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year after Irene. Evelyn’s father, William James Perry, was headmaster beetles and bed bugs. They became ill, were unable to work and then
and chaplain of St Anne’s School in Redhill from 1896 until the school couldn’t afford decent food, creating a poverty spiral. When residents
closed after the end of WWI and Evelyn shared Irene’s views on the were later moved into their new housing, their furniture and clothes all
importance of social housing. had to be chemically disinfested to avoid cross-contamination.
Their first office was in Finsbury Square and Irene was less than In 1921, a young priest, Father Basil Jellicoe, was put in charge of the
impressed by the ‘foolish fuss’ that was made of two women setting up Magdalen College Mission in Somers Town. Funded by the Oxford
a surveying business: ‘cheap press publicity is very disagreeable’. One college, it had started working in the area in 1908, combining social
of their first jobs was to make a survey of the poorer areas of Chelsea, work with Christian Evangelism. Jellicoe was an adherent of F.D. Maurice
funded by a group of wealthy residents who wanted to tackle local slum and like him a radical reformist who took practical action. The Trust
landlords. The driving force was an ex-MP George Currie and the paid Jellicoe’s salary and volunteers, drawn from the undergraduates
project resulted in legal action. and recent postgraduates, also lived on site.
1924 was also the year of Irene’s marriage to John Barclay. John had Unsurprisingly, given the involvement of Edith Neville and the
fought in the First World War as a teenager, surviving the horrors of influence of FD Maurice, when the not-for-profit St Pancras House
Passchendaele to be invalided home with mustard gas poisoning and Improvement Society was founded in 1924 (later the St Pancras Housing
shell shock. It made him a committed pacifist. Meeting and marrying Association), its objectives were very similar to those pursued by Octavia
Irene was generally agreed to be a great turning point in his life and in Hill in her housing schemes: to provide housing of a good standard at
John, Irene found a husband who was totally supportive of her work an affordable rent, with associated community services, overseen by
and career. Housing Managers who had both technical and social work experience.
Regenerating the Somers Town slums A core principle was that re-housing should not mean up-rooting: local
In 1936, Irene contributed an essay on Property Management to a communities should remain intact. A year in the Honorary Secretary
careers guide, subtitled ‘rehousing; administration of new and old resigned and Edith persuaded Irene to take on the role, one which she
housing estates; surveying and architectural planning; and social work in would hold for 48 years.
connection with rehousing.’ This gives an idea of the scope of work in At first the Society bought houses to re-furbish but this approach was
Barclay and Perry’s next project, one to which Irene would stay connected quickly abandoned for a strategy of re-building and mass re-housing.
for the rest of her working life: the re-generation of Somers Town. The architect for the new-build schemes was Ian Hamilton and although
Squashed between two of London’s major railway stations, Euston and great attention was paid to cost, it did not come at the expense of beauty,
King’s Cross, the Victorian terraces of Somers Town had degenerated into with ornamental details were included in the buildings’ structure
slums before the First World War and now they were even more squalid. Gilbert Bayes (who also designed the famous Queen of Time Clock
Four families squeezed into seven or eight rooms in damp and dilapidated that still stands over the main entrance of Selfridges) made lunettes to
buildings, rotting woodwork and plaster peeling, infested with rats, black go over some of the windows. The thoughtful approach to the design
continued on page 16

Somers Town: building design and ornamentation

EMPIRE STATE SURVEYOR / VOL. 61 • NO 2 / 2025 • MARCH/APRIL 15