ABSTRACT
The fortunes of the GCTPA between 1914 and 1939 closely reflect the wider changes experienced in Britain in this period. The Great War itself imposed a double stamp on the work of the Association, constraining what it (like other organizations) could hope to do in wartime, but also opening the way for a national reconstruction debate with housing high on the political agenda. With the ending of the war, and the promise of unprecedented State intervention, it proved to be an active phase for the Association-cajoling Government and seeking to enlighten public opinion, as well as seeing the building of a second garden city. It also proved to be a shortlived phase and, when the Government’s reconstruction plans were withdrawn, the Association entered a long period of relative quietude, lasting through to the second half of the 1930s. It was not so much that the Association was inactive as that it was ineffective, powerless to do very much in the face of a persistent governmental reluctance to plan (in the widest sense) more than it had to, and in the face of a relentless tide of suburban housing development as opposed to garden cities. In the few years before the outbreak of the Second World War, however, the Association’s campaign gained from a wider interest in economic and physical planning, and, once again, the level of political involvement to secure its aims increased. It was a long campaign, with relatively little to show for it, but, arguably, by 1939 the Association was well-placed to play an important part in the new debate about planning and reconstruction that lay ahead.
