Back-to-backs are a form of terraced houses in the United Kingdom, built from the late 18th century through to the early 20th century in various guises. Many thousands of these dwellings were built during the Industrial Revolution for the rapidly increasing population of expanding factory towns. Back-to-backs share party walls on three of their four sides, with the front wall having the only door and windows.
As back-to-backs were built as the cheapest possible housing for the impoverished working class, their construction was usually sub-standard. Their configuration did not allow for sufficient ventilation or sanitation. Toilets and water supplies were shared with multiple households in enclosed courtyards. Back-to-backs gained an unfavourable reputation for poor levels of health and hygiene.
Around the mid-19th century, this form of housing was deemed unsatisfactory and a hazard to health. The passage of the Public Health Act 1875 permitted municipal corporations to ban new back-to-backs, replaced in the next phase of building by byelaw terraced houses. The city of Leeds opted not to enforce the ban however; there, the popularity of back-to-back houses with builders and residents led to their continued construction until the 1930s.
Most back-to-backs were demolished in waves of slum clearances, although many remain in Leeds and Bradford. Birmingham and Liverpool, where many thousands of these homes were built, each chose to retain a single example as a tourist attraction. The Birmingham Back to Backs is now operated as a historic house museum by the National Trust; the Museum of Liverpool manages the other.
Video Back-to-back house
Description
Built low quality and for high density, these houses were constructed for working class people, with scarce regard for space, comfort or quality of life. Most back-to-backs were small: early examples had just a single room on each floor, while later houses were two-up two-down. Every house shared a rear wall, whether with a house directly behind or with an industrial building. Given that the house usually shared three of its four walls with neighbouring buildings, back-to-back houses were notoriously ill-lit and poorly ventilated. Such was the initial lack of consideration for hygiene, that some houses were found to have been built over open drains covered only by boards.
The term "back-to-back" should not be confused with "through" terraced houses, the backs of which face each other across an alleyway, and are thus not contiguous like a true back-to-back. Back-to-back houses can also be known as blind-backs, particularly when built up against factory walls, or occasionally as a terrace of houses standing on its own.
Maps Back-to-back house
History
Early houses
Population in the city of Leeds was around 30,000 by 1800, which later doubled then tripled creating a problem of insufficient housing. The first back-to-back houses were built by 1790 in Briggate, Leeds, by building opportunists who realised the structural setup allowed for a cost saving by not requiring roads or drainage, with population density housing up to 300 people within 60-75 properties per acre. There was no universally accepted blueprint for how the houses should be constructed, with the worst (and often earliest) having a single room on each floor and without damp proofing. Sanitation comprised earth toilets in whatever available space existed, which may have been underneath bedrooms, and a public water supply from intermittent standpipes. Initially, houses were built around a communal courtyard, though later were built onto streets. Houses of this type had become common in inner city areas of Victorian England, especially in Birmingham, Bradford, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Salford and in Nottingham, where around 7500 of their 11000 houses (roughly 68%) were built back-to-back. Town authorities were well aware that back-to-backs were undesirable, but seemed unable to stop their construction. The Building and Improvement Committee reported to Bradford Council that over three-quarters of new dwellings were "laid out upon that objectionable principle". The passage of the Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act 1875 gave councils permission to compulsory purchase slum housing, but few took advantage of this opportunity.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, owners of mills and mines built significant amounts of back-to-backs to maximize the number of workers that could live within the lowest amount of space, whilst keeping costs low. Advocates of the design suggested they were easier to keep warm due to in most cases having just a single outside wall, yet the absence of rear yards meant there was no space for an exterior toilet, instead having communal ones that spread diseases rapidly. In the oldest parts of Birmingham, early back-to-back houses were known for being associated with filth, neglection, poor ventilation and pools of stagnant water, despite being home to the greatest number of working-class people within the city.
19th century
Rapid urbanisation led to fields and allotments disappearing in favour of cheaply built houses, often tightly packed together into the smallest space permitting. Houses were built on top of inadequate foundations and with substandard materials to reduce costs. Each house was separated by a single brick depth with a small room on each floor, with ground floor rooms serving multiple purposes as the remaining available space was used for bedrooms. By the 1830s, back-to-back houses had gained a reputation nationwide for spreading disease, with major cities including Manchester and Liverpool prohibiting their construction in the 1840s and 1860s respectively. In Leeds, the Medical Officer for Health sought to abolish their construction from around 1880, though was unsuccessful as the Leeds Improvement Act of 1866 required new "bye-law" houses could be built to a set of regulations, including gated yards, wider streets and an improved interior design structure. By this time, population density had improved to 200 people living within 50-60 houses per acre.
Significant construction change came with the introduction of the bye-law house to comply with the Public Health Act 1875, with further improvements in 1890 to include a basement or ground floor kitchen, a small garden and a private toilet for each household. Subsequent acts including the Housing of the Working Classes Act 1885 and the Housing of the Working Classes Act 1890 further refined construction requirements.
Leeds appears to have been a special case. Figures from 1899 suggested that 72% of all houses constructed annually in that city were back-to-back, identical to 15 years prior and would not decrease until 1914. Small families with children in the city had little choice but to live in back-to-back houses, as these dominated the affordable market. Whilst the purpose of the bye-law was to prevent back-to-back houses from construction, Leeds council initially opted not to enforce it, particularly where building contractors unmotivated by social or aesthetic considerations could influence decisions to ensure their own contracts and interests were put ahead the housing build quality. Consequently, the density of housing in some areas, as well as their manner of construction, had adverse effects on the sale and rental prices, particularly as other towns offered houses with greater space and improved sanitation facilities; a new property built in Sunderland would have been provided with its own water closet, whilst a new property in Leeds may have had one shared, up until 1912.
20th century
Before World War I
By the turn of the 20th century, back-to-back houses had become unpopular with residents and the government, who sought to ban their construction and eradicate existing properties nationwide. Amongst the primary concerns identified were health and ventilation, with statistics of the time suggesting poorer health for those living in back-to-back houses. In Manchester, Dr James Niven noted mortality rates amongst those in back-to-back houses exceeded those from through-houses by 40 percent, as well as increases in infectious diseases and diarrhoea. A change in the law in 1909 forbid this style of house being erected.
Between the wars
The advent of council housing after the First World War resulted in councils organising programmes of statutory slum clearances as part of post-war housing redevelopment programmes. These procedures saw the beginning of mass demolition of back-to-back houses in the 1920s and the construction of "homes fit for heroes".
In Leeds during the early 20th century, the local council had spent around £1 million (equivalent to £95,662,602 in 2016) in acquiring older, inadequate back-to-back houses for demolition, whilst continuing to build improved ones of a similar style up to 1937, despite being outlawed in 1909 when it was decided that houses should be of an overall higher quality. By 1926, Leeds had 72,000 of these houses, of which 32,000 were described by Dr Christoper Addison as being "abominations", having been condemned as unfit for many years by that time, despite still being lived in; only 12,000 (less than 17%) were given a moderate health pass by Neville Chamberlain's Unhealthy Areas Committee. Other cities had smaller numbers, such as Bradford (33,000) and Nottingham (5000) respectively. MP Sir John Birchall described Leeds in 1930 as having "an unenviable notoriety for its back-to-back houses", although popularity among residents had increased. He unsuccessfully proposed in 1930 a suggestion to permit the construction of back-to-back houses in blocks of four, given that back-to-backs were generally cheaper to build than standard "through" houses and that having two external walls per property would alleviate ventilation concerns that plagued earlier construction.
After World War II
Following World War II and the Blitz aerial bombing of industrial cities, Britain was ready for a new wave of slum demolition and construction of more suitable housing. For example, Birmingham had about 40,000 back-to-backs in 1931 but only 29,182 by September 1946.
In Leeds around 1953, there were 30,000 people waiting for council housing, of which 16,000 comprised back-to-back housing built before 1844 that were pending clearance as slum housing. Prior to 1844, the quality was sub-standard and 16,000 of these were inhabited during 1951, compared to a further 28,000 slightly better houses, which had been constructed between 1844 and 1874. The pre-1844 houses were by that time in a state of disrepair and overcrowding was a concern, particularly when families were occupying what was originally intended for single or dual occupancy.
By 1959, Leeds and Birmingham each had 60,000 back-to-back houses, and Members of Parliament were calling for the demolition to be accelerated. William Wheeldon, a Labour and Co-operative MP, pointed out that "the most distressing thing" was that little had changed in generations:
Our present medical officer refers to the fact that in 1918 one of our most eminent medical officers of health, Sir John Robertson, penned these words in his annual report for that year. He was speaking of the back-to-back house and he said: Its chief defect, in addition to its lack of size, its dampness and its dilapidation, is that it is not self-contained. There is no water supply inside the house, no adequate provision for discharging slop water, and the only sanitary convenience is often some distance from the house and usually common to two or more houses. This convenience is frequently in a revolting condition because of its common user. There is no bath or means of taking a bath in many of the houses. The whole outlook from these houses is sullied by soot besmirched in a soot-laden atmosphere. Sir John Robertson went on to say: It is impossible to imagine a rising generation of young people being able to improve in health or self-respect even even if the best of educational facilities are provided when everything they come into contact with is sullied by dirtiness and squalor. In my opinion there is only one remedy--the replacement of these slums by decent houses in a pleasant environment. Now for a significant comment. Although that attack on our slums in Birmingham was made in 1918, nevertheless, as our present medical officer of health pointed out in his report, published only last week: Many of those houses referred to are not only occupied today but are likely in many cases to remain so for up to another twenty-five years. Surely that is a damning indictment of whoever has been responsible for housing legislation in this country.
Many of those houses, I am sorry to say, are in my constituency [i.e. Birmingham Small Heath]. They are houses from which men went out more than forty years ago to fight in the 1914-1918 war. They were told that they were to have homes for heroes, yet the sons of those men went out from the same houses in 1939 to fight for their country, and many of those houses are still standing today.
Nationwide demolition continued through the 1960s and 1970s. Towards the end of the 1970s, Leeds was the second largest city outside London that still had around 30,000 back-to-back houses. By the 1980s, most towns had few or no back-to-backs remaining.
Contemporary usage
Leeds and its surrounding region is the only area where back-to-back houses still exist in large numbers, having been refurbished to include "mod cons" such as indoor bathrooms and central heating. These modernised back-to-backs are popular with residents because they are easier to maintain than typical houses. The houses have proven popular with buy to let investors, who helped to increase prices significantly during the early-mid 2000s. The house style is popular amongst student populations, with little exterior maintenance required and often located close to universities and colleges, particularly in the areas of Headingly, Burley and Kirkstall.
Despite being banned by existing building regulations for new builds, architects are keen for the regulations to be relaxed, particularly as many of the historical health concerns associated with back to back housing, such as open sewers and communal toilets, are no longer relevant.
A study was conducted in 2008 to research information on the communities living in these properties to help ensure they could continue being used into the 21st century. One of the questions asked public opinion on the houses, with 75% suggesting the heritage value was important to the identity of Leeds. Overall, 51% of respondent comments were positive, with some noting heritage and history as an important factor, whilst 45% felt negatively towards them. Despite residents of these dwellings generally feeling strongly about the heritage value, their opinions were not valued as highly as non-residents or professionals. Despite the feedback, there was not sufficient recognition that the properties should be protected due to their perceived heritage value.
Preservation as museums
The Birmingham Back to Backs are a historic house museum created by The National Trust for the city's last remaining back-to-back houses. The dweillings are furnished as they would have been in the 19th century and are now Grade II listed buildings. According to the BBC, this is the last example of such housing grouped around a court.
In Liverpool, back-to-back court housing were once home to over 40% of its population, before demolition during the 1960s and 1970s as part of slum house clearance programmes. A set of nine pairs of these houses survived and were restored as part of a museum attraction. A proposal to preserve and restore the city's last surviving court housing block was made in 2016, with structural work taking place to secure the building, as well as a new roof to prevent further water damage. The project would complement the existing court dwellings at the Museum of Liverpool which opened in 2011 and recreates a former street from 1870 in the area around Scotland Road.
The Bradford Industrial Museum has a block of back-to-backs decorated as dwellings of 1875, World War II, and the 1970s.
References
Citations
Sources
Further reading
- Beresford, M. W. (1984). "The back-to-back house in Leeds, 1787-1939". Time and Place: collected essays. Hambledon Press. ISBN 978-0-907628-39-2.
External links
- Back-to-back housing in Reading
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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