milton keynes and its place within new towns history
TRANSCRIPT
![Page 1: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history
Dr Katrina NavickasUniversity of Hertfordshire
![Page 2: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
‘old’ towns – they were ‘new’ once
Roman town of Silchesterhttp://www.wikiwand.com/en/Calleva_Atrebatum
Winchelsea, founded under Edward Ihttp://www.winchelsea.net/
![Page 3: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
A brief history of new towns
![Page 4: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Factory towns: New Lanark (1786)
![Page 5: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
Utopian experiments• Owenite socialist communities
– New Harmony, Indiana, (1823-5), Kendal, Ohio (1826-9)
• Chartist Land Plan settlements, 1846-52 – e.g. O’Connorville (Heronsgate), Hertfordshire; Charterville (Minster Lovell), Oxfordshire
![Page 6: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
Factory towns: Saltaire (1851)
![Page 7: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
Factory towns: Port Sunlight (1888)
![Page 8: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
Garden City movement (1898-)
![Page 9: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
Early 20th century
• London County Council – slum clearance & planned communities since the 1890s
• Garden city movement – soon popular in USA and Australia – e.g. Garden City, Port Melbourne (1920)
• New technologies spark new factory cities – e.g. Fordlandia, Brazil (1928- failed in 1934)
![Page 10: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
New Towns Committee (1945-6)• “promotion of New Towns in furtherance of a
policy of planned decentralisation from congested urban areas … such Towns should be established and developed as self-contained and balanced communities for work and living.”
‘Charley in New Town’, Central Office of Information for Ministry of Town and Country Planning, 1948
![Page 11: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
New Towns Committee and Act (1945-46)
• Frederic Osborn, key figure in Welwyn Garden City, served on the committee
• Called for each new town to be zoned, with a central area, residential areas designed to the American neighbourhood unit principle, and an industrial zone
• 20 ‘Mark 1’ towns: including 8 in London hinterland: Basildon, Harlow, Crawley, Bracknell, Hatfield, Hemel Hempstead, Stevenage, and expanded WGC
• Only 1 new town built in 1950s – Cumbernauld, Scotland
![Page 12: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
‘urban renewal’ programme in the 1960s
• ‘Mark 2’ towns – Skelmersdale, Livingstone, Redditch, Runcorn and Washington.
• ‘Mark 3’ towns under Wilson’s government - 1965 New Towns Act – Milton Keynes, Northampton, Telford, Peterborough.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/sixties-britain/map-new-towns/
![Page 13: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
Planning Milton Kenyes• 1967 Milton Keynes Development Corporation –
consultant team of Llewelyn-Davies, Weeks, Forestier-Walker, Bor.
• Very influenced by California urban theorist Melvin Webber as well as Garden City ideals – Webber: technology allows decentralization; ‘place-free’ and ‘stretched-out’ communities
• Strongly modernist design to buildings• Idea of a city in the forest – green space and low rise• Grid layout for streets with roundabouts integrating
existing villages within the system – mix of old and new
![Page 14: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
International context – postwar new towns across the world
Including:• Nowa Huta, Poland (1949)• Electrenai, Lithuania (1961)• Reston, Virginia, USA (1964)• Columbia, Maryland, USA (1967)
• Index at http://www.newtowninstitute.org/newtowndata/index.php
![Page 15: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/15.jpg)
Researching old towns in England
• English place name society • Victoria County History• Historical trade directories • Maps and tithe maps• Census and parish records
![Page 16: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/16.jpg)
Researching new towns – how different from researching ‘old’ towns?
• Management of the city through a Development Corporation – different type of organisation and archives
• Archives likely still to be with councils rather than in record offices
• Data protection and people still alive! – hence census not available – but other types of sources e.g. oral history archives
![Page 17: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
Key issues relating to new towns history
• Urban dispersal – political and economic reasons
• Urban planning and policy• Migration• ‘new town blues’ – issues of isolation• ‘old town’ versus ‘incomers’• Gender, class and ethnic make-up and changes
over time
![Page 18: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
Topics to cover and what sources to choose
Urban planning
Development Corporation documents; architects’ drawings
Political history
Government legislation; Election results; newspapers
Social and
cultural history
Newspapers, magazines, pamphlets; documentaries
People’s history
Oral interviews, community archives
![Page 19: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
Key questions to ask of your sources
• The 6 ‘w’s:1. What is it?2. Who made it?3. When was it made?4. Why was it made?5. What audience did it have?6. What does it tell us about the bigger story?
![Page 20: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
sources• MK digitised archives and catalogue - https://
ehive.com/collections/4535/milton-keynes-city-discovery-centre
• People’s History of Milton Keynes oral histories• Talking New Towns project – Hatfield, Hemel Hempstead,
Stevenage and Welwyn Garden City - http://www.talkingnewtowns.org.uk/
• British Newspaper Archive (subscription needed – or access at the British Library)
• local libraries, MK Discovery Centre, and Bucks Archives for local newspapers, maps, literature
• RIBA library • BFI film archive for public information films and documentaries
![Page 21: Milton Keynes and its place within new towns history](https://reader036.vdocuments.us/reader036/viewer/2022070602/587560121a28ab00528b6ff5/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
Further reading• Mark Clapson, new ed., Milton Keynes Development
Corporation, The Plan for Milton Keynes (Taylor & Francis, 2013)
• Mark Clapson, Invincible Green Suburbs, brave new towns: social change and urban dispersal in postwar England (Manchester University Press, 1998)
• Frederick Osborn and Arnold Whittick, New Towns: their origins, achievements and progress (Leonard Hill, 1977)
• Rosemary Wakeman, Practising Utopia (University of Chicago Press, 2016)
• David Kynaston, Modernity Britain: A Shake of the Dice, 1959-62 (Bloomsbury, 2014)