How fed up Londoners dealt with the rental crisis in the 1930s

Exorbitant rents, run-down and cramped houses, greedy landlords… Sound familiar?

This may strike a chord with many renters in the capital today, but nearly a century ago, this was also what working-class Londoners were dealing with.

In the 1930s, the East End had a reputation for poverty, overcrowding and violence. Housing stock was poor as the population grew more quickly than the accommodation.

Meanwhile, homes, which were mainly rented from private landlords, were badly maintained, with wallpaper falling off the walls, no heating and overflowing toilets.

The blocks of flats were also overrun with sewer rats and other vermin, while children often contracted sores and other skin conditions due to the filthy conditions.

Rent controls – limits on the amounts landlords could charge – had already been introduced in 1915 to deal with an excessive increase due to the wartime housing crisis, however, they’d been gradually reversed throughout the 1920s and 30s, and by 1938, large numbers of houses had no rent control at all.

It meant many families were living in poverty, skimping on food so they could pay their skyrocketing rent, and by 1937, they were so fed up, tenants finally decided to fight back through a series of rent strikes.

This was a landmark in the history of working-class Britain, when ordinary working people took on the rich and powerful and won.

Women, who managed the household accounts and budgets, were the main agitators behind the protests and with grassroots tenant groups, such as the Stepney Tenants’ Defence League, the renters embarked on often long, violent and bitter fights with greedy landlords.

As a first step, tenants would inform their homeowners that they would stop paying their rent if costs weren’t lowered or repairs weren’t carried out. If the landlords refused, the families would then go on strike.

Aware there was power in numbers, it became a well-organised community mission, with some keeping watch for rent collectors, while others put up barbed wire to deter bailiffs. Other people attended public marches – often outside the plush homes of their landlords – where they would stand with placards demanding fairer rent and highlighting the impact on their children.

Standing strong

This feeling of discontent had been brewing among tenants in the East End for years, and the strikers not only demanded rent reductions but also repairs and necessary decorations. When someone saw that a landlord was approaching to visit a property, they would ring handbells as a call for families to unite in the street and on their balconies – they knew it would be more difficult for them to take on a united group than dealing with households one by one.

When the Stepney Tenants’ Defence League was set up in 1937 to help with individual rent and repair problems, people would hand over rent money at the league office in Whitechapel Road during the strike. It was to be paid to the landlord only when the dispute was settled.

In June that year, renters barricaded themselves into Paragon Mansions, Stepney Green, so they could not be forcibly evicted. Children returning from school had to be hauled to their flats by ropes. Many people were forcibly taken away, and women were attacked when their partners were at work.

Desperate measures

Tenants expecting problems from bailiffs fixed barbed wire to the main entrance of a block of flats. As the strikes progressed across the East End, barbed wire was placed around entire blocks and pickets were placed on duty round the clock, admitting only tenants, postmen or known tradespeople into the buildings.

Those barricaded behind the barbed wire gates soon took over the caretaker’s duties and swept up the playgrounds, keeping their community area as well-kept as possible. Meanwhile, others stayed in their homes, refusing to move.

Buildings became battlefields

Not all of the protests were peaceful; some ended with the police getting involved and blood being shed.

At Langdale Mansions in Stepney, landlords initially refused to negotiate and issued eviction orders to some of their most active tenants.

After bailiffs managed to get access to the building in June 1939 to serve ‘notices to quit’ (eviction notices), things at Langdale became particularly violent. It was reported that they had arrived with the police, who came armed with truncheons.

In response, tenants defended themselves with saucepans, rolling pins, sticks and shovels. The police were said to be ‘brutal’ during many of these scuffles as doors were kicked in and people forcibly removed from their homes.

Despite the violent battles, eventually landlords began to cave into tenants’ demands to reduce rent and began making repairs. Some were faster than others – it took the owners of Langdale and Brady Mansions in Stepney 21 weeks to concede.

Although many of the East End strikes were a success, the problem of inflated rents still existed in other areas. It was an issue only resolved at the outbreak of the Second World War when rent controls were introduced in law once again.

Find out more about the rent strikes through the Daily Herald Archive, which is held at the National Science and Media Museum here.