Source 6G

I am the wife of a miner, and many of my people are engaged in the mining industry. I have lived all my life in the mining areas, and as a member of the Women’s Co-operative Guild, and of the Labour Party, have had many opportunities of discussing the conditions with other women.

Housing

Women acquiesce in bad housing in Wales because they have no alternative, under the present circumstances due to the extreme shortage of houses, a shortage which was very acute in industrial are as long before the war. The statement made that women acquiesce in bad housing because they like low rent I strongly resent on behalf of the women, as they have had to pay a very big increase in rent this last ten years for the same houses and conditions. I quote Rhondda, for example, being one of the largest mining are as in Wales.

Population: 165, 051 (1918 estimate) Number of in habited houses: 28, 384 Number of miners: 44,460 (estimate)

The estimated need for houses at present is 1,500 to 2,000. Houses that have been condemned before the war (notfit for human habitation) are still occupied owing to the shortage, and most of them occupied by large families.

(Evidence of Mrs Elizabeth Andrews, Report and Minutes of Evidence of the Royal Commission on the Coal Industry, Cmd. 359, 360, 1919 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] )