CFP: Housing the Poor – Theories, Practices and Representations

Numéro 106 des Cahiers victoriens et édouardiens :  Housing the Poor: Theories, Practices and Representations

In Victorian Britain, economic growth did not mean that riches were shared. A large part of the population continued to live in extreme poverty, and social inequalities were made worse by the conditions in which the poorest classes were housed. The flow of workers in new industrial cities exacerbated the situation and often made it untenable. The overcrowding and the unsanitary conditions that were part of everyday life for most people persisted throughout this period and beyond.

This crisis prompted a variety of responses, some of which were paradoxical. Efforts to manage the housing shortage did not always lead to improvements, as evidenced by speculation, the division of houses into cramped rooms or flats, and disregard for basic health regulations. The State’s response, initially non-existent, later developed through legislation that often aimed more at eradicating aberrations than at finding effective solutions, and was most of the time implemented in a haphazard manner.

Nevertheless, the scandalous housing situation of the poor was strongly criticized by journalists, reformers and novelists. It was sometimes even one of the starting points for revolutionary political thinking. More concretely, questions and proposals came from philanthropic associations and so-called enlightened industrialists. The resulting ‘model’ flats and villages were places of social and architectural experimentation—often ambiguous and tinged with paternalism, but also influenced by utopian thinking—the implications of which were sometimes poorly understood by those most concerned. However, these tensions gave rise to proposals that marked the beginnings of urban planning. 

We will revisit these issues and try to put them in a new light, by attempting to confront theoretical approaches and applications, ideals and realities, political and economic issues, convergences and distancing.

This call for papers addresses specialists of history and culture, but also literature and the arts. Proposals may, among others, deal with and bring together the themes and examples below.

Poor Districts and Slums: Experiences and Representations

Proposals can look back at the extreme conditions in poor districts and their descriptions by journalists and ‘sociologists’: the lodging houses described by Henry Mayhew (London Labour and the London Poor, 1861), the revelations of The Bristol Mercury newspaper in The Homes of the Bristol Poor in 1884, following the publication of The Bitter Cry of Outcast London by Andrew Mearns (1883).

Poor neighbourhoods also provide the setting for literary fiction. Charles Dickens produced famous descriptions of them in novels such as Bleak House (1853), as well as in his journalistic writings. Elizabeth Gaskell, in Mary Barton (1848) and North and South (1853), depicted the difficulties faced by workers in the north of the country. From social novels to what was described at the end of the century as ‘slum fiction’, of which Walter Besant, George Gissing and Arthur Morrison (Tales of Mean Streets, 1893) are the best-known representatives, the issue of housing conditions and their physical and moral consequences struck imaginations.

For thinkers such as Friedrich Engels in The Condition of the Working Class in England (1844) and William Morris in ‘The Housing of the Poor’ (Justice, 1884), poor housing and unsanitary environments were among the most telling signs of the exploitation of workers in a capitalist society and of the dehumanisation of the poor.

Finally, visual representations—engravings and illustrations (Gustave Doré, Joseph Pennell) or photography—illustrating the issue can also be studied.

From Philanthropic Responses to the Beginnings of Urban Planning

Philanthropic responses took many forms, despite insufficient results. Model Dwellings Companies began to develop in the 1840s, taking the form of associations and charitable funds such as The Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes, The Peabody Trust, and The Guinness Trust. The actions and writings of famous philanthropists such as Prince Albert, Octavia Hill, Angela Burdett-Coutts, Thomas Coglan Horsfall, and thinkers such as John Ruskin, supported the movement.

Papers can explore the architectural solutions adopted to house large numbers of people (terraces, back-to-back housing, court housing), but also the identity and personality of the architects involved in the design and construction of model housing or workers’ villages, as well as the architectural styles chosen in certain contexts. The issue of housing for the deprived in The Builder or other architectural periodicals or publications provides another perspective. Model flats and workers’ villages alone offer multiple areas of study (Saltaire, Akroydon, Bournville, Port Sunlight, to name but the most famous), from Robert Owen’s influence to the achievement of Ebenezer Howard’s garden city project, implemented by Raymond Unwin in Letchworth.

Legislation was only introduced very gradually. The context, content and impact of successive acts (Public Health Act 1848, Sanitary Act 1866, Artisans’ and Labourers’ Dwellings Improvement Act 1875, Housing of the Working Classes Act 1890, Housing, Town Planning Act 1909) provide additional insights into the issue.

Contemporary Representations and Heritage Interpretations

A final type of approaches could be based on the analysis of contemporary interpretations.

Victorian slums are the backdrop for numerous films and series, including David Lean’s Oliver Twist(1948), David Lynch’s The Elephant Man (1980) and Tim Burton’sSweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), to name but a few famous examples. In his graphic novel From Hell, also adapted for the screen in 2001, Alan Moore offers a similarly striking vision of the East End of London. More recently, video games have also embraced the setting of the Victorian city and its contrasts. 

The reality TV show Victorian Slum House (BBC, 2016), which puts 21st century protagonists back into the heart of a reconstructed Victorian slum, also says a lot about the fascination exerted by the environment of poor 19th-century neighbourhoods.

Finally, we can examine the various ways in which this type of housing lends itself to heritage interpretation: conservation and protection (Saltaire), museums, reconstructions and heritage tours (Port Sunlight Museum), photographic archives (the old Byker district in Newcastle documented by photographer Sirkka Liisa Konttinen), and archaeology (The Museum of Liverpool).

Proposals of about 300 words, in French or in English, are to be sent together with a short biographical note to Isabelle Cases (cases@univ-perp.fr) by March 15th, 2026.

Selective Bibliography

Akroyd, Edward. On Improved Dwellings for the Working Classes with a Plan for Building Them in Connection with Benefit Building Societies. London: Shaw and Sons, 1862.

Binns, Sheila. The Aesthetics of Utopia: Saltaire, Akroydon and Bedford Park. London: Spire Books, 2013.

Bristol Mercury. The Homes of the Bristol Mercury. William Lewis & Sons, Mercury and Daily Post, 1884.

Curl, James Stevens. Victorian Architecture, diversity and invention. London: Spire Book, 2007.

Dyos, H. J. and D. A. Reeder. “Slums and Suburbs,” The Victorian City, ed. H. J. Dyos, and M. Wolff, 1:359–86. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973.

Dyos, H. J., edited by David Cannadine and David Reader. Exploring the Urban Past: Essays in Urban History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

George, Walter Lionel. Labour and Housing at Port Sunlight. London: Alston Rivers, 1909. 

Grant, Anna Christine and Jeremia Njeru. “Sunlight and free markets: an urban political ecological perspective on social housing in Victorian London (1850–1914)”, Urban History. 2022, 1–21.

Harkness, Margaret. In Darkest London. Cambridge: Black Apollo Press, 2003. 

Hole, James. The Homes of the Working Classes with suggestion for their improvement. London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1866. 

Howard, Ebenezer. Garden Cities of Tomorrow. London: S. Sonnenschien, 1902. 

Jackson, Lee. “On the Geography of Seven Dials.” Dictionary of Victorian London. Punch, Jan.–June, 1842, quoted in Dirty Old London. New Haven: Yale UP, 2014.

Jerrold, William Blanchard. London: A Pilgrimage. Illustrated by Gustav Doré. London: Grant & Co., 1872.

Leach, Peter, and Nikolaus Pevsner. Yorkshire West Riding, Leeds, Bradford and the North, The Buildings of England series. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2009.

Mayhew, Henry. London Labour and the London Poor. 4 vols. 1861–2. New York: Dover Publications, 1968. 

Meacham, Standish. Regaining Paradise: Englishness and the Early Garden City Movement. London: Yale University Press, 1999.

Miller, Mervyn. English Garden Cities, An Introduction. London: English Heritage, 2010.

Novarina Gilles, Sadoux Stéphane. “La garden city. Un réservoir de références à réinventer”, in La ville standardisée, Les Annales de la recherche urbaine, 113, 2018. p. 192–207. Disponible en ligne: https://doi.org/10.3406/aru.2018.3283.

Ross, Ellen. “Slum Journeys: Ladies and London Poverty 1860-1940,” in: Alan Mayne and Tim Murray, eds. The Archaeology of Urban Landscapes: Explorations in Slumland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 

Saltaire: Conservation Area Assessment, March 2004. Bradford Metropolitan District Council. 

Scotland, Nigel. Squires in the Slums: Settlements and Missions in Late Victorian Britain. London: I.B. Tauris & Co., 2007.

Sheeran, George. “Back to Back Houses in Bradford.” in The Bradford Antiquary: Journal of the Bradford Historical and Antiquarian Society. Vol. 3 (1987): 1–10.

Stedman Jones, Gareth. Outcast London: A Study in the Relationship Between Classes in Victorian Society. Oxford: Peregrine Penguin Edition, 1984. 

Tarn, John Nelson. Five Per Cent Philanthropy: An Account of Housing in Urban Areas between 1840 and 1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973.

Unwin, Raymond. The Art of Building a Home: A Collection of Lectures and Illustrations. London: Longman, Green, 1901.

Wohl, Anthony S. The Eternal Slum: Housing and Social Policy in Victorian London. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2009.

Yellling, J. A. Slums and Slum Clearance in Victorian London. London: Allen & Unwin, 1986.