Special report of the medical officer of health on the housing of the working classes.

  • Guildford Rural District Council.
Date:
[1910]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Special report of the medical officer of health on the housing of the working classes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    12/18
    IO should be launched which was not calculated to be self- supporting, but any loss sustained would be chargeable over the whole district, unless otherwise decided, on application to the Local Government Board. The question of cost would of course have to be subsequently gone into, but my own enquiries have led me to believe that good cottages in blocks of four could be built in most parts of the district at a cost of about £160 a cottage, exclusive of the cost of the land. Two pairs of excellent cottages have recently been built near Peaslake on high-lying ground (which would increase the cost of haulage), and the builder who erected them is satisfied with an inclusive rental of 4s. 6d. a week, although he had to pay £100 for the half acre of land. Needless to add that he had between thirty and forty applicants for the cottages, even in such an outlying and rural locality. In other instances where cheap cottages have been built, I have, as in the case just mentioned, found that the builder is a working man himself, and it may be that this is the only way of getting cheap cottages built, at any rate on a small scale. There is another kind of housing question which I cannot well omit from this report, although the remedy required may be different. I refer to the very unsatisfactory- housing of the more or less casual agricultural labourer. It is only occasionally that any provision is made for them, and they have to find the best shelter they can in sheds or beneath hedges in the field. Some of these farm workers can hardly be described as casual, for in one shed, without flooring and without light or means of ventilation or any conveniences whatever, I found a man and woman who had been working on the farm for the greater part of the last two years; and not far off another couple who had since last November lived in a rude shelter in a ditch, whereas in the immediate vicinity a large and