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Articles
Churchill’s Push for Prefabs: Real “Homes for Heroes”
- By NICK BOSANQUET & ANDREW HALDENBY
- | April 18, 2023
- Category: Churchill in the Nuclear Age Explore
“Prefabs are far superior…”
On 26 March 1944, Churchill broadcast to the people for the first time in a year. In a speech entitled “Our greatest effort is approaching,” the Prime Minister declared that his most personal and specific commitments were about temporary housing, later called prefabs.
Churchill’s hope was to make half a million prefabricated homes: “The whole business is to be treated as a military evolution handled by the Government, with private industry harnessed to its service,” he said. “And I have every hope and a firm resolve that several hundred thousand of our young men will be able to marry several hundred thousand of our young women and make their own ‘four-years plan.’”1 In the home design stage, women particularly were to be consulted.
He went on like a modern-day IKEA salesman. Prefabs, he said, “are, in my opinion, far superior to the ordinary cottage as it exists today. Not only have they excellent baths, gas or electric kitchenettes and refrigerators; but their walls carry fitted furniture—chests of drawers, hanging cupboards, and tables—which today it would cost £80 to buy.” (That is the equivalent of £3,400 today. He might have added that it would then have needed an unattainable number of ration points.)
“People’s Palaces”
The programme continued under the Labour government elected in July 1945. It handily survived attacks from killer sharks in the bureaucracy. By the end of 1947, when it closed, nearly 156,000 prefabs had been built. In the first ten years they were very popular: a “people’s palace” at a rent (in Birmingham) of 14s 7d a week (£30 in today’s money). By 1948, 1% of the then-48 million Britons were living in prefabs—and 20% of British infants. Couples with children were given priority by housing officers.
For many, prefabs represented the new Britain they’d fought for:
“I will never forget my joy at first seeing our lovely house—the built-in cupboards, wardrobes etc. were unbelievable. After living with my parents and two daughters, plus my husband and brother (after their demobilisation), it was heaven” —Ruth Haynes, who moved into her aluminium bungalow in 1947.2
“It had a fitted fridge, a kitchen table that folded into the wall and a bathroom. Friends and family came visiting to view the wonders. It seemed like living in a spaceship.” —Lord Kinnock, former Labour Party leader, who lived in an Arcon Mark V prefab from 1947 to 1961.
“The bath was a luxury early in 1947. Also having a flush toilet in those days was really great and inside the bathroom. With an electric cooker, electric washing facilities and a fridge, it was lovely after coming home from the War” —R.H. Clements.3
The PM as promoter
“I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded.
In fact, if anything, I am a prod.”
—WSC, House of Commons, 11 November 1942
Churchill’s March 1944 broadcast was followed by a publicity campaign. There was an exhibition of five different designs at the Tate Gallery and a demonstration at Northolt of how a prefab could be built in a couple of days. Minister of Works Lord Portal competed with Minister of Reconstruction Lord Woolton to facilitate the programme.
Churchill visited the Tate exhibition with every sign of approval. By September, however, he was becoming anxious. On 2 September he wrote to Sir Edward Bridges, the Cabinet Secretary: “I am concerned about the position of our prefabricated houses.” Having made public pledges to the troops, he was mindful of holdups.
The Prime Minister blamed delays on housing faddists, local authorities and Members of Parliament: “If we are not careful we shall be so busy over design that we shall finish up with Nissen Huts.” A Committee of the Cabinet was set up, with Portal and Brendan Bracken as members.4 Two weeks later, despite attending the Quebec Conference, Churchill was still prodding. In a top secret telegram, he asked Max Beaverbrook, then Lord Privy Seal, for a progress report.
There is no evidence that the Cabinet Committee ever met. Yet for a number of reasons the Ministry of Works was stirred to action. One reason was the appointment in October 1944 of Churchill’s son-in-law Duncan Sandys as Minister of Works.
The war intrudes
The need for prefabs was accentuated by the extensive damage caused by the V1 flying bombs and V2 rockets, Hitler’s vaunted secret weapons. Together they destroyed more houses than the 1940-41 London Blitz. Though they didn’t last as long, they obliterated 25,000 residences, compared to 22,000 in the Blitz.
Pressure to do something about rehousing increased, but with bricklayers and carpenters scattered, there was little chance to create many residences. Even though the government gave it great priority by starting it in wartime, the Temporary Housing Programme seemed to be getting nowhere.
On 23 February 1945 Sandys made a statement citing difficulties with sites and materials, which sounded like the end of prefabs. Firms were warned not to expect further orders. The “temporary bungalows” (Sandys’s phrase) seemed doomed.5
Churchill was not having it, however. The next day John Colville reported “Duncan being in disgrace over a statement he made about housing without first consulting the PM or the Cabinet.”6 In early March, Churchill made a strong statement to the Conservative Party Council expressing support for the prefabs. On 18 April Clementine Churchill, visiting Russia on a medical aid mission, asked: “How is Duncan getting on with housing?”7
In one of Churchill’s last Cabinet papers on 3 July 1945, he recommended “an intensive drive forward with housing programme.” Special brigades of demobilized men were to be enlisted for two years on exceptionally favourable terms. Their task was “to go from one part of the country to another getting the thing started.” Even prisoners of war were used.
Ministry of Works accomplishments
During the war, the Ministry of Works developed a formidable and now forgotten record for achievement under the leadership of its Director General, Sir Hugh Beaver. The RAF started the war using mainly grass fields. The Ministry built 600 airfields, transporting 14 million lorry loads of cement and ballast. Each runway was the equivalent of 40 miles of roadway. Bomber bases also needed accommodation. The Works teams (many from Southern Ireland) built 100 million square-feet of prefabs for 400,000 people—and all in 1942-43.8
The Ministry drew on its own teams and its close links to engineering companies to promote prefabs. It had the depots to organize kits (see pictures of electrics). It also had the flexibility to use different materials. The first Portal design, in steel, proved unviable because of steel shortages. They had to use aluminium where left over from bombers and asbestos/cement sheets for panelling. The Ministry was able to order sealed units (a British addition to the U.S. concept) for electrics and plumbing which were fitted between the back-to-back kitchen and bathroom with its “man-sized bath” and constant hot water—all easy to install and maintain.
On 1 October 1945, Labour Minister of Works George Tomlinson reported that 4,152 houses had been completed, and 10,207 had begun.9 Local authorities had handed over 50,967 sites. Over 2,800 completions were in London, but there were some in every region in England—enough for coverage in local papers. Yet the Labour Government had only been in office for two months. Most of this work had been done under the Churchill Coalition and Caretaker governments, mainly as a result of Churchill’s personal pressure.
“Costly but worthwhile”
The sight of the multiplying prefabs created momentum. The circling sharks complained about costs far higher than expected. Unforeseen costs arose from preparing sites for drainage and electricity. American cost data, mainly drawn by the British Burt Committee and the U.S. Tennessee Valley Authority, proved misleading. American prefabs were smaller, lighter and mobile, without fixed services. They were mobile homes which could be moved from work site to work site. Britain originally ordered 30,000 of these. The order was later reduced to 8,000 as costs rose with the sudden end of Lend Lease.
There were also complaints about the lavish use of space. Each prefab had a garden, and two permanent houses could be fitted into one prefab site. Yet the shortage of materials and tradesmen to build permanent homes meant that the choice for some time was between prefabs or no buildings at all. The Ministry of Works could, after all, deliver new prefabs on bomb sites or on the edge of parks in days. It must have seemed like magic after six years of war.
The Temporary Housing Programme was brought to an end early, with a Commons Adjournment debate on 12 February 1948. John Edwards, Parliamentary Secretary at the Ministry of Health, summed up:
…the Temporary Housing Programme is a legacy we inherited from the previous government. It has been a somewhat expensive undertaking. Nevertheless when completed it will have been the means of providing accommodation for more than 156,000 families in houses which are very well equipped and with which I am certain the occupants are thoroughly satisfied. To that extent we may regard the cost, heavy though it is, as having been well worthwhile.10
So Churchill’s flair and push for prefabs succeeded after all.
Life in prefabs
What of the prefabs? In the first years there was a great community spirit. The gardens were used for growing vegetables. Tricycles plied the concrete paths. “My parents loved living there because the children had so much freedom,” said resident June Sowerby. “All the residents had children and it had a good community spirit.” Monday was washing day. “It was a matter of pride to be the first to have a billowing line of washing,” recalled Jill Shilvock. “My Mum was very houseproud, and would invariably take great satisfaction in looking down the gardens to see that she was invariably one of the first to achieve this aim.”
“Each pair of prefabs shared one water pipe coming into the two homes, and it was possible to call the next-door neighbour by simply running the cold tap in the kitchen and making it rattle, said Ken Wakefield. “My Mum had her own code to talk to her friend next door. Turning the tap on twice meant ‘Come round for a cuppa’ and three would be ‘I’m coming round, put the kettle on.’”11
Most family photos were taken outside prefabs on sunny days in summer. The mega-winter of 1946-47 must have been a trial, but at least they had heating and hot water, uncommon in a time when even the rich shivered.
Real “homes for heroes”
Prefabs now have an excellent virtual museum and some survivors in London and Bristol have been listed as historic buildings.12 The utopia lasted for about 15 years. After that the picture was more mixed. With the lure of car-owning, some tenants moved out, and many prefabs were demolished. Some of the remaining tenants were happy: others were cold and damp, as remembered by a retired NHS physiotherapist in Bolton.13
Winston Churchill’s determination to help solve the housing shortage with prefabs helped him over what might have been a dangerous year for his reputation. The Wartime Coalition government deserved more credit than it received for its extensive reform programme. Churchill avoided the trap mentioned in his note of 12 January 1943: “Ministers should in my view be careful not to raise false hopes, as was done last time, by speeches about homes for heroes.”14 He remains the only prime minister to have polled 80% approval throughout his term of office.
Endnotes
1 Winston S. Churchill (hereinafter WSC), World Broadcast 26 March 1944, The Dawn of Liberation (London: Cassell 1945), 38-49.
2 Greg Stevenson, Palaces for the People: Prefabs in Post-War Britain (London: Batsford 2002), 103.
3 Ibid., 108.
4 WSC to Sir Edward Bridges. 2 September 1944, in Martin Gilbert & Larry P. Arnn, eds., The Churchill Documents, 20, Normandy and Beyond, May-December 1944 (Hillsdale, Mich.: Hillsdale College Press, 2018), 1248.
5 Duncan Sandys, “Modification of Temporary Programme,” House of Commons, 23 February 1945, in Hansard, vol. 408, col. 1100-08.
6 John Colville, 24 February 1944 in The Fringes of Power: Downing Street Diaries 1939-1955 (London: Hodder and Stoughton 1985), 564.
7 Clementine S. Churchill to WSC, 18 April 1945, in Gilbert & Arnn, The Churchill Documents, vol. 21, The Shadows of Victory, January-July 1945 (Hillsdale College Press, 2018), 1028.
8 M. Kohan, Works and Buildings, History of the Second World War (London: HMSO, 1952).
9 George Tomlinson, Temporary Housing Programme (London: Ministry of Works, 1945).
10 John Edwards, Temporary Housing Programme. Hansard, 12 February 1948, vol. 447, col. 691-700.
11 Quotations from Stevenson, 143-44
12 Prefab Museum, accessed 2 April 2023.
13 Personal interview, Janet Edwards.
14 Churchill W.S. Promises About Post-War Conditions. Appendix F. p.861. The Second World War, Vol I The Hinge of Fate. London: Cassell 1951.
The authors
Dr. Nick Bosanquet was formerly Professor of Health Policy, Imperial College London. His publications include Our Land at War (2014), on key sites for medical and other services in the First World War. Andrew Haldenby, former Director of Reform, a UK-based think tank. Together they are co-founders of the consultancy, Aiming for Health Success.