twentieth century Scotland’, in Devine, T.M. and Finlay, R.J. (eds), Scotland in the Twentieth Century (Edinburgh, 1996), 141–3.Google Scholar
50 Armstrong, W.A., ‘The use of information about occupation’Google Scholar, in Wrigley, E.A., Nineteenth Century Society: Essays in the Use of Quantitative Methods for the Study of Social Data (Cambridge, 1972), 191–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
51 Marshall, G., Rose, D., Newby, H. and Vogler, C., Social Class in Modern Britain (London, 1989), 19.Google Scholar
52 Ibid., 18–19.
53 Kemp, P., ‘The transformation of the urban housing market in Britain 1885–1939’ (D.Phil, thesis, University of Sussex, 1984), 309.Google Scholar
54 O'Carroll, , ‘Development of owner occupation in Edinburgh’, 186.Google Scholar
55 EC Minutes of the Treasurer's Committee, 25 10 1932.Google Scholar
56 Ball, M., Housing Policy and Economic Power (London, 1983), 25.Google Scholar
57 Franklin, A., ‘Owner occupation, privatism and ontological security’Google Scholar, Working Paper 62, University of Bristol (1986), 33–4.
58 O'Carroll, A., ‘The sale of council housing in the inter war period’, Housing Studies, 11, 4 (1996), 531.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
59 O'Carroll, , ‘Development of owner occupation in Edinburgh’, 255.Google Scholar
- 3
- Cited by