18 February 1934: Leeds Labour triggers the first rent strike against a council by announcing higher rents for well-off tenants and the prospect of free housing for ex-slum-dwellers
A soldier back from the Middle East visits the Quarry Hill flats (Ministry of Information Photo Division 1943).
Times. 1934/02/18. “Means Test” Rents at Leeds. London. Get it:
.Unedited excerpt
If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.
“MEANS TEST” RENTS AT LEEDS
OPPOSITION BY MANY TENANTS
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT.
LEEDS, FEB. 18
Several thousands of tenants on the Leeds Corporation housing estates are preparing to resist a new scheme of rent payments, the details of which were published to-day. It is proposed to apply these new rates to all Corporation houses; and the extent of the scheme may be gathered from the fact that the Socialist Party now in power intend to demolish 30,000 houses within the next six years and to build a similar number at an estimated cost of £12,000,000. It is in their programme for the next year to spend at least £1,150,000 on slum clearances and rebuilding. The new method of rent payment, which has become widely known as the “means test rent,” implies that the poorer tenant will get off at a much reduced rental, or with no rent at all, while those tenants in better circumstances will have their rents much increased.
In the detailed proposals, issued to-day, instances are given that where a person is able to pay a higher rent it will be practically doubled. For instance, a three-bedroomed non-parlour house, the present rent of which is 6s. 6d., will be raised to 11s. a week, exclusive of rates. Three-bedroomed flats, which are now 4s. 9d. a week exclusive of rates, will be raised to 8s. 8d., and so on. The suggested economic rents will come into force on April 2, and within. the next few days all the tenants on the various housing estates will receive notification to this effect.
If a tenant feels he is entitled to what is described as “public assistance” by way of rent relief, he furnishes information concerning the full family income, and a small sub-committee will decide on the amount of rent relief, if any. The affected tenants are amalgamating to hold a special meeting of protest and to formulate some plans to resist the new scale.
It is also announced to-day that the Corporation Housing Committee is to tackle at once the demolition of 1,214 houses in the Marsh Lane district and to convert 500 acres of land in the Moortown residential district into a new housing estate. The slum area concerned is where the present Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Lang) lived when he was a curate at the Leeds Parish Church.
Comment
Comment
See Quintin Bradley for the fate of the basically two-week rent strike against the Differential Rent Scheme of Leeds Council’s housing policy sub-committee, whose chairman and ubiquitous public face was the socialist vicar of Holbeck, Charles Jenkinson:
Driven from their former allegiance by this attack on their privileges, the tenants of the first council estates rebelled against their socialist leaders. In the process they created a new recognisable political movement: a movement which plays a major role in housing policy today… Far from being a creation of the privileged artisan class, as it is traditionally portrayed, the tenants movement was born out of a class identity crisis. The first tenants associations aimed to impose cohesion on a section of the working class which was disintegrating under immense social pressures.
[…]
“The whole system seems to be turning round,” said T.H. Gilberthorpe, president of the Leeds Federation of Municipal Tenants Associations… “One has sympathy with people who have fallen on hard times but why should the burden of their rent fall only on other municipal tenants? Why not ratepayers?”
(Bradley )
Bradley’s use of the word aspirational in the following isn’t necessarily wrong, but the aspiration, perhaps above all others, to live in a council house does form an amusing contrast with the Thatcherite vision of the aspirational working class embodied in her right-to-buy policy:
The general needs housing built between 1919 and 1930 created mixed communities of council estates, catering principally for the skilled and semi-skilled working class, who were aspirational – in both political, social and economic terms. (Bradley )
The test case put up by the LFMTA used their secretary, J.R. Jenkinson (no relation of the Red Rev.), who lived on the Greenthorpe state in Bramley and saw his rent go from 9s. 8d to 13s. 11d., and who, in another article in The Times which now eludes me, is said, presumably on the basis of information provided by C. Jenkinson or an associate, to be quite wealthy. He lost on appeal in October 1934. Bradley again:
The first council tenants to move onto the Hawksworth Wood estate in 1920 all brought their pianos with them (YEP 1 June 1920)… The piano crops up again as a symbol in the middle of the 1934 rent strike. Federation secretary, James Jenkinson is seeking to expose the effect of rent differentials on workers with a war disability; the trades he uses as an case study are those of a piano tuner and a piano teacher (YP April 5 1934). There were no piano teachers or tuners on Jenkinson’s Greenthorpe estate so why did he chose this example? Perhaps he was writing in the front room by the piano – we’ll never know.
Major elements of the housing programme included the Quarry Hill flats and the garden suburbs of Belle Isle and Gipton. It is alleged in various places that better-off tenants subsidised poorer ones directly through the rent pool, but the Rev. Jenkinson was quick to deny this at the time in The Times (Jenkinson 1934/02/24).
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- Affordable housing (3) W/G ·
- Back-to-back house (4) W/G ·
- Class conflict (11) W/G ·
- Conservative Party (1834-) (25) W/G ·
- Council house (1) W/G ·
- Eviction (1) W/G ·
- Garden city movement (1) W/G ·
- Hawksworth, Leeds (1) W/G ·
- 📌Holbeck (10) W/G ·
- Housing Act 1930 (1) W/G ·
- Jenkinson, Charles (1887-1949) (1), Church of England clergyman, housing reformer, Leeds councillor W/G ·
- Labour Party (UK) (17) W/G ·
- Leeds City Council (34) W/G ·
- 📌Leeds (248) W/G ·
- Means test (1) W/G ·
- Public housing in the United Kingdom (1) W/G ·
- Quarry Hill, Leeds (2) W/G ·
- Rent strike (1) W/G ·
- Slum clearance in the United Kingdom (1) W/G ·
- Slum clearance (5) W/G ·
- Slum (4) W/G ·
- Tenants union (1) W/G ·
- Terraced house (1) W/G ·
- Terraced houses in the United Kingdom (1) W/G ·
- Thatcher, Margaret (4) W/G ·
Comment
Comment
See Quintin Bradley for the fate of the basically two-week rent strike against the Differential Rent Scheme of Leeds Council’s housing policy sub-committee, whose chairman and ubiquitous public face was the socialist vicar of Holbeck, Charles Jenkinson:
Driven from their former allegiance by this attack on their privileges, the tenants of the first council estates rebelled against their socialist leaders. In the process they created a new recognisable political movement: a movement which plays a major role in housing policy today… Far from being a creation of the privileged artisan class, as it is traditionally portrayed, the tenants movement was born out of a class identity crisis. The first tenants associations aimed to impose cohesion on a section of the working class which was disintegrating under immense social pressures.
[…]
“The whole system seems to be turning round,” said T.H. Gilberthorpe, president of the Leeds Federation of Municipal Tenants Associations… “One has sympathy with people who have fallen on hard times but why should the burden of their rent fall only on other municipal tenants? Why not ratepayers?”
(Bradley )
Bradley’s use of the word aspirational in the following isn’t necessarily wrong, but the aspiration, perhaps above all others, to live in a council house does form an amusing contrast with the Thatcherite vision of the aspirational working class embodied in her right-to-buy policy:
The general needs housing built between 1919 and 1930 created mixed communities of council estates, catering principally for the skilled and semi-skilled working class, who were aspirational – in both political, social and economic terms. (Bradley )
The test case put up by the LFMTA used their secretary, J.R. Jenkinson (no relation of the Red Rev.), who lived on the Greenthorpe state in Bramley and saw his rent go from 9s. 8d to 13s. 11d., and who, in another article in The Times which now eludes me, is said, presumably on the basis of information provided by C. Jenkinson or an associate, to be quite wealthy. He lost on appeal in October 1934. Bradley again:
The first council tenants to move onto the Hawksworth Wood estate in 1920 all brought their pianos with them (YEP 1 June 1920)… The piano crops up again as a symbol in the middle of the 1934 rent strike. Federation secretary, James Jenkinson is seeking to expose the effect of rent differentials on workers with a war disability; the trades he uses as an case study are those of a piano tuner and a piano teacher (YP April 5 1934). There were no piano teachers or tuners on Jenkinson’s Greenthorpe estate so why did he chose this example? Perhaps he was writing in the front room by the piano – we’ll never know.
Major elements of the housing programme included the Quarry Hill flats and the garden suburbs of Belle Isle and Gipton. It is alleged in various places that better-off tenants subsidised poorer ones directly through the rent pool, but the Rev. Jenkinson was quick to deny this at the time in The Times (Jenkinson 1934/02/24).
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The full Mercury article:
The mill-owners and their operatives in the woollen district are becoming alive to the great importance of taking immediate measures, to obtain such an amendment of the Factory Act as will enable them to continue the working of their mills. After the first of March next, it will be unlawful to work any child under twelve years of age more than eight hours per day in any woollen, worsted, flax, or cotton mill. In many places it is already found difficult to obtain a sufficient number of children for the mills, owing to the restriction in the Act, preventing children under eleven years from working more than eight hours. The effect of this has every where been to prevent the employment of such children altogether, as it is found impossible to work with relays of children, or to provide for their education in the way prescribed by the Act. On the first of next month, that very numerous class of children between eleven and twelve years of age, amounting to many thousands, will have to be dismissed from their employment, if the Act is put into effect. consequence will be, that the children will be turned idle upon the streets to learn vagabond habits, that the families to whom they belong will lose a considerable part of their weekly income, that both parents and children will be pinched for food and clothing, and that the mill-owners must stop their mills, as in most places it will be quite impossible to obtain a sufficient number of children above twelve years of age.
We direct the attention of our readers to the resolutions passed at a numerous meeting of the mill owners of Pudsey, on Wednesday last, published in our advertising columns. These resolutions express the unanimous sense of the mill-owners in that whole district, and they point out very clearly the evils of the restrictions above mentioned. Nor is the alarm felt by the masters alone; the workmen and their families are equally alive to the mischief which is coming upon them, and are aware that if the Act is not amended, they will be deprived of the earnings of all their children under twelve years of age, and will have to support them in idleness. On Saturday last the operatives of Pudsey met, and passed resolutions entirely concurring with those of the masters, except that, instead of petitioning that children of nine years of age may be allowed to work eleven hours in the day, they ask that children of eight years may be allowed to work those hours. Their resolutions to this effect will be found in another column. We think the request of the masters is perfectly reasonable and consistent with humanity; but we should not like to see children below nine years employed for eleven hours per day in the mills. The operatives of Bramley, Farsley, and Calverley, met on Wednesday night, and came to a similar conclusion with their fellow-operatives of Pudsey. It is the intention of these parties to petition for an amendment of the Act, on the principles we have mentioned. The parents of the children are fully concurring with the work-people in this object. The mill-owners have already prepared their petition, and it will be sent up so as to be presented at the opening of Parliament.
It is evident that the emergency is such as to call upon all persons interested in mills, whether as masters or workmen, to bestir themselves immediately in order to obtain an alteration in the Act. That alteration cannot be procured by the first of March; but we hope, if the, mill-owners and their workmen generally should petition, the Factory Inspectors would think it consistent with their duty to abstain from rigorously enforcing the Act till a Bill can be passed for its amendment. Of this, however, we cannot be certain; and it is manifest that the Inspectors will not take upon themselves such a responsibility unless the movement among the mill-owners and operatives is very general, as nothing less than a general declaration of the impossibility of complying with the Act would justify them in suspending its operation. We have not the slightest hesitation in saying that an alteration of the Act is necessary, for the preservation of our trade, and for the interests of all classes connected with it.
It is now the almost universal opinion both of the mill-owners and the operatives in the woollen district, that an Eleven Hours Bill, i. e. a bill restricting the labour to eleven hours a day, and not allowing children under ten years to work those hours, would be most conducive to the interests and happiness of all parties, including the children themselves. This opinion was found to be the average of the opinions expressed by a great number of the operatives in the cotton mills of Manchester, at a meeting with Mr. RICKARDS, the Factory Inspector, last Saturday. The same conclusion was come to at a meeting of the overlookers in the worsted mills of Bradford, held on Wednesday evening-all the overlookers being favourable to eleven hours, except those of Mr. Jous WOOD, who preferred ten hours, and the age at which children were to be admissible being ten years. We must say, however, that the masters in the worsted and flax mills are favourable to eleven hours and a half, and in the cotton mills to twelve hours. Many of the operatives in this town have sent memorials to government in favour of an Eleven Hours Bill.
We understand that a circular was lately sent by Mr. BAKER, the Factory Superintendent, to the Medical men who grant certificates to Factory Children in the West Riding, inquiring if in their opinion children ten years of age might be allowed to work twelve hours a day without injury to their health. Out of 59 answers received, 40 replied in the affirmative; 14 in the negative; and 5 were dubious. We may therefore venture to assume that there could at least be no objection to children of that age working eleven hours a day, i. e. one hour less.
It is worthy of being known that the number of children in this town alone, who might be employed in the mills if children of ten years were admissible, but who would, be prevented from working if children were not admissible under twelve, is 960. Of course several hundred poor families. would be prevented from obtaining the earnings they might receive, if the present Act should be put in force on the 1st of March. And this is no advantage to the children themselves, but the reverse: it leaves them to idle habits, and renders it impossible for workmen to pay for the education even of those who are under ten years of age.
MR. RICKARDS, the active and humane Inspector, who is now making a circuit to ascertain the opinions of the work- people and the masters on the Factory Act, will be in Leeds next Wednesday; on Monday next he will be in Halifax; on Tuesday in Bradford; and after remaining four or five days in Leeds, he will go to Wakefield and Huddersfield. This week he has been in Bolton, Bury, Rochdale, and other Lancashire towns. We believe Mr. RICKARDS is exceedingly desirous to meet with deputations both from the masters and the workmen, especially the latter, that he may be the better prepared to recommend such an amendment of the Factory Act as may meet their interests and wishes.
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