The historical context

Whilst the main purpose of this publication is admittedly to detail and explore contemporary settings for how people in the UK are shaping their homes and neighbourhoods, it is important to recall the rich legacy that new projects might use for inspiration. Local communities have consistently adapted to key circumstances of the day in order that the benefits from using local resources can be properly shared – whether that be the appropriation of land by the Diggers and Levellers of the 17th century or the ‘community buyouts’ of Scottish highland estates in the 21st.

The persistent nature of how people have sought to create their own homes can always be understood as a response to key and prevailing issues of the time. An early 19th century focus of workers within industrial trades challenging their exclusion from prevailing political and financial systems resulted in the creation of the first ‘friendly societies’, based on a simple premise that if a group of people contributed to a mutual fund, they could then receive benefits at a time of future need.1 Working class families without access to the main banking system of the age established the first building societies from 1775, for members to pool funds for purchasing land and building houses. Over 250 societies had been created by 1825, originally set up as terminating societies, which closed when all the members had been housed or had purchased land for that purpose. In the 1830s and 1840s the permanent building society gradually emerged, continually taking in new members as earlier ones completed their purchases and became suitably housed.

The middle years of the 19th century also witnessed the emergence of Chartism as an aspirational working class movement for political reform. It was named after the People's Charter of 1838 and aimed to reform the democratic nature of national and local politics. In 1843 the Chartist Co-operative Land Company was established (later called the National Land Company) to enable working people to acquire land for their own housing and to challenge the private appropriation of land by Enclosure Acts.