Sir Raymond Unwin (2 November 1863 – 29 June 1940) was a prominent and influential English engineer, architect and town planner, with an emphasis on improvements in working class housing.

Early years

Raymond Unwin was born in

Rotherham Rotherham ( ) is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. It lies at the confluence of the River Rother, South Yorkshire, River Rother, from which the town gets its name, and the River Don, Yorkshire, River Don. It is the largest settlement ...

, Yorkshire and grew up in

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

, after his father sold up his business and moved there to study. He was educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford. In 1884 he returned to the North to become an apprentice engineer for Stavely Iron & Coal Company near Chesterfield. Unwin had become interested in social issues at an early age and was inspired by the lectures and ideals of

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English polymath a writer, lecturer, art historian, art critic, draughtsman and philanthropist of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as art, architecture, Critique of politic ...

and

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was an English textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditiona ...

. In 1885 he moved to

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

and became secretary of Morris's local Socialist League. He wrote articles for the League's newspaper and spoke on street corners for its cause and for the Labour Church. He also became a close friend of the socialist philosopher

Edward Carpenter Edward Carpenter (29 August 1844 – 28 June 1929) was an English utopian socialist, poet, philosopher, anthologist, an early activist for gay rights and prison reform whilst advocating vegetarianism and taking a stance against vivise ...

, whose

Utopia A utopia ( ) typically describes an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', which describes a fictiona ...

n community ideas led to his developing a small commune at Millthorpe near

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

. In 1887 he returned to Staveley Iron as an engineer, working on development of mining townships and various other buildings, and joined the Sheffield Socialist Society. In 1893 he married Richard Barry Parker's sister Ethel, and formed a partnership in 1896 based in

Buxton Buxton is a spa town in the High Peak, Derbyshire, Borough of High Peak, Derbyshire, in the East Midlands region of England. It is England's highest market town, sited at some above sea level.Alston, Cumbria also claims this, but lacks a regu ...

, Derbyshire. The partners preferred the simple vernacular style and made it their aim to improve housing standards for the working classes. They were also members of the Northern Art Worker's Guild and were close friends of Edgar Wood (1860–1935) the leading

Arts and Crafts The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the Decorative arts, decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and ...

architect in the North of England and a founding member of the group.

Planning career

In their various writings, including their book ''The Art of Building a Home'' (1901), Parker and Unwin aimed to popularise the

Arts and Crafts Movement The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America. Initiat ...

, and as a result of their success thousands of homes were built on their pattern in the early part of the 20th century. A notable example of one of their earliest collaborations at Clayton, Staffordshire, is dated to 1899, and was originally called the Goodfellow House after the man who commissioned it. Parker and Unwin were involved in designing many of the interior fittings, which remain in the house to this day, and the initial layout of the large gardens. Goodfellow sold the house in 1926 to Colley Shorter who ran the nearby pottery works of Wilkinson's and Newport. He renamed it Chetwynd House and when he married his star designer Clarice Cliff in 1940, she moved into the house and lived there until 1972. It is her association that has made the house particularly famous since. In 1902 Parker and Unwin were asked to design a model village at

New Earswick New Earswick is a model village and civil parish in the unitary authority of City of York in North Yorkshire, England, near the River Foss, north of York and south of Haxby. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 2,812, redu ...

near

York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...

for Joseph and Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree, and the following year they were given the opportunity to take part in the creation of Letchworth (loosely based on the Utopian plan of Ebenezer Howard), when the First Garden City Company asked them to submit a plan. In 1903 they were involved with the "Cottages Near a Town Exhibit" for the Northern Art Workers Guild of Manchester. In 1904 after their plan was adopted they opened a second office at Baldock. In 1905 Henrietta Barnett asked them to plan the new garden suburb at

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, England, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, located mainly in the London Borough of Camden, with a small part in the London Borough of Barnet. It borders Highgate and Golders Green to the north, Belsiz ...

, now known as Hampstead Garden Suburb. Unwin moved from Letchworth to Hampstead in 1906, and he lived here for the rest of his life at the farmstead Wyldes Farm. In 1907, Ealing Tenants Limited, a progressive cooperative in west London, appointed him to take forward the development of Brentham garden suburb. Unwin joined the

Local Government Board The Local Government Board (LGB) was a British Government supervisory body overseeing local administration in England and Wales from 1871 to 1919. The LGB was created by the Local Government Board Act 1871 ( 34 & 35 Vict. c. 70) and took over the ...

in December 1914. In 1915 he was seconded to the

Ministry of Munitions The Minister of Munitions was a British government position created during the First World War to oversee and co-ordinate the production and distribution of munitions for the war effort. The position was created in response to the Shell Crisis o ...

to design the villages of Gretna and Eastriggs and supervise others. From 1917 he had an influential role at the Tudor Walters Committee on working-class housing whose report was published in 1918, the year in which he was appointed Chief Architect to the newly formed Ministry of Health. That post had evolved into the Chief Technical Officer for Housing and Town Planning by the time of his retirement in November 1928. His demonstration during the Great War of the principles of building homes rapidly and economically whilst maintaining satisfactory standards for gardens, family privacy and internal spaces, gave him great influence over the Tudor Walters Committee and hence, indirectly, over much inter-war public housing. This report marked Unwin's definitive break from the traditional 'garden city' concept, as it proposed that the new developments should be peripheral 'satellites' rather than fully-fledged garden cities. Unwin became technical adviser to the Greater London Regional Planning Committee in 1929 and largely wrote its two reports, the first published in that year and the second in 1933. Unwin was President of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) from 1915 to 1916, President of the

Royal Institute of British Architects The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three suppl ...

(RIBA) from 1931 to 1933, was knighted in 1932 and consulted by United States President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

on the

New Deal The New Deal was a series of wide-reaching economic, social, and political reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, in response to the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depressi ...

in 1933. In 1936 he was appointed visiting Professor of Town Planning at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

and in 1937 he received the

RIBA ''Riba'' (, or , ) is an Arabic word used in Islamic law and roughly translated as " usury": unjust, exploitative gains made in trade or business. ''Riba'' is mentioned and condemned in several different verses in the Qur'an3:130

Royal Gold Medal for architecture. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by

Norwegian Institute of Technology The Norwegian Institute of Technology ( Norwegian: ''Norges tekniske høgskole'', NTH) was a science institute in Trondheim, Norway. It was established in 1910, and existed as an independent technical university for 58 years, after which it was ...

in 1935 and by

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

in 1937.

Footnotes

External links

DSA Architect Biography Report: Parker & Unwin
*Andrew Saint, ''Unwin, Sir Raymond (1863–1940)'', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 200
accessed 2 Nov 2010
* The Town Extension Plan, 1912 Warburton lecture. * Pollack, Theo Mackey
"The Best Planning Book is a Century Old: A Look Back at Unwin's ''Town Planning in Practice''."
New Urbs, ''The American Conservative'', 12/15/2017.
Raymond Unwin Papers
at the

John Rylands Library The John Rylands Research Institute and Library is a Victorian era, late-Victorian Gothic Revival architecture, neo-Gothic building on Deansgate in Manchester, England. It is part of the University of Manchester. The library, which opened to t ...

, Manchester
Town Planning in Practice
{{DEFAULTSORT:Unwin, Raymond English urban planners Columbia University faculty Members of the Fabian Society English civil engineers Civil servants in the Local Government Board Civil servants in the Ministry of Munitions Civil servants in the Ministry of Health (United Kingdom) Letchworth Socialist League (UK, 1885) members People from Rotherham 1863 births 1940 deaths Recipients of the Royal Gold Medal Presidents of the Royal Institute of British Architects Presidents of the Royal Town Planning Institute People educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford