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Billboards, Planning and Urban Modernism

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Injurious Vistas: The Control of Outdoor Advertising, Governance and the Shaping of Urban Experience in Britain, 1817–1962

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Economic History ((PEHS))

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Abstract

This chapter proposes that the driving force behind the advancement of outdoor advertising control after the 1930s were local authorities. It argues that their understanding of ‘amenity’ demonstrates the pervasive nature of urban modernism and planning to governing towns and cities in the post-war period. The acts of the interwar period could not be used to create order and uniformity in more mundane and extant urban spaces, but in the post-war local corporations utilised the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act to expand the definition of amenity to include any residential areas. Despite staunch opposition from the advertising trade, local corporations were able to persuade central government that it was desirable to protect even the ‘meanest’ and most dilapidated residential areas against outdoor advertising and did so by depicting a social democratic subject, who had the right to live in spaces uncluttered by the intrusions of commercialism.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Quoted in BL/PP1092bac ‘Advertisement Disfigurement and Law: SCAPA Pamphlet No. 4’, October 1929, p. 1 on the case see: ‘English Cases’, Canadian Law Journal 45 (1909), p. 477.

  2. 2.

    Solicitor’s Journal, 17 April 1909, p. 424.

  3. 3.

    Patrick Joyce, The Rule of Freedom: Liberalism and the Modern City (London, 2003), p. 88.

  4. 4.

    Cyril Sheldon, A History of Poster Advertising (London, 1937), pp. 164–166.

  5. 5.

    The Scotsman, 16 April 1926, p. 10.

  6. 6.

    Evans, The Age of Disfigurement, p. 21.

  7. 7.

    Lord Balfour of Burleigh, Report of the Royal Commission on Local Taxation, 1901, C.D. 638, p. 71.

  8. 8.

    See: Avner Offer, Property and Politics, 1870–1914: Landownership, Law, Ideology and Urban Development in England (Cambridge, 1981), ch. 18 and 21; Martin Daunton, Just Taxes: The Politics of Taxation in Britain, 1914–1979 (Cambridge, 2002), ch. 11.

  9. 9.

    NA HLG/56/1116, LCC letter to the Ministry of Health, 19 January 1931.

  10. 10.

    Rating and Valuation Act, 1925 (15 and 16 Geo. 5 c. 90), s. 57(1). Circular to local authorities reported in The Scotsman, 3 June 1927, p. 4.

  11. 11.

    NA/HLG/56/1116, ‘Resolution Passed by the City Council’, 29 July 1932.

  12. 12.

    NA/HLG/56/1116,‘Advertisement Hoardings. Rating’, 26 October 1933.

  13. 13.

    NA/HLG/56/1116, LCC letter to the Ministry of Health, 19 January 1931.

  14. 14.

    The Field, 17 Jun 1905, pp. 48–49.

  15. 15.

    BL/PP1092baa, ‘SCAPA Quarterly Papers: New Series No. 2’, p. 3; NA/HLG/56/1116. ‘Derating Advertising Hoardings’, 16 February 1931.

  16. 16.

    Sheldon, A History of Poster Advertising, p. 223.

  17. 17.

    The Times, 14 April 1932, p. 8.

  18. 18.

    NA/HLG/71/1738, Correspondence: G.R. Coles to Street, 2 August 1957.

  19. 19.

    On the urge to create comprehensive bodies of municipal knowledge, see: Leif Jerram, Streetlife: The Untold Story of Europe’s Twentieth Century (Oxford, 2010), ch. 5; Joyce, The Rule of Freedom, ch. 1 and 2.

  20. 20.

    Sheldon, A History of Poster Advertising, pp. 147–291.

  21. 21.

    Moran, The Business of Advertising, pp. 146–151.

  22. 22.

    NA/HO/45/17318, ‘Letter to Hampstead Town Clerk’, 27 March 1915.

  23. 23.

    United Billposting Co. Ltd. V. Somerset County Council, 1926 quoted in NA/HO/45/16607, Home Office Memorandum 176,181/28 15 November 1932, p. 3.

  24. 24.

    NA/HO/45/16607, Letter from Cumberland County Council, 12 October 1932.

  25. 25.

    Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 28 September 1929, p. 11.

  26. 26.

    Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 5 September 1931, p. 14.

  27. 27.

    The Scotsman, 27 March 1930, p. 8.

  28. 28.

    William Davidge, The Rotherham Regional Planning Scheme (Rotherham, 1925), p. 102.

  29. 29.

    Patrick Abercrombie and T.H. Johnson, Sheffield and District Regional Planning Scheme (Liverpool, 1931), p. 54.

  30. 30.

    Liverpool Echo, 27 March 1930, p. 7.

  31. 31.

    NA/HLG/54/264, ‘Comments on Liverpool Corporation Bill (No. 2), 1930’, 28 April 1930; Special report from the Select Committee on Local Legislation, 1929–30, HC Papers, No. 163, Vol. 6, p. 177.

  32. 32.

    Liverpool Echo, 26 March 1930, p. 16; NA/HLG/54/264, ‘Supplementary Report of the Secretary of State for the Home Department on the Liverpool Corporation Bill (No. 2), 1930’, 28 April 1930.

  33. 33.

    NA/HLG/54/264, ‘Draft of Liverpool Corporation Bill (No. 2), 1930’, 3 March 1930, sections 60 and 66; Liverpool Echo, 25 March 1930, p. 5.

  34. 34.

    Liverpool Echo, 26 March 1930, p. 8.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., p. 16.

  36. 36.

    Hansard, HC, 27 July 1933, vol. 280, cc. 2886.

  37. 37.

    Ibid., cc. 2901.

  38. 38.

    Sheffield Town Planning Committee, Sheffield replanned (Sheffield, 1945), p. 62.

  39. 39.

    BL/PP1092baa, ‘SCAPA Quarterly Papers: New Series No. 3’ (1931), pp. 2–3.

  40. 40.

    Mass Observation Archive (MOA),‘Reactions to Advertising’, December 1938.

  41. 41.

    MOA, ‘Public Attitudes to Advertisements’, February 1944, p. 5.

  42. 42.

    Nicholas Bullock, Building the Post-war World: Modern Architecture and Reconstruction in Britain (London, 2002); Gordon Cherry, Cities and Plans: The Shaping of Urban Britain in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (London, 1988); John Gold, The Practice of Modernism: Modern Architects and Urban Transformation, 1954–1972 (London, 2007); Otto Saumarez Smith, Boom Cities: Architect Planners and the Politics of Radical Urban Renewal in 1960s Britain (Oxford, 2019); John Stevenson, ‘Planners’ Moon? The Second World War and the Planning Movement’, in H.L. Smith (ed), War and Social Change: British Society in the Second World (Manchester, 1986), pp. 58–77 (pp. 59–60).

  43. 43.

    Simon Gunn, ‘The Rise and Fall of British Urban Modernism: Planning Bradford, Circa 1945–1970’, Journal of British Studies 49:4 (2010), pp. 849–869; Guy Ortolano, Thatcher’s Progress: From Social Democracy to Market Liberalism Through an English New Town (Cambridge, 2019), p. 20.

  44. 44.

    James Greenhalgh, Reconstructing Modernity: Space, Power and Governance in mid-Twentieth Century British Cities (Manchester, 2018).

  45. 45.

    Joyce, The Rule of Freedom, particularly pp. 86–90.

  46. 46.

    Baker, ‘Public Sites Versus Public Sights’, pp. 1187–1213; Iveson, ‘Branded Cities’, pp. 151–174.

  47. 47.

    Housing Act, 1923 (13 and 14. Geo. 5, c. 24), s. 23.

  48. 48.

    Town Planning Act, 1925 (15 and 16 Geo. 5, c. 16), s. 1(2); Town and Country Planning Act, 1932 (22 and 23 Geo. 5. c. 48).

  49. 49.

    Ancient Monuments Act, 1931 (21 and 22 Geo. 5. c. 16).

  50. 50.

    For definitions see: Historic England, The Setting of Heritage Assets (2nd edition), online resource https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/gpa3-setting-of-heritage-assets/heag180-gpa3-setting-heritage-assets/ accessed 20 December 2020.

  51. 51.

    LMA/A/SCA/06/002/005, Correspondence between Scorer and SCAPA, 6 March 1939.

  52. 52.

    Hansard, HC, 14 February 1934, vol. 285, cc. 2017.

  53. 53.

    T&CPA, 1932, s. 47(1), as noted in Barry Cullingworth and Vincent Nadin (eds.), Town and Country Planning in the UK (London, 2002), p. 144.

  54. 54.

    West Middlesex Gazette, 16 July 1938, p. 9.

  55. 55.

    West Middlesex Gazette, 27 November 1937, p. 11.

  56. 56.

    The Scotsman, 25 October 1938, p. 6.

  57. 57.

    The Scotsman, 9 November 1934, p. 6.

  58. 58.

    Lancaster Guardian, 4 August 1939, p. 5.

  59. 59.

    Donald L. Foley, ‘British Town Planning: One Ideolodgy or Three?’, The British Journal of Sociology 11:3 (1960), pp. 211–231 (p. 220). Also: Philip Booth, ‘Planning and the Rule of Law’, Planning Theory and Practice 17:3 (2016), pp. 344–360 (pp. 354–356).

  60. 60.

    Foley, ‘British Town Planning’, p. 220.

  61. 61.

    Katrina Navickas, ‘Conflicts of Power, Landscape and Amenity in Debates over the British Super Grid in the 1950s’, Rural History 30:1 (2019), pp. 87–103.

  62. 62.

    The Scotsman, 30 January 1947, p. 5.

  63. 63.

    NA/HLG/71/1045, ‘Town and County Planning Bill ‘B’’, 17.1.1, clause 28, undated c. January 1947.

  64. 64.

    Town and Country Planning Act, 1947 (10 and 11 Geo. 6, c. 51), s. 31(3).

  65. 65.

    On the difficulties of immediate post-war redevelopment see: Junuchi Hasegawa, Replanning the Blitzed City Centre: A Comparative Study of Bristol, Coventry and Southampton (Buckingham, 1992); Peter J. Larkham, ‘Thomas Sharp and the Post-war Replanning of Chichester: Conflict, Confusion and Delay’, Planning Perspectives 24:1 (2009), pp. 51–75; Nick Tiratsoo, ‘The Reconstruction of Blitzed British Cities, 1945–55: Myths and Reality’, Contemporary British History 14:1 (2000), pp. 27–44.

  66. 66.

    NA/HLG/71/1045 ‘Meeting with representatives of the Scottish poster advertising industry’, 21 February 1947; ‘Control of advertisements: fourth meeting of committee “A”’, 27 March 1947.

  67. 67.

    NA/HLG/71/1045, ‘Draft of speech to the British Poster Advertising Association’ by Silkin, 17 June 1947.

  68. 68.

    The relevant section dealing with the role of the Minister in deciding outdoor advertising appeals appears in regulation 20(4) of the Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertising) Regulations (S.I. 1948 No. 1613) that was appended to the original T&CPA 1947.

  69. 69.

    NA/HLG/79/421 ‘Appeal Hearing’, 26 January 1949, p. 2.

  70. 70.

    NA/HLG/79/421 ‘Letter to the MoT&CP’, 19 November 1948; ‘Letter to Arthur Maiden Ltd from Town Clerk’, 9 November 1948.

  71. 71.

    NA/HLG/79/421, ‘Appeal Hearing’, 26 January 1949, p. 2.

  72. 72.

    ‘Silkin Tells Sign Men of Outdoor Law Clean-Up’, World’s Press News and Advertisers’ Review, 31 March 1949, p. 4.

  73. 73.

    NA/HLG/71/1723, Note ref:1129/30/4-9, 22 February 1950, p. 2.

  74. 74.

    NA/HLG/71/1723, ‘Meeting between AMC and Ministry’, 4 May 1950.

  75. 75.

    NA/HLG/71/1723, ‘Memo from Mr Price-Jones to Mr Proper’, 1 December 1949.

  76. 76.

    NA/HLG/71/1723, ‘Control of Advertisements’, 2 September 1949, p. 1.

  77. 77.

    NA/HLG/71/1723, Notes on Meeting between Ministry and AMC’, 4 May 1950.

  78. 78.

    NA/HLG/71/1723, Notes on a conference with Birmingham, undated c. June 1949.

  79. 79.

    Baker, ‘Public Sites Versus Public Sights’, p. 1197.

  80. 80.

    NA/HLG/71/1723, Note on Meeting with Birmingham, 26 October 1949, p. 1.

  81. 81.

    Andy Foster, Birmingham: Pevsner Architectural Guides (New Haven, 2002).

  82. 82.

    Navickas, ‘Conflicts of Power’, p. 95.

  83. 83.

    Selina Todd, ‘Phoenix Rising: Working-Class Life and Urban Reconstruction, c. 1945–1967’, Journal of British Studies 54:4 (2015), pp. 679–702 (p. 702).

  84. 84.

    NA/HLG/71/1723, Notes on meeting between Ministry and AMC, 4 May 1950,.

  85. 85.

    Ortolano, Thatcher’s Progress. Thanks also to the author for discussions on this subject.

  86. 86.

    ‘Control Becoming Repression?’, Advertisers Weekly, 24 August 1950, p. 1.

  87. 87.

    NA/HLG/71/1738, Untitled Note from T.H Sheepshanks, 31 October 1950.

  88. 88.

    NA/AT/29/137, Meeting Between the Outdoor Advertising Industry Advisory Committee and the Ministry, 11 November 1949.

  89. 89.

    NA/HLG/71/1723, Parliamentary question to Mr Dalton’, 27 February 1951.

  90. 90.

    NA/HLG/71/1738, ‘Control of Outdoor Advertisements Directive on Future Administration’ (from Dalton), 25 May 1950.

  91. 91.

    NA/HLG/71/1738, ‘Control of Advertisements – Principles Governing Appeal Decisions’, 16 May 1950 and ‘Control of Advertisements’, 27 May 1950.

  92. 92.

    NA/HLG/71/1062, Correspondence: P.D. Coates to J.D. Jones, 28 May 1952.

  93. 93.

    NA/HLG/71/1733, ‘Site at Crown Street, Liverpool’, Ref: 1324/40030/361, 6 June 1953.

  94. 94.

    NA/HLG/71/1733, ‘Site at Price Street Birkenhead’, Ref: 954/40030/76, 27 June 1955.

  95. 95.

    NA/HLG/71/1733, Note to the Minister, 20 April 1956.

  96. 96.

    Scimgeour v. Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire Billposting Co. Ltd. 22 April 1936, quoted in The Solicitor’s Journal, 25 April 1936 unpaginated cutting in NA/HO/45/16607.

  97. 97.

    NA/HLG/71/1733, Site at 100/104 High Street Jarrow, Ref:1265/40030/12, 19 January 1955.

  98. 98.

    NA/HLG/71/1738, Correspondence between Valentine and Downing c 20 January 1955.

  99. 99.

    NA/HLG/71/1738, Note on response to question in Commons, 368/19955/6, 9 February 1956; Letter from H.H Mallatratt, 31 January 1957.

  100. 100.

    NA/HLG/71/1738, Correspondence between Raikes and Powell/Duncan Sandys, May 1956.

  101. 101.

    ‘NA/HLG/71/1738, Meeting with the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, 12 December 1956, pp. 1–2.

  102. 102.

    NA/HLG/140/27, Various correspondence 1958–1961.

  103. 103.

    NA/HLG/71/1738, Correspondence: G.R.Coles to Street, 2 August 1957.

  104. 104.

    Turner, The Shocking History of Advertising, p. 250.

  105. 105.

    NA/HLG/71/1738, Correspondence: G.R.Coles to Street, 2 August 1957.

  106. 106.

    ‘Housing Minister Shocks the Outdoor Advertising Industry’, Signs and Outdoor Advertising 15:12 (1961), p. 1. in NA/HLG/140/27.

  107. 107.

    NA/HLG/140/27, Letter from Outdoor Advertising Council, 28 April 1961; Letter from Council on Tribunals, 18 July 1961.

  108. 108.

    Nevett, Advertising in Britain, p. 191; Sheldon, A History of Poster Advertising, p. 99.

  109. 109.

    Town and Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) Regulations (S.I. 1960 No. 695), s. 5, 8, 11 and 12 (1a) iv.

  110. 110.

    Properly, the ‘Code of Standards for Advertising on Business Premises’ introduced by the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers. Hansard,, HC, 9 March 1962, vol. 655, cc. 767–843; History of Advertising Trust Chronology, online resource https://www.hatads.org.uk/documents/Chronology.pdf accessed 20 January 2021.

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    James Greenhalgh

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Greenhalgh, J. (2021). Billboards, Planning and Urban Modernism. In: Injurious Vistas: The Control of Outdoor Advertising, Governance and the Shaping of Urban Experience in Britain, 1817–1962. Palgrave Studies in Economic History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79018-9_5

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