In the early 20th century, who was housing owned by?

Question

council/corporation housing doesn't seem to have begun until the 60's, so before those times, did people simply pay rent to a landlord who owned the properties? Obviously, rich people had their own homes, but how did this happen? Wre their houses passed down throughgeneratins/ If a rich person moved into a new property, did they buy it outright or pay a mortgage?

For the majority of people, who were poor and working class, was there (even purely in theory) a prospect of owning the home they occupied?

Answer 1

Renting property was quite widespread in times past, even wealthy people didn't always own the properties they lived in, it was not uncommon for well-off people to rent from others.  For instance, in 'the Importance of Being Earnest' Jack Worthing tells Lady Bracknell that he owns a house in town but that is it rented to a Lady somebody (I can't remember her name).

And in 'Persuasion' by Jane Austen, when Sir Walter wants to cut back on his living expenses, he rents his country home, Kellynch Hall, to Admiral Croft.

In past centuries, both renting and buying property was much, much cheaper, in real terms, than it is now.  For instance, in 'The diary of a Nobody' by George and Weedon Grossmith(written in the 1880s), Mr Pooter's employer buys the freehold of the Pooters' house and presents it to Mr Pooter as a gift.  This is a very generous thing to do, but less generous, in real terms, than it would be nowadays, since the value of a house is very much more now than it would have been then.  You did not have to be rich to own your own home.

Answer 2

The whole history of housing is a pretty vast area!

As far as I can gather mortgages for house purchase only really became popular in the inter-war years, until then lower income people would have been renting.  Who the 'slum landlords' actually were would have varied from area to area, this article tells you about some of the worst slums in the East End of London actually being owned by Lawyers, Peers and the Church of England, who appointed 'managers' to be responsible for the day-to-day running of them:

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/t...

The problems though of slum housing were being recognised from the mid to late Victorian times onwards and in 1900 a National Council for Housing Reform was set up.  There were various trusts and charities, local councils and philanthropic employers who were trying to improve things and building better often called 'model' housing for poorer people or employees.  Lever built Port Sunlight for its workers, and Rowntrees and Bournville built similar 'model' villages, which I do not think could have been linked to the jobs in the way that tied cottages were.  But probably only a minority were living in these few better housing or slum clearance projects, I just wanted to mention this to correct your first answer which implied that council building only started in the 1970s, (actually that was when it often ceased to be decent and brick-built), there were good building programmes in the 1930s, and of course in the 1950s when they were needed after the War.

If you want to know more about the other part of your question, 'tied cottage' is the term btw in case you hadn't heard it and you might find something in a search, the inhabitants of tied cottages were evicted if they lost their jobs or could no longer work, the houses would have gone to the new workers, which is why a lot of older people ended up in the workhouse if they did not have other family members who could house them or a son to take over the work, and why the Trade Unions campaigned against the tied housing system.  Of course I suppose a few employers could have been compassionate, the odd case might come up on a family or local history site.

Answer 3

In the early 19/20th century, many of the dwellings belonged to the industries, like the cotton mill owners, farmers cottages, miners homes, and when the poor were unable to house themselves there were 'poor houses', work-houses, and even unused caves, shelters.

The upper-class had their fortunes tied up in property, and these were passed down to their male 'heirs', girls were married into families with wealth and standing (properties) where the two separate families (in-laws) could combine their resources.

It wasn't until around the World Wars that housing became a priority for the soldiers returning home, and even then, wives and children often lived with their spouses parents, until they as a family, (when their husbands returned home) could manage to rent cheap housing, from private landlords.

It was in the early 1950/60's that the idea of 'rented property' came into being, mainly 'prefabricated buildings', but decent brick built family houses, didn't really come into existance until the start of the 1970's in most districts, with organised Local Authorities.

Having a mortagage was almost unknown until quite late on in the last century and even then you had to have/earn a decent income, to afford such a luxury.

Caramac x