Thread: Housing Problems During WWII

Caravans served as a temporary measure to overcome the housing problem near Elstree, Hertfordshire, on land which prior to the war was a holiday camp site. Some 20 families lived in these caravans, which were either rented or self-owned; the inhabitants were Service people, munitions workers and evacuees, whose children attended the village school. The community was self-contained and well-ordered, (1) The Caravans town at Elstree; (2) Inside a caravan, where space was limited and domestic arrangements were simple; cooking was done individually on stoves with cylinder gas containers or coal fires.

Emergency houses to help immediate needs in post war Britain were mentioned by Winston Churchill in his broadcast on March 26th 1944. One of the prefabricated steel houses of which it was hoped to build 500,000, had been erected in London. (4) The house had a living-room, two bedrooms, kitchen, (3) and bathroom, lavatory and shed. Another type of two-storey prefabricated house produced by a Hull firm (5) was erected in just under nine hours, Workmen are seen laying the floors. (6)

"Housing was the most threatened sector on the home front;" declared the Prime Minister on November 29, 1944, Eight days earlier the appointment had been announced Of Mr. Duncan Sandys, M.P., as Minister of Works, in succession to Lord Portal. In a subsequent debate Mr. Sandys disclosed that the bomb damaged houses in London alone totalled over 800,000 and that the cost of repairs undertaken up to December 7 1944 amounted to well over £35,000,000. Over 200,000 men and women, he said, were engaged on London repairs, which had been granted a priority second only to urgent work of operational importance.

The Phoenix house (1), which was to replace the original Portal dwelling, was still on the “secret list;” in 1945, it contained a living room, 2 bedrooms and a kitchen with a refrigerator. Steel framed, this type was built largely of concrete and asbestos. The all electric kitchen (2) was a feature of the new B.I.S.F. houses built on rolled steel frames.

U.S. sappers took only 7 days to clear a bomb site and erect the first of many temporary dwellings (3) they were constructing in Lambeth; it was of the curved asbestos type. Just over a fortnight was taken to complete the first prefabricated semi-detached homes at Burnt Oak, Middlesex (4) which had both framework and window frames of steel. In the badly blitzed district of Poplar; in London’s East End, single storied houses built in the Midlands brought south by lorry are seen being put up on bombed sites, all with Anderson Shelters in the back gardens. (5)

The new Minister further revealed that General-Eisenhower had placed 3,000 U.S. sappers at the Governments disposal for the clearing of London bomb-sites and the building of temporary dwellings. While the pressed steel bungalows known as "Portals" would not be produced till after the war he was considering calling for the manufacture of prefabricated houses from contractors who had built the invasion harbours.

This picture shows huts that were built for the bombed out at Loughborough Gardens, Lambeth, South London, mentioned in the post above (3). The huts were erected by U.S. troops. Each of curved asbestos which had two bedrooms, 9 ft. by 10; a living-room 10 ft. by 12; and a kitchen 9 ft. by 12. Gas and water were laid on. Fourteen homeless families had moved in during February 1945. More than 330 similar huts were built during the early months of 1945.

Model for 30,000 prefabricated two bedroom temporary emergency dwellings for Lend-Lease to Great Britain