Daunton M. The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, Volume 3: 1840-1950
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The evolution of Britain’s urban built environment
(i)
D
Industrial Revolution much manufacturing, office and
retail activity was conducted in buildings which were partly occupied
for residential purposes, and had often been originally built as dwelling
houses. Shopkeepers lived above their shops, offices were located in the homes
of professional men and warehouses formed part of merchants’ residences.
However, during the nineteenth century a long-run trend towards increasing
functional and geographical specialisation of non-residential property emerged,
and accelerated during the twentieth century, creating the functionally segre-
gated built environments of modern urban centres. Offices became concentrated
in office districts in the heart of cities, in close proximity to central shopping
areas, while urban residential populations became increasingly decentralised and
industrial districts coalesced on the fringes of towns and cities, alongside major
transport routes. This chapter examines the evolution of commercial and indus-
trial premises from around to the s, together with associated changes
in the property investment and development sectors and the building industry.
(ii)
The ‘traditional’ landowners (principally the aristocracy, crown and Church, and
educational, social and charitable institutions such as Oxford and Cambridge
colleges, public schools, London livery companies and hospitals), which had
dominated the urban property market during previous centuries, remained
central players during the Victorian period. Their policies towards urban prop-
erty underwent only minor adaption from the pattern which had emerged by
the end of the eighteenth century, involving the development of urban land-
holdings, when opportunity arose, preferably by granting building leases.
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Estate development policy aimed to let land on year building leases, includ-
ing restrictive covenants designed to prevent alterations which would mar the
estate’s building plan.
1
Builders, however, generally preferred freehold tenure,
and while large estates often had sufficient market power to impose year
leases, competition from freehold land sometimes forced landlords either to sell
land outright or to offer year leases. Martin Daunton’s examination of pre-
vailing tenure in twenty-six towns and cities in England and Wales during the
s and s revealed thirteen instances where freeholds were prevalent,
while short leases dominated in five cases, long leases in five, a combination of
both in one case and chief rents (which were similar to feu duties) in two.
2
The
feu was the dominant form of tenure in Scotland. The original owner or ‘supe-
rior’ would grant land to a ‘vassal’ in return for a fixed annual ‘feu duty’. There
were (until ) also often ‘fines’ when the land passed from one vassal to a
successor.
The perpetual nature of the feu, unlike the leasehold system operative else-
where in Britain, gave the original landowner no interest in any capital appre-
ciation of the land. Together with the lack of any lump sum available for
reinvestment (unlike freehold sales), this made Scottish landowners more cau-
tious in disposing of land than their English counterparts, until it had reached its
maximum development value. This increased prices for development land and,
together with high building costs (partly arising from stringent building regula-
tions), resulted in Scottish urban centres being developed at substantially higher
densities than English cities.
3
Landlords would often invest substantial sums in the laying-out of roads and
the provision of other amenities on estates before granting building leases, thus
making them more attractive to speculative developers. Other ways in which
landlords might indirectly contribute to, or reduce, the cost of speculative devel-
opment included granting peppercorn or reduced rents for the first several years
of leases, and, as Donald Olsen has noted, failing to impose or enforce stringent
covenants regarding building standards.
4
Initiating estate development some-
times also entailed providing loans to builders.
Urban estate development generally proved a profitable activity for aristocratic
and other traditional landowners, income generated usually exceeding the
returns on investment in their agricultural estates by a considerable margin.
5
However, their influence as active agents of development was limited by the fact
that they seldom engaged in major purchases or sales of land, except to consol-
idate existing holdings. Capital was usually tied up in current landed estates, the
Peter Scott
1
D. J. Olsen, The Growth of Victorian London (London, ), p. .
2
M. J. Daunton, House and Home in the Victorian City (London, ), p. .
3
Ibid., pp. –.
4
Olsen, Growth, pp. –.
5
H. J. Dyos, Victorian Suburb (Leicester, ), p. ; D. Cannadine, Lords and Landlords (Leicester,
), p. .
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sale of which was often prohibited by elaborate statutes or settlements. In addi-
tion to these legal restrictions, non-monetary factors such as tradition, prestige
and political power appear to have deterred landowners from switching assets.
However, as the nineteenth century progressed other institutions, with a more
purely commercial attitude towards property, gradually grew in importance as
agents of urban development.
This process accelerated from the s. The second half of the century wit-
nessed a substantial rise in the income of Britain’s growing middle class, and the
consequent growth of middle-class savings. Such savings might be invested
directly in property, or indirectly via a property-orientated institutional invest-
ment market. Solicitors often invested clients’ funds in mortgages (partly to
secure the legal work associated with property development). The nineteenth
century also witnessed a trend towards significant property market activity by the
financial institutions. Insurance companies were active in the market through-
out the century, via mortgage lending. Loans were initially secured mainly on
agricultural land, though substantial lending for house building took place from
the s, as transport improvements opened up new areas to residential devel-
opment. Such lending was concentrated in large schemes, involving middle-class
or ‘superior’ working-class dwellings.
Insurance companies also contributed to the development process by lending
to ground landlords,
6
and even occasionally undertook investment in building
estates directly, either voluntarily or (more commonly) as a result of mortgage
default by the original developer. Building societies made extensive loans to
finance development projects. Like the insurance companies, they were occa-
sionally forced to take over these developments, though the Building
Societies Act prevented them holding on to such property.
7
Another growing source of property development finance was the stockmar-
ket. The late nineteenth century saw the formation of a substantial number of
companies whose purpose was the development and ownership of property, as
shown in Table .. The ownership, maintenance and development of prop-
erty by limited liability companies offered investors the possibility of acquiring
a stake in the property sector without the need to commit substantial funds or
deal with management and maintenance. The timing of the sector’s emergence
was connected with legislative changes during the s and s which facil-
itated limited liability incorporation, together with the accelerating pace of
urban development during this period.
Residential property was dominated by small-scale, predominantly lower-
middle-class, investors, reflecting their ‘local economic concerns, their narrow-
ness of horizon and quest for security’.
8
Analysis by Daunton of assets passing at
The evolution of Britain’s urban built environment
6
Olsen, Growth, p. .
7
D. Cannadine and D. Reeder, eds., Exploring the Urban Past (Cambridge, ), p. .
8
M. J. Daunton, A Property-Owning Democracy? (London, ), p. .
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death in the United Kingdom indicated that house and business property formed
over a quarter of gross capital for people leaving less than £,, while for those
leaving £,–£, it amounted to per cent, declining further for
higher wealth groups.
9
The avoidance of residential property by wealthy inves-
tors may reflect superior returns on alternative investments which were found
inaccessible by those of moderate income, or the ability of small capitalists to
reduce costs by undertaking management personally.
A further factor behind the growth of the property investment market was the
development of market intermediaries and a market press. The s saw the
establishment of a number of journals covering property transactions, most
importantly the Estates Gazette (). The development of a property press pro-
vided a vital source of information in a market lacking any centralised market
place.
10
There was an attempt to set up such a market, with the establishment of
the Estates Exchange in , though this did not progress beyond the mainte-
nance of registers recording property transactions.
11
On the ‘demand-side’, substantial finance was required by both builders and
developers seeking to make a speculative profit by purchasing land considered
‘ripe’ for development. Developers might let or resell land to builders (some-
times supplying them with capital) or develop at least part of it directly – the
functions of the financier, landowner and speculative builder often overlapped
in an industry characterised by relative ease of entry and financial realities which
often required extreme flexibility of function.
12
Peter Scott
19
Daunton, House and Home, p. .
10
F. M. L. Thompson, ‘The land market in the nineteenth century’, in W. E. Michinton, ed., Essays
in Agrarian History, vol. (Newton Abbot, ), p. .
11
Ibid., p. .
12
Cannadine and Reeder, Exploring, pp. –.
Table . New public property companies –
Total Annual average
– .
– .
– .
– .
– .
– .
– .
– .
– .
Source: Thomas Skinner & Co., Skinner’s Property Share
Annual – (London, ).
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The builders themselves ranged from master builders employing large
numbers of men on a permanent and semi-permanent basis, other large-scale
builders who were much more reliant on subcontracting for their labour, to a
great number of small-scale speculative builders who accounted for the bulk of
residential property development. In the mean builder in London had only
. houses under construction, while three-quarters of firms were working on
or fewer; only . per cent were building over houses, representing a mere
. per cent of total housing construction. However, concentration increased
markedly during the next thirty years; by the mean London builder worked
on . houses and those building over houses accounted for . per cent of
firms and . per cent of construction.
13
Speculative builders proved notori-
ously unsuccessful in recognising the early signs of downturns in the housing
market, the result being a highly cyclical industry with periodic phases of sub-
stantial oversupply and building bankruptcies.
14
However, the building industry
experienced rapid long-term growth during this period, employment rising
from , in to , in .
15
Institutional buildings, and some commercial premises, were developed via
contracting rather than speculative activity. The growth of projects related to
railway development and public works during the mid- and late nineteenth
century led to a substantial expansion of the contracting industry. Firms operat-
ing in this sector tended to be larger, and more stable, than their speculative
counterparts. Some major contractors, such as Glasgow-based Hugh Kennedy,
combined contracting with speculative property development and investment.
Rents from developed properties provided a regular source of income, which
was a valuable asset given the cash-flow problems which occasionally arose in
contracting.
16
One of the main ways in which contractors could undercut their rivals was
by attempting to force down labour costs through lower wages or increased
hours. Such activity produced considerable opposition from workers in the
skilled building trades, characterised by strong craft traditions that helped foster
a collective ethos. Attempts to address the ensuing problem of hostile industrial
relations culminated in the establishment of a formal system of collective bar-
gaining – including conciliation and arbitration procedures – during the last
decades of the nineteenth century, which provided workers with some measure
of protection against the ‘cut-throat’ competition which the tendering system
would otherwise have produced.
17
The nineteenth-century growth of the property investment, development and
The evolution of Britain’s urban built environment
13
Daunton, Property-Owning Democracy?, p. .
14
Ibid., p. .
15
M. Bowley, The British Building Industry (Cambridge, ), p. .
16
N. J. Morgan, ‘Hugh Kennedy’, in A. Slaven and S. Checkland, eds., Dictionary of Scottish Business
Biography –, vol. (Aberdeen, ), pp. –.
17
R. Price, Masters, Unions and Men (Cambridge, ).
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building sectors took place alongside a transformation in the character of urban
centres, residential property being squeezed out by commercial buildings. The
City of London had begun to lose its population during the first decade of the
nineteenth century; by the third quarter of the century population declines were
also being experienced in the central wards of Liverpool and Birmingham as
offices, shops, factories and warehouses displaced housing.
18
During the last two
decades of the century a number of great provincial cities acquired central
‘layouts’, further accelerating this trend.
19
The growth of ‘central business districts’ within cities was closely linked to
the development of functionally and geographically specialised commercial
buildings, particularly offices and warehouses. Until the nineteenth century the
office functions of business were dealt with in coffee-houses, counting houses
and the homes of merchants, specialist office buildings being rare.
20
However,
as the complexity of administration increased more and more businessmen
found it necessary to establish a formal office. As Jon Lawrence has noted, ‘The
growth of paper documentation, the need to be personally contactable, and the
need to be near to public sources of commercial information such as the Post
Office, reading rooms and coffee houses, made it increasingly essential to main-
tain a formal office at no great distance from the key centres of commercial
activity.’
21
Until the soffice development usually involved the adaptation of existing
premises, so that their previously residential upper floors could be let for com-
mercial use,
22
although some large companies, in sectors such as banking and
insurance, did erect purpose-built offices.
23
London’s first known speculative
office block was built in Clements Lane, in around , though the number of
speculative office developments only became at all significant in the s,
24
gath-
ering pace during the mid-Victorian period. The pattern of City office develop-
ment was mirrored by that of other major commercial centres. For example
during the early nineteenth century the growing demand for offices in
Liverpool’s central commercial district was met largely through the conversion of
private houses and other buildings, the first purpose-built office blocks appear-
ing in the s and s.
25
R. A. Varley’s study of Manchester’s Central Business
District suggests that the segregation of land use into definable areas was under
waybythes, with the emergence of a visible office district in the vicinity of
Peter Scott
18
A. Briggs, Victorian Cities (London, ), p. .
19
Ibid., p. .
20
P. Cowen et al., The Office (London, ), p. .
21
J. Lawrence, ‘From counting house to office: the transformation of London’s central financial dis-
trict, –’ (unpublished paper, ), p. .
22
Ibid., p. .
23
P. W. Daniels, Office Location (London, ), p. .
24
Edward L’Anson, ‘Some notice of office buildings in the City of London’, Royal Institute of British
Architects,Transactions (), –.
25
D. K. Stenhouse, ‘Liverpool’s office district, –’, Historical Society of Lancashire and
Cheshire, (), .
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the Royal Exchange.
26
Manchester’s warehouses had already begun to occupy a
defined area, the nucleus of a warehouse district having emerged by .
27
By the s office development in London had become ‘so considerable that
almost all the eligible sites in the City have been converted to this purpose’.
28
The diminishing supply of suitable sites led to rising land values. This stimulated
the establishment of a number of publicly quoted property companies specialis-
ing in the development and ownership of City office property, such as City
Offices Co. Ltd and the City of London Real Property Co. Ltd, both established
in . These operated alongside smaller property companies established by
groups of businessmen to develop specific sites, often partially for their own use,
such as Gresham Chambers Co. Ltd.
29
The rapid growth in office employment continued during the late nineteenth
century. Clerical employment in England and Wales rose from . per cent of
the labour force in to . per cent in ,
30
facilitated by advances in com-
munications and other office technology, such as the spread of the telegraph and
postal services and the invention of the telephone, typewriter, arithmometer and
stencil duplicator. The growth of office centres was matched by an expansion in
the office functions of industrial concerns, with office premises usually attached
to their factories.
The late nineteenth century witnessed a substantial increase in the size of office
blocks, largely as the result of technological innovation – the spread of the
hydraulic lift. Hydraulic lifts became common in City offices after , when
the London Hydraulic Power Co. started operation.
31
Lifts made upper floors
attractive to commercial tenants for the first time, starting a ‘vertical transport rev-
olution,’ which provided a powerful impetus to the continued expansion of the
City when the supply of non-office buildings for redevelopment began to run
short.
32
The lift opened up the possibility of much taller buildings, made tech-
nologically possible by the development of steel-framed construction techniques
in America during the late nineteenth century. According to Marion Bowley,
Britain’s first steel-framed building was London’s Ritz Hotel, built in .
33
Reinforced concrete also began to be adopted by the British building industry
from around the turn of the century; like structural steel its introduction, and
subsequent development, lagged behind that in other countries.
34
While the
London Building Act and other by-laws are often cited as the cause of the slow
adoption of these technologies, Bowley argues that conservatism on the part of
The evolution of Britain’s urban built environment
26
R. A. Varley, ‘Land-use analysis in the city-centre, with special reference to Manchester’ (MA
thesis, University of Wales, ), p. .
27
Ibid., pp. –.
28
L’Anson, ‘Some notice’, .
29
Lawrence, ‘From counting house’, p. .
30
Daniels, Office Location, p. .
31
R. Turvey, ‘London lifts and hydraulic power’, Transactions of the Newcomen Society, (–),
.
32
R. Turvey, ‘City of London office rents: –’ (unpublished paper, ), p. .
33
Bowley, British Building Industry, p. .
34
Ibid., pp. –.
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the architectural and other building-designing professions constituted a more
fundamental barrier.
35
Bowley’s study also highlights the organisation of the
building industry – particularly the separation of the design of buildings and
their construction – as a major factor inhibiting cost-reducing technical changes
which would benefit builders but provided fewer incentives for independent
designers.
Another important growth area for specialist commercial buildings was retail-
ing. Evidence suggests that the number of ‘fixed’ shops in Britain was already
experiencing rapid growth by the end of the eighteenth century.
36
However, it
was not until the second half of the nineteenth century that an industry which
had hitherto been dominated by single units, managed by their owners and
employing, at most, a handful of people, was to see the rise of giant, nationally
based enterprises, a few of which would, by , rank alongside Britain’s largest
companies.
While some locally based multiple retailers did develop during the first half
of the nineteenth century there is very little evidence of multiples operating in
more than one urban centre.
37
W. H. Smith began to develop their network of
railway station book stalls during the late s, and other multiples, such as J.
Menzies and the Singer Manufacturing Company, had appeared by the s,
though the number of multiple traders only became substantial from the s.
Footwear was one of the first trades in which multiple retailers established a sub-
stantial presence, though from the early s the number of branches of foot-
wear multiples was overtaken by those in the food industry.
38
Important factors
behind the emergence of the food multiples – in common with their non-food
counterparts – were rising real living standards, the growing urbanisation of
Britain’s population and improvements in transport and communications.
However, food multiples enjoyed specific advantages, due to the boom in
cheap imported foodstuffs from the s. They typically adopted a retailing
strategy based around selling a very limited range of goods at cut prices; for
example the most successful retailer of this type, Thomas Lipton, initially con-
centrated on selling ham, butter and eggs. Booming world production, and the
impact of technology on long-distance transport (including chilled and refrig-
erated shipping) led to rapid price falls for these commodities during the late
nineteenth century, and similarly dramatic consumption increases. Traditional
suppliers, such as the producer-retailers who resisted the introduction of
imported meat and therefore could not match the price cuts, left the market
Peter Scott
35
Ibid., pp. –.
36
M. J. Winstanley, ‘Concentration and competition in the retail sector, c. –’, in M. W.
Kirby and M. B. Rose, eds., Business Enterprise in Modern Britain (London, ), p. .
37
G. Shaw, ‘The evolution and impact of large-scale retailing in Britain’, in J. Benson and G. Shaw,
eds., The Evolution of Retail Systems, c. – (Leicester, ), p. .
38
J. B. Jefferys, Retail Trading in Britain, – (Cambridge, ), p. .
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open to the new multiples.
39
The cut-price strategies adopted by these retailers
(and other multiples, selling cheap factory-made goods such as footwear and
clothing) required a high turnover in order to generate a profit. Thus the early
multiples concentrated their stores in the main thoroughfares of towns, or in
other areas with substantial pedestrian flow. This led to the growing concentra-
tion of retail activity in ‘High Street’ centres, a trend which was to continue, and
accelerate, over the next seventy years.
Developments in land transport also played an important role in concentrat-
ing retail activity into ‘shopping centre’ districts. Railways exerted a consider-
able influence on the internal structure of central retail areas from the s. In
addition to increasing the general accessibility of High Streets, they encouraged
the growth of retail centres via two additional mechanisms. First, they forced up
land values, by differentiating site accessibility, and by their own considerable use
of urban land. Secondly, they placed a physical constraint on the expansion of
many city centres, the railway lines acting as boundaries.
40
The development of
urban tramways from the s also influenced retail location, both central and
suburban shopping areas coalescing along their lines.
Another consequence of the multiples’ strategy of high turnover and low
profit margins was a growth in typical shop size. Expenditure on retail outlets
rose; prestige fascias were used to give each multiple chain its own defined ‘cor-
porate style’, while plate glass windows, extensive lighting and marble or pol-
ished hardwood counter tops gave stores an attractive, clean, appearance which
acted as a powerful advertisement. For example, Boots had a general policy of
acquiring premises which would make attractive shop sites and rebuilding, or at
least extensively refitting, them, with the aim of creating ‘a spectacular new shop
whose size and layout eclipsed all other chemists’ shops and, where possible, all
other retail businesses in the locality’.
41
This considerable advertising expendi-
ture embodied in their stores’ appearance was matched by extensive local press,
and other, advertising, to bring the prices of their ‘bargain’ lines to the attention
of the shopping public.
As the multiples grew they diversified into other economic activities. Some
acted as wholesalers for rurally based retailers. A number, such as Boots, Burton
and Lipton, also integrated backwards into manufacturing or primary produc-
tion. By Britain had a very substantial large-scale retailing sector; sixteen
multiples had over branches each, seven of which had over branches.
42
Almost all the largest multiples had become public companies by , some
ranking alongside Britain’s largest firms.
The evolution of Britain’s urban built environment
39
G. Shaw, ‘Changes in consumer demand and food supply in nineteenth-century British cities’,
Journal of Historical Geography, ().
40
G. Shaw, ‘The European scene: Britain and Germany’, in Benson and Shaw, eds., Evolution of
Retail Systems, p. .
41
S. Chapman, Jesse Boot of Boots the Chemists (London, ), p. .
42
Jefferys, Retail Trading, p. .
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