Cultivating the City and Its Citizens: The Creation of Corporation Allotments in York

Urban Farm DB summary

The year 2008 marked the centenary of the UK's 1908 Small Holdings and Allotments Act, which significantly shaped the landscape of urban and rural Britain by placing a new obligation on local authorities to provide allotment gardens where residents wanted them. This article focuses on the creation of corporation-owned and -operated allotment gardens in York in the early twentieth century, examining how the era's debates over poor housing, unemployment and the condition of the working classes were reflected through the allotment movement. Allotment gardens represented an important resource for residents of the city's deprived areas, while local politicians and councillors viewed the sites as significant tools for social reform.