C O N T E X T 1 3 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 4 25 ALAN JOHNSON Homes for war-workers Many of the more than 10,000 houses constructed for British war-workers during the first world war survive intact, highly valued by their residents and often in conservation areas. In contrast to the rest of the UK economy, from 1905 the building industry – six-sevenths of whose work was in housebuilding – went into a recession which lasted into the war years. By 1914 there was a housing shortage. The declaration of war caused central government to pass the first of a series of Emergency Powers Acts, and the radically altered conditions were equally recognised in the Housing Act of August 1914, which gave the Local Government Board and the Office ofWorks (OoW) powers to buy land and provide houses for those employed by or on behalf of the government. Prosecuting the war demanded massive amounts of munitions for Britain’s army and navy. Though the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich continued as the main site for armaments manufacture, it was soon realised that more capacity was needed and additional factories on sites remote from the capital would be less vulnerable to aerial bombardment. Hence large plants for cordite manufacture were established at Gretna/Eastriggs near Dumfries and Holton Heath, Dorset, the first serving the army and the second the navy. Woolwich Arsenal sits on a Thames-side site. By the early 20th century it was hemmed in by an industrial quarter of south-east London particularly afflicted by the housing shortage.Throughout Britain scanty housebuilding turned into a famine as building workers joined the forces and manufacturers switched to satisfying the demands of the war economy.The expanding workforce at the Arsenal was not matched by available local accommodation, causing the Commissioners ofWorks to purchase land atWell Hall, Eltham, south of the Arsenal, to build new houses for many of the additional workers. By 1914 Frank Baines (1877–1933) was one of two principal architects of the OoW, rising to this eminence from a post of junior draughtsman at Hampton Court Palace. For two years prior to joining the OoW in 1895, Baines had been an articled pupil of the arts-and-craftsmovement architect CRAshbee. His training in the arts and crafts approach was reinforced by the prevalence of that ethos in theAncient Monuments Branch of the OoW. In parallel, the contemporary context in housebuilding was the arts-and-crafts-inspired construction which had become mainstream following its adoption in the garden suburbs, the later industrial model villages, the first garden city and the pre-war London County Council cottage estates. Well Hall estate, Eltham: workers’ houses flank the central green (Below)Well Hall: complex forms in house construction
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