Board of Guardians by contrasting the habits, the condition, and
prospects of a labourer occupying an improved cottage with the
occupier of a cottage of a contrary description. If we follow the
agricultural labourer into his miserable dwelling, we shall find it
consisting of two rooms only; the day-room, in addition to the family,
contains the cooking utensils, the washing apparatus, agricultural
implements, and dirty clothes, the windows broken, and stuffed full of
rags. In the sleeping apartment, the parents and their children, boys
and girls, are indiscriminately mixed, and frequently a lodger
sleeping in the same and the only room; generally no window, the
openings in the half-thatched roof admit light, and expose the family
to every vicissitude of the weather; the liability of the children so
situated to contagious maladies frequently plunges the family into the
greatest misery. The husband, enjoying but little comfort under his
own roof, resorts to the beer-shop, neglects the cultivation of his
garden, and impoverishes his family. The children are brought up
without any regard to decency of behaviour, to habits of foresight, or
self-restraint; they make indifferent servants; the girls become the
mothers of bastards, and return home a burden to their parents, or to
the parish, and fill the workhouse. The boys spend the Christmas
week’s holiday and their year’s wages in the beer shop, and enter upon
their new situation in rags. Soon tired of the restraint imposed upon
them under the roof of their master, they leave his service before the
termination of the year’s engagement, seek employment as
day-labourers, not with a view of improving their condition, but with
a desire to receive and spend their earnings weekly in the beer-shop;
associating with the worst of characters, they become the worst of
labourers, resort to poaching, commit petty thefts, and add to the
county rates by commitments and prosecutions.
“On the contrary, on entering an improved cottage, consisting on the
ground-floor of a room for the family, a wash-house and a pantry, and
three sleeping-rooms over, with a neat and well-cultivated garden, in
which the leisure hours of the husband being both pleasantly and
profitably employed, he has no desire to frequent the beer-shop or
spend his evenings from home; the children are trained to labour, to
habits and feelings of independence, and taught to connect happiness
with industry, and to shrink from idleness and immorality: the girls
make good servants, obtain the confidence of their employers, and get
promoted to the best situations. The boys, at the termination of the
year’s engagement, spend the Christmas week’s holiday comfortably
under the roof of their parents; clothes suitable for the next year’s
service are provided, and the residue of wages is deposited in the
savings’ bank; a system of frugality is engrafted with the first
deposit, increasing with every addition to the fund: they are
gradually employed in those departments of labour requiring greater
skill, and implying more confidence in their integrity and industry,
and they attain a position in society of comparative independence.
“I have selected an extreme case to show more fully the advantages
derived from improved cottages, and the immoral effects of inferior
dwellings, unfortunately too numerous, in this Union.
“I have the honour to be, sir,
“Your obedient servant,
“PETER LOWE.
“_To Robert Veale, Esq.,
“Assistant Poor Law Commissioner._”
Much regret is frequently expressed at the change of condition which has
taken place in the cultivation of the soil by farm labourers instead of
farm servants living in the house of the farmer, and subject to the
household rules at his board; but whatever real ground there may be to
regret the change, it appears to be one generally preferred by both
parties, and there appears to be no reason to expect that the ancient
system will be revived. In the Appendix I have given an examination of
the Rev. Thomas Whately, in reference to some frequent and most
important mistakes in respect to cottage economy.
The Board agreeing that the most important leading examples of
improvement were to be expected from the benevolence and public spirit
of opulent individuals, requested the assistant commissioners in England
to note the most conspicuous improvements of labourers’ tenements they
have met with in their districts, and procure plans with a view to their
promulgation. From these I have selected several examples, and have
added several that I have met with in the course of my own inquiries.
Some eligible plans of cottage tenements are thus described in _Mr.
Twisleton’s_ report from Norfolk and Suffolk:—
“Although the general aspect of the cottages in Norfolk and Suffolk is
pleasing and attractive, I do not think that these counties can be
generally cited as abounding with model cottages. Some of the best
which I have seen belong to the Earl of Stradbroke, at Henham, near
Halesworth in Suffolk; to the Earl of Leicester, at Holkham; and to
the Rev. Mr. Benyon, at Culford, about five miles from Bury St.
Edmunds. Those of the Earl of Stradbroke are built of brick, roofed
with tiles, have four rooms at least, and have all proper conveniences
of pantries, cupboards, and out-offices; but, at the same time, as
they are principally with only one story, so that the bed-rooms are on
the same floor with the parlour and kitchen, such cottages would only
be built where land is no object; and they must be considered in the
light of luxuries and ornaments. Some of the cottages of the Earl of
Leicester, at Holkham, are perhaps the most substantial and
comfortable which are to be seen in any part of England; and if all
the English peasantry could be lodged in similar ones, it would be the
realization of an Utopia. I have obtained from Mr. Emerson, of
Holkham, their builder, drawings of the plans and of the elevation of
eight of these cottages, which are built of brick roofed with tiles. I
herewith transmit them to you, and it will be observed that there are
three sets, two of two cottages each, and one of four cottages.
Without entering into details respecting all the eight, I will draw
your attention to the double cottages of 1819. Each of these has a
front room, 17 feet by 12 feet in width, and 7 feet to 7 feet 6 inches
high; a back kitchen of the same height, and 13 feet by 9 feet wide,
together with a pantry on the same floor. Above these are three
bed-rooms which, in different proportions, cover the space already
specified for the ground-floor. At a convenient distance behind, each
cottage has attached to it a wash-house, a dirt-bin, a privy, and a
pig-cot. I may add that the drainage is excellent, that the water is
good, that each cottage has about 20 rods of garden-ground, and that
the rent, including gardens, is only three guineas a-year. Hence it is
not to be wondered at that Mr. Emerson the builder has been enabled to
say, in a letter to me: ‘I have never known in them an instance of
fever or any epidemic.’
“These cottages are cited as showing what may be done by a landed
proprietor who takes as great a pride in his good cottages and farms
as others in fine hunters and race-horses, rather than with the least
intention of asserting that the example is ever likely to be
universally imitated. The cost of building two such cottages is stated
by Mr. Emerson to be 220_l._ or 230_l._, which would be 110_l._ or
115_l._ each. Now, although individuals, here and there, may build
cottages without regard to the pecuniary return, it may be assumed as
incontrovertible, that no class of cottages will be universally
adopted which does not command a reasonable interest for the money
expended on them. But considering the cost of repairs, and the
frequent trouble and uncertainty of obtaining the rents, it will
probably not be denied that 6_l._ a-year would be the _minimum_ as a
remunerative rent for the outlay of 110_l._ or 115_l._ on a cottage.
However, the rent of 6_l._ would scarcely be paid by the agricultural
population generally at the present wages: for reckoning the rate of
wages at 12_s._ a-week (which would be high for some parts of the
country), very few would be willing, out of that sum, to expend 2_s._
3¾_d._ a-week, or nearly a fifth of their earnings, for the rent of
their cottage.
“I would take, therefore, a more attainable standard of excellence in
the cottages of the Rev. E. Benyon, at Culford. This is a remarkable
village of about fifty cottages, built within the last twenty years by
Mr. Benyon de Beuvoir. The outward appearance of them is pretty, and
it was this which first attracted my attention to them. They are built
with bricks, faced with blue flint-stones, which harmonize agreeably
with the blue slate of the roofs. They have each four rooms—two below
and two above—with a pantry and a cupboard. I herewith transmit to you
plans and drawings of five of these cottages in two sets—one
consisting of double tenements, and one of three tenements. It will be
observed that the principal room is 14 feet by 12 feet wide, and 7
feet high, which is inferior in size to those at Holkham, and that
they have only two bed-rooms, while those at Holkham have three. At
the distance of a few feet from each set of cottages there is a wooden
building, roofed with tiles, which comprises a space for fuel, and a
privy for each cottage, and a common oven. The average cost of the
double cottages at Culford is stated to have been 170_l._, or 85_l._
each.”
_Mr. Loudon_, who has paid great attention to the subject of cottage
architecture, directs attention to the labourers’ cottages, either newly
erected, or altered, or improved, on the estate of Gregory Gregory,
Esq., at Harlaxton, near Grantham, Lincolnshire.
“The village of Harlaxton,” says Mr. Loudon, “is, if possible, more
interesting to us than even the new mansion and gardens. We have seen
many ornamented villages both at home and abroad, but none so original
and so much to our taste as this of Mr. Gregory’s. Some of old date
are too like rows of street houses, such as those of Newnham
Courtenay, near Oxford; and Harewood, near Leeds; others are too
affectedly varied and picturesque, such as that at Blaize Castle, near
Bristol; and some have the houses bedaubed with ornaments that have
not sufficient relation to use, as when rosettes and sculptures are
stuck on the walls, instead of applying facings to the windows,
porches to the doors, and characteristic shafts to the chimney tops.
We recollect one near Warsaw, which is a repetition of the Grecian
temple, with a portico at each end; and one at Peckra, near Moscow,
every opening in which has a pediment over it, with highly enriched
barge-boards. In some villages the attempt is made to ornament every
house with trellis-work round the doors and windows, which produces
great sameness of appearance, and if ornamental, is so at the expense
of comfort, the creepers by which the trellis-work is covered
darkening the rooms, and encouraging insects; while, in other
villages, the cottages are so low and so small, that it is obvious to
a passing spectator they cannot contain a single wholesome room.
However, though we find fault with villages ornamented in these ways,
we are still glad to see them, because any kind of alteration in the
dwellings and gardens of country labourers can hardly fail to be an
improvement, both with reference to the occupiers and to the country
at large.”
The external condition of the residence, and the apparent rank it holds,
is not without a beneficial moral effect on the occupants, by increasing
their self-respect and pride in the decencies of life. Mr. Loudon’s
enumeration of the requisites for cottage building are given in the
Appendix, together with views of the groups of cottages Mr. Gregory has
erected; contrasted with these is a group of hinds’ cottages, as
described by Dr. Gilly, in his appeal in behalf of the border peasantry,
from which a conception may be formed of the great difference in morals
as well as in health that may be anticipated from the effects of the
different order of residences on the population.
[Illustration:
GROUP OF NORTHUMBRIAN COTTAGES COPIED FROM REV^D. D^R. GILLY
]
[Illustration:
GROUPS OF DOUBLE COTTAGES AT HARLAXTON.
]
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
VILLAGE SHOP AND DOUBLE COTTAGE AT HARLAXTON.
]
[Illustration:
GROUP OF COTTAGES AT HARLAXTON.
]
PLANS OF A TREBLE COTTAGE FOR THREE FAMILIES,
SITUATED ON THE ESTATE OF
GREGORY GREGORY ESQ^R, AT HARLAXTON.
_Estimate, inducting all Expenses & Out Buildings, £ 280._
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_M^r. Twistleton’s Report on Cottages &c._
COTTAGES
BUILT BY
BENYON de BEAUVOIR, ESQ^R.
AT
CULFORD in SUFFOLK.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_M^r. Twistleton’s Report on Cottages &c._
COTTAGES BUILT BY THE EARL OF LEICESTER.
AT HOLKHAM. IN NORFOLK.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
_Dimensions of Cottage._
_1. It is 36 feet in front. Its cost about £70._
_2. Each room is 16 feet square & 8 feet in height._
_3. There are two Garrets, used for sleeping rooms._
_2_
_Apartments._
Nº 1 _Is a necessary._
2 _Coal, Wood & Peat House._
3 _Scullery._
4 _Larder._
5 _Cowhouse._
6 _Kitchen._
7 _Sitting room._
8 & 9 _are Garrets._
_3_
_Warming Apparatus._
_Behind the fire place of No. 6, Kitchen, is an Iron box, one side of
this Iron box, made of strong sheet or plate Iron, forms the back of the
fire place of No. 6. As two plates of iron are rivetted together,
leaving a space of 6 inches between the plates which forms a box, a
passage or pipe below the door as seen in the Plan, opened through the
wall. This pipe or passage made of stone or brick, or of iron, admits a
current of cold air to pass into the Iron box. This air entering the box
and being heated by the fire in No. 6, gives its warmth out to No. 7. By
means of a pipe which ascends from the top of the Iron box the two
garret rooms are warmed. Wet linen may be dried by placing a screen with
it before the Iron box in room No. 7._
_4_
_The advantages of a fire place No. 7, constructed with an Iron plate
for its back, and made into a box having two Iron plates fastened
together, as seen in the Iron box between rooms No. 6 & 7, are that_
_1. One fire place is made to warm two apartments on the same floor,
and by means of an Iron pipe, warm air is conveyed into the two
garrets above._
_2. The house can never be damp with such a simple economical method
of heating._
_3. In the Southern, Eastern & Midland Counties of England, where fuel
is sold at a high price, it is beneficial for the labourer to heat
his house in the manner just shown in the Closeburn Cottage._
_4. Much of the sickness of the labourer and delicacy of his children
proceed from damp Cottages._
PLAN OF COTTAGES
ERECTED BY SIR STEWART MENTEATH, BARONET,
FOR HIS LABOURERS AT CLOSEBURN.
[Illustration]
PLANS OF COTTAGES ERECTED AT EGERTON FOR H. & E. ASHWORTH.
[Illustration]
PLANS OF A DOUBLE COTTAGE, ERECTED AT BOLLINGTON.
[Illustration]
PLAN
OF THE
FARM COTTAGES
ERECTED UPON
_THE EARL of ROSEBERRY’S ESTATES_.
[Illustration]
I have been favoured by the Earl of Roseberry with plans of the new
labourers’ cottages he has built on his property in Scotland, which have
been highly approved by the Highland Society, who have inserted the
plans for publication in their “Transactions,” _vide_ Appendix. I have
been favoured by James Monteath, Esq., with a model of the cottages
erected by his father, Sir Stewart Monteath, Bart., for his labourers at
Closeburn. The plan of these cottages presents an important improvement,
by which one fire-place is made to warm two apartments on the same
floor, and by means of an air pipe warms the air in the two rooms above
them. I was informed that it admits of a further improvement in
practice, namely, of some means of closing the access of the warm air to
the sleeping-rooms during summer.
The best plans I have obtained of tenements in actual occupation of the
rural manufacturing population appear to be those at Turton, and those
erected at Bollington. The best plans of labourers’ tenements in towns
are those supplied by Mr. Hodgson, and the Committee of Physicians and
Surgeons at Birmingham; the drawings and working plans of which I have
appended.
In several of the plans for the rural districts there is one appendage
of the cottage of which the best-informed witnesses consider they ought
invariably to be divested, namely, a pigsty. The medical witnesses
strongly object that it is injurious to the health, especially in rows
of cottages, as it occasions accumulations of filthy refuse. Other
witnesses, such as the Rev. Thomas Whately, object that the pig is not
economical to the labourer, and that it furnishes a temptation to
dishonesty. His evidence on that subject, and on the other more
important question of large cottage allotments, will be found in the
Appendix.
Mr. Loudon has favoured me with two drawings and plans of model
cottages, which need no other explanation than the specification. These
comprise the best examples that have come under observation during the
present inquiry of tenements in occupation that are well approved on
trial.
Every detail, however, of the materials with which the cottage is
constructed, and the mode of its construction, deserve, and there is
little doubt will obtain, most careful attention, for it is only by
considering their comforts in detail that they can be improved, or the
aggregate effect on the immense masses of the community can be analyzed
and estimated. For example, it has been mentioned that a decided
difference is perceptible in the health and condition of workmen of the
same class who live in houses made of brick as compared with those
living in houses made of stone.
A gentleman who has attentively observed the condition of the working
classes in the north of Lancashire, and the north of Cheshire, states
that the general health of the labourers in the north of Lancashire is
decidedly inferior. This inferiority he ascribes to several causes, and,
amongst others, to damp cottages, and—
“Wood and wattled houses, such as our forefathers built, are the
driest and warmest of all; brick is inferior in both these requisites
of a comfortable house; but stone, especially the unhewn stone as it
is necessarily employed for cottages, is the very worst material
possible for the purpose. I prefer the Irish mud cottages. The evil
arises from two causes. The stone is not impervious to water,
especially when the rain is accompanied by high winds; and it sucks up
the moisture of the ground, and gives it out into the rooms; but
principally, stone is a good conductor of heat and cold, so that the
walls cooled down by the outer air are continually condensing the
moisture contained in the warmer air of the cottage, just as the
windows steam on a frosty morning; besides, the abstraction of heat in
stone houses must be a serious inconvenience. The effect of this
condensation must be, and is, to make clothes, bedding, &c., damp,
whenever they are placed near the wall, and therefore extremely
prejudicial to those who wear the clothes or sleep in the beds. Of
course I do not attribute all the damp of our cottages in this
neighbourhood to the stone; much of it is due to the wet climate, wet
soil, and building so near the ground; but the stone, as a material of
building, must bear a considerable share of the blame. I believe, too,
it is partly the cause of the very great difference of cleanliness of
the Cheshire farming people and ours of the same class.
“Indeed the Cheshire people were brought up to wooden cottages: brick
was of later introduction. The greater facilities and inducements to
cleanliness in a dry house would, in the course of time, form a more
cleanly people, and superior healthiness would follow.”
_Mr. Parker_ observes, that the construction of the cottages in
Buckinghamshire is frequently unwholsome:—
“The improper materials of which cottages are built, and their
defective construction, are also the frequent cause of the serious
indisposition of the inmates. The cottages at Waddesdon, and some of
the surrounding parishes in the Vale of Aylesbury, are constructed of
mud, with earth floors and thatched roofs. The vegetable substances
mixed with the mud to make it bind, rapidly decompose, leaving the
walls porous. The earth of the floor is full of vegetable matter, and
from there being nothing to cut off its contact with the surrounding
mould, it is peculiarly liable to damp. The floor is frequently
charged with animal matter thrown upon it by the inmates, and this
rapidly decomposes by the alternate action of heat and moisture.
Thatch placed in contact with such walls speedily decays, yielding a
gas of the most deleterious quality. Fever of every type and diarrhœa
are endemic diseases in the parish and neighbourhood. Next to good
drainage and thorough ventilation, the foundation of a cottage is the
most important consideration. A foundation, to be good, must not only
be sufficiently strong to bear the superstructure, and of sufficient
depth to cut off all connexion with the surrounding vegetable mould
and that beneath the floor, but also be constructed of materials
calculated to resist moisture. The best materials for this purpose are
concrete and sound bricks, partially vitrified in the kiln or clamp.
If such bricks be well laid with mortar composed of sharp sand,
containing no vegetable substances, and the concrete be free from
earthy particles, well mixed and firmly thrown together, the admission
of damp will be entirely avoided. Stone, chalk, bricks which are not
thoroughly burnt, impure mortar, and wood, have all a tendency to
absorb moisture, which, if once received by such materials, ascends,
or ‘creeps up,’ as it is technically called by builders, and thus
affects the whole building. To avoid this “creeping up,” builders are
in the habit of placing a tire of slate in foundations above the
surface mould, a remedy of a temporary character only, for the action
of damp entirely destroys slate. Roman cement has also been used for
this purpose, but the sand mixed with this material renders it in some
degree porous. It has lately been suggested that a course of
well-burnt bricks set in asphalte would effectually prevent this
absorption of surface-water, and a favourable opinion of this plan has
been expressed by two intelligent architects.”
He adds that—
“In Berkshire the floors of the cottages are laid with red tiles,
called ‘flats,’ or with bricks of a remarkable porous quality, and as
each of these tiles or bricks will absorb half a pint of water, so do
they become the means by which vapour is generated. The cleanly
housewife, who prides herself upon the neat and fresh appearance of
her cottage, pours several pails of water upon the floor, and when she
has completed her task with the besom, she proceeds to remove with a
mop or flannel so much of the water as the bricks have not absorbed.
“After having cleansed the cottage, the fire is usually made up to
prepare the evening meal, and vapour is created by the action of the
heat upon the saturated floor. Thus the means adopted to purify the
apartment are equally as injurious to the health of the inmates as the
filth and dirt frequently too abundant in the cottages of labouring
persons.