The Land Settlement Association was a UK Government scheme set up in 1934, with help from the charities the Plunkett Foundation and the Carnegie Trust, to re-settle unemployed workers from depressed industrial areas,[1] particularly from North-East England and Wales. Between 1934 and 1939 1,100 small-holdings were established within 20 settlements.[2][3][4] A further five settlements of "Cottage Homesteads" of about half an acre were established from 1937 for unemployed men, who could continue to claim assistance.[5]
Settlements were set up in rural areas where each successful applicant’s family would be given a small-holding of approximately 5 acres (0.020 km2), livestock and a newly built cottage. Small-holdings were grouped in communities which were expected to run agricultural production as cooperative market gardens, with materials bought and produce sold exclusively through the Association. Applicants were vetted and given agricultural training before being assigned a property.[1][6]
The allocation of settlements to the unemployed was suspended at the outbreak of the Second World War through the necessity of increasing food production; favour was given to those already with horticultural skills.[7] After the war the Association continued, encouraging people who wanted to work in horticulture or agriculture.[8] The scheme was wound-up and all the properties privatised in 1983, by which time it was producing roughly 40% of English home grown salad crops.[1][9] The residual assets of the scheme were constituted as the LSA Charitable Trust,[10] for the benefit of former tenants and to promote horticultural education.[11]
Settlements edit
Land Settlement Association small-holding settlements were situated at:
- Abington, Cambridgeshire[12]
- Andover, Hampshire[13]
- Broadwath, Cumbria[14]
- Chawston, Bedfordshire[15]
- Crofton, Cumbria[14][16]
- Dalston, Cumbria[14][17]
- Duxbury, Lancashire[18]
- Elmesthorpe, Leicestershire[19]
- Fen Drayton, Cambridgeshire[20][21]
- Foxash, Essex[22]
- Fulney, Lincolnshire[23]
- Harrowby, Lincolnshire[24]
- Newbourne, Suffolk[25]
- Newent, Gloucestershire[26]
- Oxcroft, Derbyshire[27]
- Potton, Bedfordshire,[8][18]
- Sidlesham, Sussex[28]
- Snaith, Yorkshire[29]
- Stannington, Northumberland[30]
- Yeldham, Essex[31]
Land Settlement Association Cottage Homestead settlements were situated at:[32]
References edit
- ^ a b c "Land Settlement Association", Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading. Retrieved 7 March 2024
- ^ "Presenting Rurality: the Land Settlement Association in interwar England by Alex Arnall" Retrieved 7 March 2024
- ^ "Land Settlement Association", Northampton Square. Retrieved 18 August 2011
- ^ Clarke, Peter; "The Land Settlement Association returned nearly 1,000 unemployed men to the land in the 1930s", Northampton Square, 29 July 2011. Retrieved 18 August 2011
- ^ "LSA". 20 November 2018.
- ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: Here is the Land. YouTube.
- ^ "Land Settlement Association. Oral Answers to Questions — Unemployment" (All Commons debates on 23 Nov 1939); TheyWorkForYou.com. Retrieved 18 August 2011
- ^ a b "Land Settlement Association", peterclarke.com (Dr Peter Clarke). Retrieved 18 August 2011
- ^ "The Land Battle" Shaun Chamberlin, Country Smallholding, January 2013. Retrieved 24 May 2015
- ^ "LSA Charitable Trust website". Retrieved 28 December 2012
- ^ "LSA Charitable Trust (Guidance Notes)" Archived 28 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine Grants for Horticulturists. Retrieved 29 June 2012
- ^ "Great and Little Abington", British History Online, para 5: "In Great Abington from the 1930s the Land Settlement Association built c. 45 houses to a standard design along roads laid out across the middle of the parish". Retrieved 18 August 2011
- ^ "The Land Settlement Association and Little Park" Archived 18 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine, Abbots Ann and Little Ann web site. Retrieved 18 August 2011
- ^ a b c "Land Settlement Association", Cumbria County Council - Archives. Retrieved 18 August 2011
- ^ "Chawston" Archived 7 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Wyboston, Chawston and Colesden Parish, Community Web Site. Retrieved 18 August 2011
- ^ "Crofton", visitoruk.com. Retrieved 18 August 2011
- ^ Burdett, Anna; "Whatever Happened to Cumbriam Strawberries" Archived 24 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine, The Cumberland News 21 July 2009. Retrieved 18 August 2011
- ^ a b Hayward, Stuart; "Oxcroft Settlement" in Bolsover a Ripple in Time, p.63. Retrieved 18 August 2021
- ^ "Elmesthorpe", quoting The Leicestershire & Rutland Village Book, Leicestershire & Rutland Federation of Women's Institutes, Countryside Books. Retrieved 10 January 2019
- ^ "Fen Drayton Former Land Settlement Association Estate SPD" Archived 27 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine, South Cambridgeshire District Council. Retrieved 18 August 2011
- ^ "New zero-carbon homes vision for village settlement" Archived 22 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine, Cambridge News 18 October 2010. Retrieved 18 August 2011
- ^ Bercaw, Louise Oldham; "Bibliography on Land Utilization 1918-36"; p. 1011
- ^ "Thornholme Grange", National Monuments Record. English Heritage. Retrieved 18 August 2011
- ^ "The Harrowby Land Settlement", Domesday Reloaded, BBC. Retrieved 18 August 2011
- ^ Sloane, Rachel; "Newbourne", BBC: Suffolk, 11 June 2008. Retrieved 18 August 2011
- ^ "A History of the County of Gloucester vol.12 Newent and May Hill" Archived 2 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine, British Association for Local History: "The Land Settlement Association also built 57 chalet bungalows from 1937 on an estate at The Scarr, Newent, most of which retain their distinctive appearance". Retrieved 18 August 2011
- ^ "The Oxcroft Settlement", Victoria County History, "The Oxcroft Settlement was the only project of its kind in Derbyshire, and one of only two in England initiated by a county council". Retrieved 7 November 2017
- ^ "Sidlesham, West Sussex", Kelly's Directory 1938: "During 1935, 800 acres of land were acquired by the Land Settlement Association Ltd. To provide smallholdings for men from the distressed areas of Northumberland & Durham". Retrieved 18 August 2011
- ^ "Snaith and District Historical Society | the West Bank LSA Project".
- ^ "Closure of four Northern Land Settlement Association Estates...", The National Archives. Retrieved 18 August 2021.
- ^ Essex Society for Archaeology and History Newsletter 154 Spring 2008 https://www.esah1852.org.uk/library/files/N1145160.pdf
- ^ Annual Report of the Land Settlement Association 1937