Sixty years on from the London County Council: legacy, impact, learning

"It has been said that a doctor can bury his mistakes but that an architect must live with the ones he makes. The Council with its continuing life, already spanning two generations, has had to live with the results of any errors made by itself or its servants. It knows the outcome of many experiments and knows full well what stands the test of time." London County Council, Housing: a survey of the post war housing work of the LCC 1945-49, London, (1949) Foreword by Isaac Hayward Leader of the LCC.

The London County Council (LCC) was the municipal authority for the County of London between 1889 and 1965 when it was replaced by the Greater London Council (GLC). Although the LCC was the largest and most ambitious local authority in England and its impact on London’s built environment, politics, culture and history has been acknowledged as significant, this has been overlooked both in academia and by the wider public. Its reach was wide, covering all aspects of Londoners’ lives (such as schools, hospitals, art, infrastructure and housing), and the LCC’s legacy on the fabric of London is in evidence all around us.

The County of London covered what we now think of as inner London and was formed of land from the counties of Surrey, Kent and Middlesex, with boundaries and sprawl ever an issue. The LCC bordered other councils and had powers outside the county, for instance with the building of out-of-county estates such as Becontree. In 1957, the Herbert Commission was formed to discuss establishing a Greater London Council taking in a wider geographical area and this led to the 1963 London Government Act and the abolition of the LCC. William Eric Jackson’s book ‘Achievement: A Short History of the London County Council’ (1965) was the first attempt to characterise the scope of what had been accomplished.

This conference marks sixty years since the LCC was disbanded and will be hosted by the London School of Architecture in March 2025. It aims to build on Andrew Saint’s collection of essays, Politics and the People of London: The London County Council, 1889-1965 (1989) with the author noting the LCC’s contribution being ‘crucial to the growth of and development of modern London.’ This event will also act as a follow-up to the findings of the March 2002 ‘London County Council Architecture, 1945-1965’ conference hosted by the Twentieth Century Society (Andrew Saint and Elain Harwood) along with the Architectural Association. This provided the opportunity for staff and a wider audience to reminisce, but also reassess, the impact of the LCC nearly 40 years after its demise.

Sixty years on, we are in a social, cultural and political climate both removed from, and with similarities to, the LCC years. We are interested in receiving papers lasting 20 minutes based on (but not limited to) the following themes, and welcome suggestions of presentations in other formats to create a diverse and rich programme. We welcome scholars from a range of backgrounds and career statuses.

• The First 50 Years of the LCC

• The Last 20 Years of the LCC

• War and Emergency

• Council in operation/politics/workforce

• Town planning/new and expanding towns/housing and neighbourhood design

• Roads and Traffic

• Parks and Open Spaces

• Schools, adult education and children’s services

• Cultural Activities

• Relationships

• International influences

• Adaptation/reuse

The LCC 60 organisers plan to create a future special issue for an academic journal to mark this event and would be interested in contributions to that issue. Regarding the conference, please send a 200-word abstract with a short bio to LCC60yearson@gmail.com by 16th October 2024.