ABSTRACT
During the Victorian housing boom of the 1850s and 1860s, Islington, like North Kensington and other parts of inner London, was developed with speculative estates of large terraced houses designed for middle-class families with servants. As the better off deserted the cities for the new suburbs, these houses, unwanted by their intended occupants, degenerated into multiple occupancy and became overcrowded slums. With the development of the peripheral cottage estates for the working classes during the 1920s and 1930s, it became possible for the local authorities to begin clearing the worst slum housing. These were generally small areas (two or three blocks of houses), but large enough for about a hundred new flats.
