How we lived: Housing Improvement Grants in Wales, 1959-60
Items in this story:
No hot water, indoor lavatory or fixed bath
In 1949, approximately 10 million people in England and Wales were living in older houses without a hot water system, indoor lavatory or fixed bath. Washing was done in a large tin bath in front of the living room fireplace, while toilets were outside in yards and often shared with neighbours. It was not unusual for people to still have coal fired ovens and open fires at this time, and cooking was predominantly done on a cast-iron range in the living room. Often only cold water was available in the home.
Improvement grants designed to raise the standard of housing were first introduced by the Housing Act of 1949. However, the scheme was optional on the part of local authorities and in the first five years only 10,000 houses were modernised. The big surge in improvement grant take-up took place after the 1959 ‘House Purchase and Housing Act’ which amended the 1949 act making it mandatory for Local Authorities to give grants to people improving their houses up to a 5-point standard:
1. Fixed bath or shower
2. Wash hand basin
3. Sink
4. W.C. (Water Closet; lavatory)
5. Hot and cold running water
The government’s stated intention was that every house be provided with a bathroom within 15 years. The number of houses approved for grant in 1959 was 80,000.
"Improve Your House with a Grant"
In 1959, to promote the new scheme, the Government issued a leaflet called "Improve Your House with a Grant" and, a little later, a booklet called "New Grants for Better Homes: How to Claim them". Mr Henry Brooke, the then Minister of Housing and Local Government, explained the need to further publicise the scheme in the House of Commons in November 1960:
‘We are doing all we can with publicity for the standard grants and improvement grants and conversion grants, but if hon. Members can stimulate more applications from their constituencies, or can suggest how we can publicise the scheme still more, I shall be grateful to them. One can appreciate what those numbers mean in terms of human happiness when one has seen a mother who, at last, has got a proper bath with hot water from the tap in which to bath the children instead of a tin bath on the floor with water from a kettle.’
Both this need to publicise the scheme and illustrations of the improvements being carried out at the time are reflected in a group of 23 black and white photographs, taken in different parts of Wales by the Central Office of Information in August 1959 and September 1960. The photographs were exhibited on the Ministry of Housing stand at the 1960 Royal Welsh Agricultural Show.
After: improved, but still basic
The photographs show a wide range of housing; from rural cottages in Breconshire to a terrace of 64 houses in Ebbw Vale, and a range of improvements including new kitchen sinks with draining boards, ventilated food stores, new baths, hand basins, W.C.s and 2-storey brick extensions. The descriptions on the backs of the photographs give information on non-visible improvements such as new septic tanks and back-boilers.
These are not 'show' bathrooms and kitchens; they are in use: kitchen utensils, bottles of Ajax bath cleaner, back brushes, flannels, soap, and bath salts can be seen. Paint-chipped chairs, damp-looking walls and thread-bare towels are visible. The ventilated food-stores (the equivalent of to-days fridge), are full of food. Other details in the photographs include bare light bulbs, enamel utensils, tiny bathroom mirrors, armchairs with wooden arms and linoleum flooring. In the terraced street in Ebbw Vale there are no cars, but there are two bicycles and a television aerial on top of almost every house. These unintentional details give fascinating insights into the living conditions of poorer sections of society in Wales during the 1950s and 1960s - an important period of life-style transition which brought about huge changes in living conditions of which the improvement grants were a not insignificant part.
To see more of these photographs, click below for the complete collection: housing-improvement-grants-1959-1960 http://www.peoplescollectionwales.co.uk/collections/376919