ABSTRACT
It was the Housing, Town Planning Etc. Act of 19093 that first introduced the concept of Town Planning Schemes, the precursors of today’s development plans.4 The Fourth Schedule contained a list of matters to be included in such schemes and which were to be dealt with in more detail by General Provisions prescribed by the Local Government Board. The fourth of these items was ‘The preservation of objects of historical interest or natural beauty’. Those words were not in the Bill as introduced by the government. They were added at the Committee stage by an amendment moved by Mr. Morrell on 3 December 1908. Philip Edward Morrell was the liberal member for South Oxfordshire (1906-1910) and for Burnley (19101918). He was the husband of Lady Ottoline Morrell, the famous Edwardian hostess and literary figure, who later held court at Garsington Manor in Oxfordshire. The Dictionary of National Biography notes that he ‘shared her aesthetic tastes and advanced views’. Certainly they would have known of William Morris and the SPAB, but I have not found direct evidence of a closer connection that would account for his Parliamentary initiative in the Act of 1909.
