Prince Albert and Social Housing
- Jan 25, 2025
- 5 min read
You may think that Social Housing is a modern thing, but actually it’s origins go back further than you might realise. Whilst social housing on a mass scale was something developed in the early twentieth century, particularly with the 1919 Housing and Planning Act, which aimed to provide houses for those returning from the First World War, there were efforts in the Victorian period. These were mostly smaller scale projects that aimed provide much better housing for those living in slum like conditions in the big cities, most notably London.
Sadly despite best efforts, these examples didn’t really fulfil their aim in encouraging bigger social housing opportunities. However, an early pioneer of the housing was actually Prince Albert, consort to Queen Victoria. Personally, I can either give or take the Victorian period, but I have always admired Albert, his philanthropy and eagerness to be involved in many different projects. His involvement in early social housing is often overlooked, so this post seeks to rectify that a little.
Albert’s association with social housing came from his role as the first president of Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes (SICLC). This society, formed in 1844, came out of the previous Labour’s Friend Society, was spearheaded by Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. They had three main aims: to provide community allotments; to provide modern housing of good quality and/or refurbish existing stock; and to provide a fair loan system.
The Society began in earnest to build what they called ‘model’ housing. By the end 1844, their first example of social housing was in construction. Their efforts came from a place of good hearts, who clearly wanted to improve the lot of people living in poverty. Their also found the architect Henry Roberts, who designed their model housing, including the examples funded by Prince Albert. However, by capping the Society’s dividends at 4% a year, they found it difficult to attract the capital needed to fund their schemes.
One of the other things that Prince Albert spearheaded was the Great Exhibition of 1851. This exhibition was meant to showcase all the industry and innovation that Britain and its empire was capable of to a worldwide audience. Albert, as well as the SICLC, saw this as an excellent opportunity to advance the need for adequate housing for the poorer and working classes.
What was Prince Albert’s motivation behind financing this social housing? Was it a case of a privileged man wanting to force his ideals on others? No, the answer is simple, as discussed in the illustrated encyclopaedia published to showcase everything shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851.
[The Model Dwellings were] an intervention which was much wanted, which humanity had called out for in vain, as all who know who have inspected the abodes of the industrious and poorer classes . . . “Prince Albert’s Model Houses for Families,” The Crystal Palace and its Contents (1851)
The Exhibition committee didn’t see things the same way as Albert and the SICLC did. The committee saw the model housing proposed to be against the principles of the Exhibition. Not only would a brick building look at odds with the futuristic Crystal Palace being designed by Joseph Paxton to house the Exhibition, but they didn’t want to highlight the social distress that industry was creating.
With Prince Albert at the head of both of Exhibition and the SICLC, a compromise was eventually reached. The model housing could be showcased, but as long as it was located nearby to the Crystal Palace at Hyde Park, under the umbrella of the Great Exhibition. The model housing was eventually placed at Knightsbridge barracks, opposite Hyde Park. Despite the arm’s length distance held between the main Exhibition and Albert’s model housing, it proved popular. It is estimated that around 250,000 visitors saw the housing, including notable philanthropists Charles Dickens and Angela Burdett Coutts.
What visitors saw was a clean, spacious, private and airy dwelling. The house was itself split into four flats, two on the bottom floor and two on the top. Each flat was designed to have a living room, kitchen/scullery, three bedrooms and an inside toilet. It was completely unlike the slum housing the upper and middle classes very often toured in a zoo-like manner. The last room on the tour was full of pamphlets and books campaigning against the current state of slum housing and showcasing the need for improved housing, along with plans and drawings of imagined and existing examples. There were also representatives from the SICLC available for any questions.
The plans and drawings were later published so that anyone in Britain, or around the world could access them. In fact, architect Henry Roberts later mentioned how other people had contacted him for advice for similar projects across the country and the world. Sadly though, these efforts were never centralised, so they remained on a small scale. It is clear that in general, the model housing shown at the Great Exhibition had positive feedback, but there was a reluctance to implement wide policies by governments to offer this kind of housing.
After the end of the Great Exhibition, a permanent home was needed for the model housing. It was then placed at Kennington Park Road, just three miles away from the Knightsbridge barracks. It was a laborious task moving it though as it had to be rebuilt brick by brick. Since 2003, it has been the home of the environmental charity, Trees for Cities.
Both Prince Albert and the Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes, among others, had hoped that a new trend for developing and offering social housing to those in poverty, fuelled by its showcasing at the Great Exhibition. It did in fact receive a mixed reception, albeit mostly positive. However, critics did say see the model housing as an infringement on people’s right to live how they wished. Whilst that is a somewhat simplistic view of the realities of the Victorian poor, it was also, to a certain extent, the opinion of governments and authorities at the time. Still, I utterly commend Prince Albert and the SICLC for trying their hardest to highlight an ever growing problem in their own time, even if history hasn’t necessarily kept hold of their story as well as it should have done.
Bibliography:
Barbara Leckie, ‘Prince Albert’s Exhibition Model Dwellings’, https://branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=barbara-leckie-prince-alberts-exhibition-model-dwellings John Nelson Tarn, Five Per Cent Philanthropy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973) On London, ‘Vic Keegan’s Lost London 73: Prince Albert’s mansions for the poor’, https://www.onlondon.co.uk/vic-keegans-lost-london-73-prince-alberts-mansions-for-the-poor/ Royal Collection Trust, https://www.rct.uk/collection/1073140/the-model-houses-for-families-built-in-connexion-with-the-great-exhibition-of The Londonphile, ‘Prince Albert’s Model Cottages’, https://thelondonphile.com/2012/05/02/prince-alberts-model-cottages/
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