1919 – Urban Allotments – The Times

Painting by Beryl Cooks, ‘The Allotment’.
See Beryl Cook web site here.

Editorial in The Times (Britain)
Aug 25, 1919

Urban Allotments

There is a side to the question more important than the money value of the produce. The country is about to undergo an industrial revolution. There is to be a maximum working week of forty-eight hours for the vast majority of working men who dwell in towns. What are the artisans, clerks, shopmen, and the multitudes of indoor labourers to do with their new leisure?

Some will do nothing with it, or worse. But if facilities in the way of allotments and of instruction in the growth of flowers and vegetables are given to them, very many will gladly utilize them. It will be an interest, a recreation, and a health giving pursuit to them.

Even when the working day was long, artisans and miners readily cultivated plots when these were within reach, and the dwellers in large towns should be given the same facilities. The compulsory shortening of hours of labour must be correlated with increased provision for the hours of leisure, and in the provision allotments should be included.