WAR ON SLUMS

In somers Town is a blue plaques to a reformers who changed lives through housing: Basil Jellicoe.

Something rather wonderful happened in the early part of the 20th century in Somers Town. Slums were cleared and people were housed by the St Pancras Housing Improvement Society, an enterprising group including Britain’s first female surveyor, Irene Barclay, and charismatic priest Father Basil Jellicoe from Magdalen College. Funds were raised from society, leading to a stream of well-connected visitors to one of London’s worst areas, including the then Prince of Wales, as well as literary and theatrical names. 

‘We are going to build Jerusalem in Somers Town.’

Basil Jellicoe, St Pancras Chronicle, 15 April 1926

What made this distinctive was the focus on maintaining the existing working class communities; the policy, as Irene Barclay put it, ‘not to break up communities but to rehouse people in their family groups and their own environment’.

Their mantra ‘Housing is not enough’ meant clubs, street parties, outings and, at the heart of this, the pub, with a teetotal priest landlord. And the belief that ordinary people deserved ‘art in everyday life’, commissioning renowned sculptor Gilbert Bayes to adorn courtyards with ceramic artworks for washing posts. Tragically, over 150 are stolen, something the local People’s Museum is campaigning to restore.

‘A tall, striking figure, dark and handsome, with piercing eyes and a lively mobile face.’

Irene Barclay, People Need Roots

Basil Jellicoe helped change the face of Somers Town from slums and overcrowded homes to model developments with an emphasis on good living. He arrived in Somers Town in December 1921 as a young Anglican priest determined to carry out good works in a very deprived area. 

Shareholders were sought to invest in the new buildings and Jellicoe used his charisma and contacts to draw in society figures such as King Edward VIII, H.G. Wells, Sir Hugh Walpole and financial institutions such as Rothschilds, Barings and the owners of the local cigarette factory, Carreras.

‘…a soul on fire within a rather faded cassock, his eyes ablaze with what I can only call a fury of faith for the righting of ancient wrongs, his heart aglow with affection for all sorts and conditions of men and with visions of their greater good.’

– Rev W.H. Elliott, vicar of St Michael’s Chester Square.

His passion and commitment drove him to take on extraordinary amounts of work in schemes over the country, which took its toll.  Finally suffering from a debilitating physical and mental illness, he died a premature death in 1935, aged just 36.

St Pancras Housing with beautiful finals by Gilbert Bayes. Photo by Diana Foster