Panel 3: The Solution – Build a Completely New Garden City for Manchester

Baguley Sanitorium in 1916. Source: Manchester Local Image Collection, ref. m52568.

Around the same time the idea of building a garden city for Manchester had arisen in the mind of William Turner Jackson. Jackson was a Labour councillor, later alderman, originally from Nottinghamshire and was chairman of the sanitary committee. As chairman he worked with the Simons to create municipal maternity centres and combat air pollution. His role on the council meant that he often visited Baguley Sanitorium, and it was from these trips that he envisaged developing housing along garden city lines in Wythenshawe in early 1919. Ernest was captivated by the idea and publicly supported Jackson’s vision. Soon after in November that year Ernest was reelected as councillor for Didsbury and was chosen as chairman of the new housing committee which Jackson was part of too. Ernest noted his delight at the possibilities this afforded:

Nov 6. I was awake for nearly four hours last night – an unprecedented thing – from sheer excitement. My unopposed return to the City Council, followed by the extraordinary Labour wins, which have corrected a 30 year old Tory majority into a working Progressive majority, opens up vistas of useful & even thrilling work which I can hardly yet grasp… I have every hope of becoming Chairman of the Housing Committee, with a sympathetic Council.

The close of the First World War witnessed major developments in housing reform. In 1918 the Tudor Walters report was published. The report, heavily infl uenced by garden city architect Raymond Unwin, called for new working-class houses to be well-spaced apart, well-lit by sunlight, and to have good ventilation, a garden and a bathroom. In December Manchester-born David Lloyd George was elected Prime Minister on a pledge to build “Homes Fit for Heroes”. His government introduced the Addison Act 1919 which gave local authorities such as Manchester City Council the means to build houses for the working-class.

(Left) The ‘Father of Wythenshawe’: William Turner Jackson. Jackson is photographed here as Lord Mayor in 1923. Source: Manchester Local Image Collection, ref. m73579.

(Below) The practical case for low density housing to allow daylight made in the infl uential Tudor Walters report (1918).

With the new ability given to councils to build houses Ernest hoped “to make Manchester Housing scheme the best in the country: to do a bit of constructive Socialism by showing that a municipality can build houses”. The committee wasted no time in instructing the City Surveyor as well as the leading academic town planner Patrick Abercrombie to produce reports on the possibility of the council developing Wythenshawe. The reports produced in December 1919 and March 1920 could not have been more exciting for Jackson and Ernest who hoped to turn their dreams into reality. Not long after in 1921 the Council resolved to purchase Wythenshawe. “The estate generally is admirably suited for building development, and undoubtedly ranks as one of the fi nest sites within the county of Cheshire… If laid out on sound and broad town planning lines it would form one of the fi nest garden cities in the United Kingdom, affording a residential district for the working-classes of Manchester suffi ciently removed from the smoky atmosphere of a large industrial centre, yet within easy access, where the people would be housed in the midst of delightful surroundings”. Excerpt from Report of City Surveyor taken from The Rebuilding of Manchester by Ernest Simon and J. Inman. (1935).

(Above) Daily Dispatch, 13th February 1922. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.

In November 1921 Ernest and Shena became the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Manchester and were determined to use their positions to promote causes dear to their hearts. Ernest used his opening speech upon becoming Lord Mayor in November 1921 to urge Manchester’s citizens to take a greater interest in civic affairs so as to replicate the ancient Athenians and their triumphs. Central to this was Ernest’s hope that developing garden cities for Manchester ‘to transfer to those cities large portions of the population now forced to live in slums’ would ‘do much to stimulate… a keener civic spirit among the citizens’. Shena too wasted no time as Lady Mayoress to improve the position of women in the city. Within the fi rst fortnight of becoming Lady Mayoress, in a deliberate political gesture, she turned down a request to distribute Christmas presents at St Mary’s hospital. Dismayed by the fact that there were no women involved in managing the hospital specifi cally for women and children, Shena’s refusal sparked a tide of interest in the press. On Christmas eve Ernest refl ected on their term so far:

We are immensely enjoying our year of ‘morality’, as a provincial mayor has called it. Shena complains that she does all the bazaars & I get all the dinners! It has all gone well so far, the only stunt being Shena’s ‘No’ to St Mary’s hospital, when asked to distribute Xmas presents. She refused because there were no women on the board or staff; & there was a regiving press campaign for a fortnight. It was a border line case; but proved a great success & I think did good. Everybody (except the men doctors!) falls in love with Shena wherever she goes; as for me I have managed the ceremonial side better than I expected.

Ernest Simon’s diary, 24th December 1921

Source: Ernest Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+ (Below) Ernest and Shena visiting a hospital children’s ward (1922). Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.

(Above) Shena’s refusal to give out Christmas presents at the women’s hospital makes the headlines. The Daily Sketch, 26th November 1921. Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+.

Shena’s position was vindicated when in March the following year the management conceded and appointed two women to its board. This victory was overshadowed, however, by Ernest falling very ill with pneumonia in February. Ernest wrote in his diary how he was ‘kept alive by brandy & morphia & hourly doses of oxygen’. Ernest returned to mayoral duties in May, using his recuperation to fi nish his fi rst book The Smokeless City. Alongside helping Ernest through his illness, Shena continued her busy work as Lady Mayoress. As Lady Mayoress Shena actively encouraged more women to participate in civic affairs to help address the problems facing women. Shena believed that new municipal homes with modern amenities built away from factories, pollution and dirt would help to end the tyrannical demands of housework and allow women to begin to take their place as citizens. Towards the end of their tenure in October 1922 Ernest reiterated the demand for a garden city for the citizens of Manchester to applause at the Town Hall. The realisation of Manchester’s garden city, however, was to prove far from straightforward.