Erection date: 11/9/1926
Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green
Parmiter Street Re-housing Scheme
This commemoration stone was laid by the Mayor Alderman Charles Wm. Hovell, JP, 11th September 1926.
Housing Committee:
Councillor W. Paddock - Chairman
Councillor H. E. Adams - Vice-Chairman
The Mayor
{A list of 3 Alderman, followed by a list of 13 Councillors, see Commemorated subjects for the names.}
E. C. P. Monson, FRIBA - Architect
W. Simms - Builders
David J. Keep - Town Clerk
A. E. Darby - Borough Engineer
Site: Lenin Estate / Parmiter Street Housing (1 memorial)
E2, Cambridge Heath Road, Cambridge Court
Originally the 'Parmiter Street Re-housing Scheme', this development was named The Lenin Estate at a meeting, July 1927, by the then very left-leaning Council for Bethnal Green. But that administration fell to the Liberals in November 1928 and the name was quickly changed to the Cambridge Heath Estate. Now, no longer social housing, it is called Cambridge Court.
Shockingly, the Chair of the Committee listed on the plaque was one of the first tenants. Municipal Dreams reports: "Paddock’s disingenuous statement to the press that his ‘name was on the waiting list and when my turn came I appeared before the housing committee, of which I am chairman, in the ordinary way’ seems, to put it kindly, to contain its own contradiction."
All this, and the political background, is very well told at Municipal Dreams.
