ABSTRACT
The heavy bombing of British cities began in September, and placed rebuilding high upon the list of reconstruction priorites. The organization which William Graham Holford joined was a curious entity: in, but not of the Ministry of Works, the Reconstruction Group worked directly to Reith through H. L. G. Vincent, a distinguished career civil servant who between 1928 and 1936 had been Private Secretary to successive Prime Ministers. John Dower was given charge of a small team working on the future planning system: their first task was to produce proposals for the treatment of ‘reconstruction areas’ created by bombing. They also believed that the Reconstruction Group should form the nucleus of such an authority, but Reith lacked the powers, and the Group lacked the capacity to take up that mantle. Post-war reconstruction, however, could be expected to involve something of a far more wide-ranging nature, with the state an active participant in the comprehensive planning of entire communities.
