Panel 7: “Beginnings” (1912-1922) Civic Campaigns and Family Tragedy

The 1920s and 1930s saw Ernest become a national authority on housing and he was knighted in recognition for his public work in 1932. During this period, he sat on committees which advised the government, spoke on national radio and wrote three books on housing, How to Abolish the Slums (1929), The Anti-Slum Campaign (1933), and The Rebuilding of Manchester (1935). The books drew on a plethora of nationwide statistical evidence as well as on his experience of Manchester. While Ernest documented the terrible state of housing in Britain for many millions of people he also offered practical solutions to address the crisis.

(Above) Source: Shena Simon Papers, Manchester Archives+. (Above) Ernest’s vision for central Manchester in The Rebuilding of Manchester (1935).

(Above) The striking cover artwork of Ernest’s How to Abolish the Slums (1929).

(Below) Maps from The Rebuilding of Manchester. The fi rst one shows the slum area in central Manchester and Wythenshawe to the south in 1935. The second map shows Ernest’s projection of how Manchester would look after 50 years of town planning resulting in the eradication of the slums and the completion of Wythenshawe. As a leading expert in housing reform Ernest argued that despite over two million new homes being built since the end of the First World War many of these even with rental subsidies were still unaffordable for the majority of the working-class who remained living in old slum houses which were only getting worse as the buildings aged. He feared that without affordable housing two million children would be destined to grow up in the slums. Locally it would mean that the poor in Manchester would not be able to move to Wythenshawe and enjoy the benefi ts of garden city living. He believed that local councils were the best agents for building new homes and that far greater subsidies from central government were needed to construct them at affordable rates. In Ernest’s eyes a great well-planned housing programme would additionally help to seriously abate unemployment which plagued Britain at the time.

(Above) The cover of The Rebuilding of Manchester (1935) juxtaposes overcrowded housing in central Manchester with tree-lined cottages newly constructed in Wythenshawe.

Manchester has a magnifi cent opportunity. She has made a splendid beginning at Wythenshawe. Let us hope that she will continue her great task of rebuilding the city with the same energy and vision; let us hope that we shall have in fi fty years’ time a fi ne, spacious, and wellplanned residential area where the slum belt now lies, and that our two satellite garden towns will be models for the whole world.

The concluding remarks of The Rebuilding of Manchester (1935).

Ernest also set a radical planning manifesto for Manchester. He imagined dramatically redrawing the city centre so that the slum-belt would be replaced by municipal fl ats, schools with open green playing fi elds, and new large parks which would feature a new exhibition hall and a modern cathedral. As part of his plan Ernest called for the building of 100,000 new homes by 1985, believing that building another garden satellite town similar in form to Wythenshawe would play a key role in meeting this challenging target.