Catalogue description Ministry of Health and successors: Housing Department, later Division: Rural Housing and Tied Houses, Registered Files (92034-92036 Series)

A few houses were built by Rural District Councils under the Housing of the Working Classes Act 1890, and more under the:-

Housing, Town Planning &c. Act, 1919 (Addison)

Housing &c. Act 1923 (Chamberlain)

Housing (Financial Provisions) Act 1924 (Wheatley)

Housing Act 1930 (Greenwood)

Housing Act 1935 (Hilton Young)

Housing (Financial Provisions) Act 1938 (Kingsley Wood)

From 1919 to 1933, housing effort was directed towards meeting general needs with a special subsidy under the 1924 Act for houses built in agricultural parishes. From 1933 to 1938 Rural District Councils switched over to meet the needs of persons living in unfit houses and in overcrowded conditions, for which they received a special rate of subsidy. Large-scale building of new houses for agricultural workers was envisaged in the 1938 Act and the drive then initiated included also the reconditioning of existing property under the first Housing Rural Workers Act 1926, on which progress had been very slow.

During the war an emergency scheme to provide 3,000 cottages by over 377 Rural District Councils was initiated to meet special needs following the development of war-time agriculture.

The post-war housing drive in Rural Areas benefited from special subsidy provisions. The reconditioning scheme of the 1926 Act lapsed in 1945 but was applied in different form for all houses by the 1949 Act which made improvement grants generally available. Except for the special subsidy to private owners under the 1938 Act, rural housing became generally part of the main housing

A Rural Housing Advisory Committee was appointed in 1925 and the Rural Housing Sub-Committee of the Central Housing Advisory Committee undertook surveys in 1936, 1944 and 1947.