A Housing (and Civic) History of Huddersfield: Part II, 1919-1951, ‘well-conceived, extensive and rapidly executed housing schemes’

We left Huddersfield last week poised to play its part, with plans to build 1200 new council homes, in the ‘fit country for heroes to live in’ promised by prime minister Lloyd George at the end of the First World War. The 1919 Housing Act, championed by Christopher Addison, a newly designated Minister of Health and Housing in the post-war Coalition Government, was the apparent fulfilment of that promise. In this week’s post, we’ll assess the record of interwar housing provision in the town and examine housing developments in the town in the light of the renewed promises made for a better Britain in the Second World War. In that context, of course, Huddersfield was primarily an agent, or sometimes perhaps a victim, of national politics but before telling that story it’s worth looking again at ‘the unique political landscape of this West Riding Borough’. Huddersfield was politically distinct in two respects: in the failure of local Conservatives to surpass the Liberals and, in this…