After the trauma of the war, those returning home required jobs, and with them clean and modern homes for their families. The slums and tenements of the pre-war years were not going to enable a healthy workforce that was fit to tackle the challenges of the new post-war world. At all cost Britain had to avoid the riot and revolution that had swept Europe in the later stages of the war.

This book describes the re-building of the country during the decades after 1918. Bold advances were made in social provision, especially in housing, with ambitious schemes by local authorities, no longer solely through private builders. These early developments were not always able to keep ahead of the economic realities of the time, and many faltered. But through such pioneering improvements, housing was fixed firmly at the centre of British politics. It remains so today.