As the First World War ended, “Homes fit for Heroes!” was a government promise. Soldiers who had fought for their country would be entitled to decent housing at an affordable price instead of Victorian-era slums. The results of the 1921 Census tell us about the poor housing conditions endured by many households at the time, and the anger and concern that these conditions engendered. This discontent among the population was very worrying for a government which was mindful of recent revolutionary movements across mainland Europe. The housing acts of 1919 and 1924 introduced subsidies for local authorities to build good quality affordable homes, and the government-commissioned Tudor Walters Report of 1918 made recommendations for high quality housing design.

In 1919 a survey of housing needs was carried out in Watford. It recommended that a total of 2,046 new homes be constructed during the next three years: 1,092 to meet unsatisfied housing need and reduce overcrowding, 474 to rehouse families living in unfit homes, and 480 to meet the demand arising from new industrial development.

Before the war Watford had seen a house building boom. Between 1901 and 1914 more than 3,000 homes were completed in the town. These homes were predominantly two and three bedroom terraced houses to the north and west of the town centre, each with their own backyard adjoining a communal alleyway. However, Watford’s Medical Officer was concerned about the high rents charged and that “many families are paying a larger proportion of their earnings for housing than will leave enough for the other necessities of healthy and vigorous existence”. He had evidence that families with low incomes had to resort to renting in the core of older and poorer quality housing located mostly off the high street, some of which had been deemed unfit for habitation.

With the outbreak of war, house building in Watford came to an abrupt halt. Only 193 homes were completed between January 1915 and December 1918. Yet demand for housing increased substantially, with the population growing from 45,000 in 1914 to an estimated 50,500 in 1919. People flocked to the town to work in the new munitions factories in Sandown Road and Bushey Mill Lane. In addition, a homelessness crisis erupted in early 1918. The town saw an influx of Londoners seeking refuge from air raids by German Gotha bombers. These London households would purchase houses from Watford landlords at a high price and would promptly evict the sitting tenants. In a debate on the issue, Watford Council members reflected that this would not be a huge problem in peacetime: “Now, however, if a family is turned out, they find it impossible to rent another home as there are none to be let”. By 1919 720 Watford homes intended for just one household were occupied by more than one family.

Watford Observer:

The Square on the Harebreaks estate

Watford Council took action to acquire the new Ministry of Health grants for new homes. Four new Council-owned estates were planned: Harebreaks, Wiggenhall Road, Willow Lane and Sydney Road. Harebreaks was to be the largest, with a total of 875 homes built mostly by local construction company Charles Brightman and Son between 1919 and 1922. The West Herts and Watford Observer of 1919 reflected that the estate’s name was “unfamiliar to Watford, although it appears on the ordnance map of the district and possibly has some connection with the abundance of hares for which the district was once noted".

A national survey in early 1918 had asked housewives what they wanted most in their homes. In descending order of importance, their six main aspirations were: a third bedroom to avoid having to use cold and damp attics for sleeping space; a separate kitchen and living room; a separate pantry or larder; a copper in an outside shed to avoid steam in the house; a non-smoking chimney; and well-fitting windows to prevent draughts.

There was a determination that the new council-owned homes in Watford would be designed to a high standard, despite accusations of extravagance on the pages of the local newspaper. A delegation of the International Inter-Allied Housing and Town Congress visited some newly completed showpiece homes on the Harebreaks estate in June 1920. Each home on the estate would contain three or four homes, a parlour, a scullery with separate larder, indoor bathroom, indoor coal store, linen cupboard, and a front and back garden. Parish records from the 1920s show that heads of households living in Harebreaks houses were most likely to be clerks, labourers, railway employees, and workers in the printing and paper industries.

Watford Observer:

Ballard's Buildings

By the early 1920s unfit housing was an increasingly urgent problem in Watford. A total of 249 families lived in sub-standard homes in Ballard’s Buildings, Meeting Alley, Grove Circus, New Road, Fox Alley, Lower High Street, Well’s Yard and Chater’s Yard. Defects in the homes consisted of insufficient ventilation, dampness, broken guttering, leaking roofs, absence of light, no separate water supply, and no facility to store food. Ballard’s Buildings was judged to have the worst conditions. It was demolished in 1924 and its residents were rehoused in the new family-sized homes on the Wiggenhall Estate. “The rehousing of the tenants from Ballard’s Buildings has had the most satisfactory results in every way”, said Watford’s Medical Officer in his annual report for 1925. “The tenants are pleased with their new homes.”

The Housing Act 1930 obliged local authorities to prepare slum clearance schemes for their areas. In a bid to finally rid the town centre of its unfit housing, Watford Council obtained funding to build the new 130-home Leavesden Green estate on the town’s northern periphery. Spacious homes with gardens were constructed, and the first tenants moved into Chilcot Road, Comyne Road, Desmond Road and Rosebriar Walk just before Christmas 1933. However, concerns were soon expressed about the practice of building homes in an area which, at the time, was not close to shopping parades, corner shops, schools, railway stations or places of employment. The impact upon household budgets of lengthier journeys to school and work and more distant shopping trips must have been acutely felt. Watford Council acknowledged that it had learned lessons, that moving households to more distant sites with little infrastructure had caused hardship. However, by this time it was competing with private developers to acquire sites nearer to the town centre. To make use of smaller sites around the central area, Watford Council constructed “experimental” blocks of flats in Water Lane and Albert Road South. This was considered quite innovative in the 1930s.

The 1930s saw a new house building boom in Watford, this time powered by a demand to buy homes. The town’s prosperity was growing and mortgages were becoming more affordable. “No need to rent!” stated an advert from the National Building Society. “You can buy your house now, so easily, so safety, with the help of the National. There is no need to wait.” Among the estates built for owner-occupation between 1931 and 1935 were: the Tudor Estate, planned to be self-contained with its own social hall, tennis courts and bowling greens; the Cassiobury Station Estate with homes priced at £816; the Bradshaw Estate off Bushey Mill Lane with homes priced at £700; the Kingswood Estate with homes priced from £495 to £725; and Leggatts Way, where homes were marketed as labour-saving in design and equipment. The chalets on the new Woodlands Estate, priced at £675, epitomised modern living: “You won’t need a maid! Household duties reduced by 25%!”

Yet the old practice of taking in lodgers still prevailed, possibly to provide an extra income to help with meeting higher rent and mortgage costs. Between 1922 and 1930 73 brides or bridegrooms who married in one of Watford’s six main churches were lodging on the Harebreaks estate at the time of their wedding. In 1934 Watford Guardians Committee mulled over the question of why so many single people claiming public assistance were living in the owner-occupied Bradshaw estate; the Relief Officer enlightened them – they were mainly people renting rooms in the estate’s houses.

Despite the home building programmes, 500 households were still on Watford Council’s housing register in April 1935. As with the First World War, Watford’s population increased during the Second World War, rising from 66,520 in 1939 to 73,420 in 1948 and generating further demand for housing. In October 1944 Watford Council announced plans for prefabricated bungalows on public open space to meet some housing need, and in December 1945 the Town Clerk issued an emergency call to the town’s householders to let out any spare rooms to men and women returning from the armed forces. Plans for the new Garston Park Estate, Meriden Estate, Woodside and Hillside estates were soon underway. A new generation of Homes for Heroes was needed, and would soon emerge.

Helen George lives in Watford and has always been fascinated by the town’s 20th century history. She gives presentations on subjects such as Watford’s experience of the Spanish flu pandemic 1918-1919, the first 25 years of the National Health Service in the town 1948-1973, and the role of retail businesses on the Home Front between 1914 and 1918. She is currently researching the lesser known aspects of life in Watford during the Second World War.