Labourers' Dwellings - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition labourers-dwellings

Definition :

Labourers' dwellings. Prior to 1890 the following five sets of enactments provided for the erection and maintenance of healthy 'labourers' dwellings,' the first three of the five being materially amended by the (English) Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1885 (48 & 49 Vict. c. 72):

(1) The (English) Labouring Classes Lodging Houses and Dwelling Houses Acts, 1851, 1866, and 1867. These Acts might be 'adopted' by the town council of a borough and other local authorities. Upon the adoption of the Acts, corporate land might be appropriated and lodging-houses erected thereon, or money might be borrowed by the local authorities for erecting such houses on other land.

The (English) Act of 1885 amended the procedure for adopting these Acts, allowed land to be bought for the purpose of the Acts, and allowed separate houses to be erected under the process of the Acts.

The (English) Act of 1885 took away from an owner, required to demolish such dwellings, the power which he had under these Acts of requiring the local authority to purchase the dwellings of him.

(2) The (English) Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Act, 1868, amended by 42 & 43Vict. c. 64, and 45 & 46 Vict. c. 54. Under this Act town councils and other urban sanitary authorities had power to direct the demolition or improvement of separate dwellings unfit for human habitation and the building and maintaining of better dwellings in lieu thereof.

(3) The (English) Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act, 1875, amended by 42 & 43Vict. c. 63, and 45 & 46 Vict.c. 54. Under this Act a town council or other urban sanitary authority might frame schemes for the improvement of a body of houses, courts, or alleys, within particular areas. The schemes required the confirmation of the Local Government Board, the Metropolitan Board of Works, or a Secretary of State, according as the improvements were to be effected in the country or in London.

The (English) Act of 1885 extended these Acts to all urban sanitary districts.

(4) The (English) Municipal Corporations Act,1882 (45 & 46 Vict. c. 50), s. 111. By this enactment, which reproduced the repealed (English) Working Men's Dwellings Act, 1874, a municipal corporation might, with the approval of the Treasury, convert corporate land into sites for working men's dwellings--i.e., 'buildings suitable for the habitation of persons employed in manual labour and their families'--and grant leases for that purpose for 999 years, or any shorter term, of any parts of the corporate land.

(5) The (English) Housing of the Working Classes Act,1885 (48 & 49 Vict. c. 72), which amended the above enactments, as above mentioned, also enacted that settled land might be sold, let, or exchanged, for the erection there upon of dwellings for the working classes at less than the market value.

This enactment was untouched by the (English) Act of 1885, and also by the (English) Consolidating Act of 1890 presently referred to.

All these (English) Acts are consolidated, with amendments of no very great importance by the (English) Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890 (53 & 54 Vict. c. 70), amended by the (English) Housing of the Working Classes Acts, 1900 and 1903, the (English) Housing, Town Planning, etc. Acts, 1909 and 1919, the (English) Housing (Additional Powers) Act, 1919. See also Public Works Loans Acts, 1920 (s. 5) and 1922 (s. 4), and Housing Acts,1921, 1923, 1924, 1930 and 1936; and see HOUSING OF WORKING CLASSES; WORKMEN.