Preface

Shortly after I moved to Kidderminster I found myself in the County Records Office trying to add to the knowledge I had gained from the main local history books, complaining about how little they discuss housing history. By chance, I came across the records of the Bird Lane Terrace Land Society. This was a club formed to buy a parcel of land and then resell plots to its 36 members in return for subscriptions of 10 shillings a month.

At first I thought it was just an interesting one off. As I learnt more from books, newspapers, the Records Office and other sources I plotted the areas that had developed by land clubs and other organisations on a map. It became clear that these land clubs (which were often short-lived in themselves) and the Freehold Land Society - which was the town’s first permanent building society - had played a major part in the development of the town.

In conventional housing history little or no mention is made of working men combining in clubs and societies to purchase land and build houses. The question I first began to ask was why is Kidderminster’s housing history so different from conventional housing history? Was there something about the political, economic and religious tradition which marked Kidderminster out as different from the rest of the country? But the more I have learnt the more I have become to feel that Kidderminster’s history is a conventional history shared with many other midland towns. There is lots more to do, even about Kidderminster, and what I have presented here is only the start.

I am faced with a dilemma. Do I wait until I have completed a full study before entering into print? Or, do I put together what I have gained about Kidderminster as a starting point? I hope that my study helps to do three things. Provides information about Kidderminster’s housing history, provokes others to conduct parallel studies of other towns in the Britain and confronts and challenges our understanding of housing history.

Some may ask why I have chosen the title "Kidderminster Revolutionaries" for a discussion of home ownership. Very simple really when James Taylor's spoke at Ross on Wye he said "If we seek to get the franchise without property they tell us we are revolutionary: if we get it with property, then we are revolutionary too!"

Chas Townley

April 1999