Homes Fit For Heroes The Politics and Architecture of Early State Housing in Britain

Originally published in 1981, Homes Fit For Heroes, looks at the pledge made by the Lloyd George Government to build ‘homes fit for heroes’. The book is the first major study of the provision and design of state housing in the period following the 1918 Armistice. It looks at the municipal garden suburbs of the 1920s which were completely different from the traditional working-class housing. Instead of being packed onto the ground in long terraces, the houses were set in spacious gardens surrounded by trees and open spaces - inside and out. They contained luxuries unheard-of in the working-class houses of the past. The book shows that, in the turbulent period following the First World War, the British Government launched the housing campaign as a way of persuading the troops and the people that their aspirations would be met under the existing system, without any need for revolution. The design of the houses based on the Tudor Walters Report, was a central element in this strategy; the large and comfortable houses provided by the state were intended as visible evidence of the arrival of a ‘new era for the working classes of this country’.