Model Housing Schemes

In the 19th century, a number of local philanthropists – notably Edward Akroyd at Copley and Akroydon and John Crossley at West Hill Park - built model housing developments to improve the quality of life for the poor of the district. There was probably degree of competition between the two families.

Similar schemes in other parts of Britain include:

• The New Lanark model community of David Dale, Robert Owen and Richard Arkwright which began in 1800
• The Quakers' Middlesbrough Estate [1830]
• Sir Titus Salt's Saltaire [from around 1851]

  Sir H. W. Ripley's Ripleyville [1863]

• W. H. Lever's Port Sunlight, Birkenhead [1890]
• George Cadbury's Bourneville, Birmingham – these houses could by rented by people who were not Cadbury's workers
• Joseph Rowntree's model village at New Earswick, York in 1902
• The Peabody Trust built many – rather plain and austere – blocks of apartments in and around London and began with a gift from an American merchant, George Peabody [1795-1869] who moved to London in 1837. The Trust has its own Act of Parliament which specifies the Trust's charitable objectives to work solely within the London region for the relief of poverty. Today, this is now one of London's largest housing associations, providing over 19,500 homes across the capital

There are model villages in other parts of West Yorkshire:

• Havercroft
• New Crofton
• Walton
• Wilshaw

From the mid-19th century, the availability of funds from the new building societies made such model housing schemes less important.

See Akroydon, Halifax, Copley model village, Copley, Northedge Park, Hipperholme, Saltaire, G. W. Sutcliffe and West Hill Park

Page Ref: MMM101

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