12 C O N T E X T 1 1 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 9 More systematic recording of buildings began in the voluntarist, societal sector; from the late 1880s, photographic societies began seriously recording historic buildings. Architect and arts and craftsman Charles Robert Ashbee began the Survey of London in 1894. Institutionalisation through parliamentary acts, local authority intervention and voluntarist organisations with state backing began in the 1880s, as the state became willing to legislate for more aspects of national life. Sir John Lubbock’s Ancient Monuments Act 1882 passed after several attempts, although inhabited buildings were exempted. George Godwin, editor of The Builder, encouraged broader middle-class interest by a more pragmatic appeal to concerns of taste and hygiene. As the middle classes came into closer contact with social deprivation in cities, their daily lives were affected. In his influential ‘As the Homes, so the People’, in Town Swamps and Social Bridges (1859), Godwin associated values of social stability with attractive historic buildings. He sought solutions to good hygiene in past design. Pragmatic interests underpinned more recreational associations with old buildings, and helped to build a constituency for their charms. Tourism, especially romantic and literary tourism, helped to develop interest in quaint and charming rural buildings, especially those that were recorded by writers, poets or artists. The aristocracy jumped on the bandwagon of a growing taste for ‘the olden times’ by opening secondary homes and ruined castles to the public. Arguably it was a combination of leisure interests and social interests that brought about the formation of the National Trust in 1894–5, although it had been a decade in gestation. The need for such an organisation was first proposed in 1884 by (Sir) Robert Hunter (who had helped Lubbock draft the Ancient Monuments Act) at a meeting of the Association for the Promotion of Social Science. It was prompted by town and county council reforms which allowed for much greater change to the urban and rural landscape. This would include new buildings for education and housing, as well as roads and reservoirs. Hunter’s was a liberal (and largely Liberal) solution to an establishment concern whereby a voluntarist organisation would work in conjunction with government. Of the trust’s initial 45 council members, some 15 were either Liberal MPs or Liberal members of the House of Lords. This included preservation activists Sir John Lubbock, George Shaw-Lefevre (later Baron Eversley, founder of the Commons Preservation Society) and James Bryce. The trust aimed to work with arts and amenity societies and universities, inviting representatives to join its council. Most important, it aspired to influence the new County Councils Association, represented by the Liberal Sir John Hibbert MP. The fledgling trust’s initial campaigns and collecting practices were markedly different to its later activities. Its early collection represented institutions of community life which at the time were diminishing in importance or disappearing. These included clergy houses (with school rooms), a manor house, a guild hall, a market hall and a court house. Most dated prior to the 17th century, most had antiquarian appeal, and several had already caught the eye of the SPAB. This group of buildings suggests a unifying concept of English values that encompassed social, educational, religious, literary, trade and labour traditions. Crucially those traditions of governance were very much in the public mind during the 11 years (1884–95) it took to get the trust off the ground. The fledgling trust was an important campaigning organisation, aspiring to influence preservation and planning legislation. In particular it tried to work with the Church and corporations to find alternative uses for interesting historic structures that were becoming unsuitable for their customary uses.When the College of Seamen wanted to dispose of theTrinity Almshouses in Mile End, London as unsanitary, the trust stepped in. It worked with London County Council, which intervened to provide new drainage and, eventually, purchased them. In Newbury, the trust helped a local group acquire the Cloth Hall, to convert to a museum as a Jubilee memorial. The trust’s campaigns reflected interest in biography, English literature and tourism (as did listed buildings, half a century later). It campaigned to protect the home of poet and hymnist William Cowper, Turner’s House, and Dr Johnson’s birthplace in Lichfield. It acquired Coleridge’s cottage at Nether Stowey, but not as a museum. Assisted by the Royal Automobile Club, the trust campaigned to save Pontiscale Bridge.The bridge had been condemned by Cumberland County Council, but the trust managed to promote it as a tourist amenity and eye-catcher for motorists. In 1897, the trust cooperated with the Cockburn Society, the Society of Antiquaries, and the Foreign Office to promote legislation. The white paper of 1897 was based on its information about initiatives from abroad.The Edinburgh University art history professor The fledgling National Trust helped a local group to acquire the Cloth Hall in Newbury, to convert it to a museum.
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