Sir Frederic James Osborn (1885–1978) was a leading member of the UK Garden city movement and was chairman of the

Town and Country Planning Association The Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) is an independent research and campaigning charity founded and based in the United Kingdom. It works to enable homes, places and communities in which everyone can thrive. Through its research, tr ...

. He lived in

Welwyn Garden City Welwyn Garden City ( ) is a town in Hertfordshire, England, north of London. It was the second garden city in England (founded 1920) and one of the first new towns (designated 1948). It is unique in being both a garden city and a new town and ...

with his wife and fellow campaigner Lady Margaret Paterson Osborn, the garden city he helped create, and a local school ( Sir Frederic Osborn School) was named after him in 1968.

Life

Born in 1885 in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, he left school at 15 for a job as an office boy. He attended night-school. He joined the

Fabian Society The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. T ...

, where he edited ''Fabian Nursling'', as the magazine of the youth cohort was called. In 1912, he took a job as secretary-manager of the

Howard Cottage Society Howard is an English-language given name originating from Old French Huard (or Houard) from a Germanic source similar to Old High German ''*Hugihard'' "heart-brave", or ''*Hoh-ward'', literally "high defender; chief guardian". It is also probabl ...

Letchworth Garden City Letchworth Garden City, commonly known as Letchworth, is a town in the North Hertfordshire district of Hertfordshire, England. It is noted for being the first garden city. The population at the time of the 2011 census was 33,249. Letchworth ...

, founded by

Ebenezer Howard Sir Ebenezer Howard (29 January 1850 – 1 May 1928) was an English urban planner and founder of the garden city movement, known for his publication ''To-Morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform'' (1898), the description of a utopian city in whic ...

. It was here that he formed the view that Government intervention was essential if new settlements were to be developed, setting this out as early as 1918 in an article on "The public control of the location of towns". This was a case he also made elsewhere under the pseudonym Edward Ormiston. In 1916 Osborn married Margaret Paterson Robb, whom he had met at a summer school of the Fabian Society. Margaret had a major beneficial influence on his subsequent life and the Garden City Movement. In 1919 Howard purchased land for a second garden city at Welwyn, and Osborn moved with him to become Company Secretary and Estate Manager. The Frederic and Margaret Osborn became pioneer residents in Welwyn Garden City, where, alongside Frederic, Margaret dedicated herself to the town's social welfare and educational and cultural interests. This included establishing the Welwyn Garden City Branch of the United Nations Association, of which she became President. Frederic left the company in 1936, and devoted the rest of his life to promoting the garden city movement. He objected to the expansion of towns on the basis this imposed a burden of commuting which would be carry implications for cost, time and leisure. From 1938 onwards he advocated for the establishment of a London Regional Planning Commission with powers to establish boards to build new towns or expand existing ones. He was 61 when the New Towns Act he had been lobbying for received Royal Assent in 1946. Osborn was a

socialist Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the ...

and member of the Labour Party.

Publications

* Frederic J. Osborn, Green-Belt Cities (first published 1946) * Frederic J. Osborn & Arnold Whittick, New Towns (1978) * The letters of

Lewis Mumford Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a w ...

and Frederic J. Osborn: A transatlantic dialogue, 1938-70

References

* Whittick, A. (1987) FJO, practical idealist: a biography of Sir Frederic Osborn, Town and Country Planning Association, London. * Denis Hardy
History of the TCPA 1899-1999
{{DEFAULTSORT:Osborn, Frederic Urban theorists 1885 births People from Welwyn Garden City 1978 deaths Labour Party (UK) people British socialists