English Model Communities

Compiled by the Caledonia Centre for Social Development, February 2005

A number of English industrialists in the mid-1880s moved their factories from the inner city to green field sites on the outskirts. They were convinced that the over-crowding and unsanitary conditions of the inner city were having an adverse effect on their workers, both physically and morally.

Moving the factory was only the first part in a massive experiment that involved the construction of model workers dwellings and social and recreational facilities. It was philanthropy on a scale, which had never before been witnessed.

A set of short descriptions of each of the main experimental models is given in the attached document.

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