Aerial View of Allen's Cross, Northfield
W. Edwards Ltd built the Allen’s Cross estate for Birmingham Corporation in the early 1930s. This photograph was commissioned from Midland Air Services and it shows the brand new estate as an island in ...
Alma Terrace, Highgate
Despite massive municipal building schemes of the inter-war years, the housing crisis was more pressing in Birmingham in 1945 than 1918. Recent housing surveys revealed an unacceptable 50,000 properties ...
Analysis of Water from Gloster Cottage, 30 Metchley Lane
The Calthorpe Estate was still being developed during the 1880s as a comfortable retreat for the wealthy; but within its boundaries were many farms and small dwellings that pre-dated the Victorian expansion. ...
Baby sitting in a pram
Back-to-back slum house, near Watery Lane, Small Heath, Birmingham.
Baby sleeping in a cot
Municipal Estate, Kingstanding.
Baby, young girl and man in backyard
Slum housing, near the Malden Road, London.
Birmingham City Council Improvement Committee Minutes
The appointment of the Improvement Committee in July 1875 marked the earliest initiative by the City Council to tackle Birmingham’s slums. The originator of the scheme was the mayor, Joseph Chamberlain, ...
Birmingham City Council Interviewing Sub-Committee Minutes
Using powers conferred by public health and housing legislation, the Improvement Committee had condemned and demolished whole swathes of slum housing and overseen a number of improvements made in central ...
Birmingham City Council Tenants Sub-Committee Minutes
The Tenants Sub-Committee was appointed in November 1922. It reported to the City Estates Committee, its chief function being to deal with applications for municipal housing. Estates Department officials ...
Boy and girl in slum interior
Photograph of a young boy and girl in a dark interior. Taken in Bradford by Nick Hedges.
Boy bathing in slum kitchen
Photograph of a young boy in a plastic bath in a dark kitchen interior. Taken in Hackney, London by Nick Hedges.
Boy in street
Photograph of a boy standing in front of a derelict house. Taken in Balsall Heath, Birmingham by Nick Hedges.
Boy with scar
Photograph of a little boy with his jumper pulled up to reveal a vertical scar on his stomach. Taken in Newcastle by Nick Hedges.
Boy with sibling, London, by Nick Hedges
Hedges tried to capture the human face of homelessness. This photograph shows that positive family relationships existed despite the difficult conditions. The boy and his sibling are shown under the watchful ...
Boys on street corner by Nick Hedges
Caravans in Upper Ryland Road
Birmingham’s history is very much a history of migration. Workers from across the region and beyond flocked here to find work in a booming industrial sector during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. ...
Child in basement, Liverpool 8 by Nick Hedges
Children’s health was often badly affected by the cold, damp spaces in which they lived. Bronchitis, asthma, and influenza were rife. Illness, and a lack of sleep caused by overcrowding, meant that children ...
Child looking out of window
Back-to-back and Tunnel-back Slum properties, Hockley, Birmingham.