ABSTRACT
Both the design and policy of twentieth-century housing, including the pre-1914 stock, were devised in the interests of the nuclear family. The obvious justification was that this category included most of the population: it was, quite literally, the nursery of society. Given this bias, difficulties inevitably arose from those who, one way or another, did not fit the family stereotype. They included broadly two groupings: those who because of a particular infirmity were unable to look after themselves; and those who, in the view of society, should have done so but did not. The last included unmarried mothers and families who through unemployment, sickness or other accident had lost, or never had, a home. Even orphans were perversely bracketed with such deviants, for clearly they should have been part of ‘normal’ families.
