The 1890 Housing of the Working Classes Act was a landmark in the provision of social housing in Britain. Since that time local councils and later other institutions have been empowered to build for general needs. The purpose of this book is to make the centenary of the 1890 act with a comprehensive collection of essays written by practitioners and research workers on the progress made in public housing over the last century. The book will contribute to the intensive debate about current housing policy and possibilities for the rest of this century and beyond. After an extensive historical introduction by the editors, the book considers the principles of building housing for the working classes, local political attitudes in the early days towards this policy and subsequent development of a national housing policy and its response to external influences. Later chapters deal with the financing of public housing and the complex system of subsidies, rent pooling and the division of revenue, with rents and income with tenants' legal rights. Patrick Nuttjons has contributed a chapter on the design for living shown in the design of the early garden cities and through to the vernacular and institutional architecture which characterized later British council estates. Other chapters deal with the management of housing and its professionalization and with other social housing provision, in particular housing associations and other cooperative movements.