Building Act 1774
The Building Act 1774, formally known as the Fires Prevention Act 1774, was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1774 to consolidate earlier legislation and to regulate the design and construction of new buildings in London. The provisions of the act regulated the design of new buildings erected in London and elsewhere in Great Britain and Ireland in the late Georgian period.
The act standardised the quality and construction of buildings and made the exterior of a building as fire-proof as possible, by restricting any superfluous exterior timber ornamentation except for door frames and shop fronts. The act placed buildings into classes or "rates" defined by size and value, with a code of structural requirements for the foundations and external and party walls for each of the rates. It mandated inspection of new buildings by building surveyors to ensure rules and regulations were applied. The act also brought into being the first legislation that dealt with human life and escape, rather than just building safety, and made parishes responsible for permanent provision of working fire fighting equipment.
Professor Sir John Summerson, one of the leading British architectural historians of the 20th century, described it as "the great Building Act of 1774, a milestone in the history of London 'improvement'". It was the leading reason for the appearance of the many Georgian houses, terraces and squares which remain important features of some parts of London and other cities and towns within the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and elsewhere.
Background
After the Great Fire of London of 1666, it was realised how much the traditional construction of buildings had aided the spread of the fire, with the close proximity of buildings and the incendiary nature of building material such as timber and thatch fuelling the fire. Several acts of Parliament over the next century attempted to improve building regulations:- Rebuilding of London Act 1666, also known as the London Building Act, determined that street widths, as well as the heights of houses, were regulated and brick construction was prescribed. Timber-framed buildings were forbidden. There could be no projections or jetties over the streets, because they allowed fire to leap from house to house. The intention was to make the street into an effective firebreak
- Mischiefs by Fire Act 1707 stipulated that wooden roofs had to be surrounded by a stone parapet
- Mischiefs by Fire Act 1708, also known as the London Building Act 1708, stipulated that window wooden frames should no longer be flush with the walls, but recessed
- Mischiefs by Fire Act 1724
- London Streets, City Act 1759
- Better Regulating of Buildings etc. Act 1764
- London Widening of Passages, etc. Act 1766
- Metropolitan Buildings Act 1772, relating to party wall construction
The new act was drafted by the architects Robert Taylor and George Dance the Younger, who was then Clerk of the City Works. Its aims included:
- Making the exterior of ordinary houses as nearly incombustible as possible
- Preventing slipshod construction of party walls
- Preventing disputes between adjoining owners of party walls
Title, short title and popular names
Acts passed by the Parliament of Great Britain did not originally have short titles; the Building Act 1774 was uniquely identified as 14 Geo. 3. c. 78. The long title of the act is:Schedule 1 of the Short Titles Act 1896, gave the 1774 act the short title the Fires Prevention Act 1774, but it is more widely referred to as the Building Act 1774. It is also known as the London Building Act 1774 and the Building Act of London 1774, and has been informally described as the Great Building Act 1774, the Great Codifying Act 1774, and the Black Act 1774.
Main provisions
Building rates
In order to lay down hard and fast, standardised rules of construction it was necessary to categorise London buildings into separate classes or "rates". Each rate had to conform to its own structural code for foundations, thicknesses of external and party walls, and the positions of windows in outside walls. For all rates, the 1774 act stipulated that all external window joinery was hidden behind the outer skin of masonry, as a precaution against fire. It also regulated the construction of hearths and chimneys.The act determined seven types of building construction graded by ground area occupied and value. The four rates applicable to houses predicted the likely social class of their occupants.
- A 'First Rate' house was valued at over £850, and occupied an area on the ground plan of more than nine "squares of building". These houses were typically for the "nobility" or "gentry". The occupants would frequently not own the house, but would rent and use it as their townhouse as a temporary alternative to their larger country house.
- A 'Second Rate' house was valued at between £300 and £850, and occupied an area on the ground plan of between five and nine "squares of building". These houses were typically for "professional" men, "gentleman of good fortune", or "merchants", and might face notable streets or the River Thames.
- A 'Third Rate' house was smaller and valued at between £150 and £300, and occupied an area on the ground plan of between three and a half and five "squares of building". These houses were typically for "clerks", and faced principal streets.
- A “Fourth Rate” House was valued at less than £150, and occupied an area on the ground plan of less than three-and-a-half "squares of building". These houses were typically for "mechanics" or "artisans", and would be found in minor streets.
The Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Rates were for any other building, including cranehouses, windmills, watermills, and workshops. The act included provisions stating a maximum floor area for warehouses.
Disputes
The act regulated the responsibilities of the owners of party walls, and defined how disputes would be resolved.Responsibilities of surveyors
To address the past difficulties with enforcement, the act created a statutory role for the surveyor. He had to survey any new building or wall being built, and was paid a fee by the master workman constructing the work. The surveyor had to swear an oath that he would ensure the rules and regulations of the act were observed. This led in 1844 to the role of "district surveyor".Parish duties
The act stated that every parish must "have, and keep in good order and repair, and in some known and publick place within each parish, a large engine, and also an hand engine, to throw up water for the extinguishing of fires", and also pipes and firecocks with working supplies of water to supply these fire engines. In addition, the parish had to provide "in some known and publick place within each parish, three or more proper ladders of one, two and three story high, for assisting persons in houses on fire to escape therefrom". This was the first fire legislation to deal with human life and escape, rather than the safety of buildings alone.Insurance and accident
Before 1774 liability for fires in England was strict without exception. No excuse was permitted when an owner allowed a fire to spread to neighbouring properties, due to the danger of fire in crowded and largely wooden mediaeval towns and villages. The act relaxed this liability by stipulating that no action should be taken against someone who caused a fire by accident. The act also included measures to prevent deliberate fire setting in order to claim insuranceAdoption of the act, and demand for the Third Rate House
During the half-century or so after the 1774 act came into force, building in brick or stone became standard in cities and towns, and houses of the second, third and fourth rate became standardised throughout the country.The rising population in London generated demand for housing, encouraging land owners to develop large tracts of land. The great majority of these developments were built speculatively: land owners improved their land by laying out roads and services, and then granted building leases on this land. Housing developers would build "spec" houses on the improved land and generate an income from leaseholders by collecting rent. A builder-speculator bought the leasehold of a site from the ground landlord and built the shell and roofed and floored it, usually with the bare internal walls roughly plastered out. This would be in accordance with the stipulations laid down by the 1774 act and with the guidance of pattern books such as Peter Nicholson's The New Practical Builder. The first true occupiers of the house would then have the carcass finished to their own taste. Builders' guides were published, simplifying the statutory requirements.
In 1821 the population of London had been 1.38 million. In the next fifty years it grew by a further million and the resultant need for housing, coming mainly from lower-middle and middle-class families – clerks, shopkeepers and other such tradespeople – was best met through the provision of terraced houses of medium size. By far the greatest number of speculative houses built were of the third rate, whose exact dimensions were arrived at as a result of the areas defined in the act. Also, J. C. Loudon suggested in The Suburban Gardener and Villa Companion, "this technical classification of houses has been made by the British legislature, chiefly with a view to facilitate their assessment for taxes", referring to taxes on windows, glass and brick, and houses were built to suit. Demand for the third rate house placed it at the forefront of the housing market; intended to offer the speculative builder the greatest economy, and the middle-class house buyer the greatest value, the terraced third rate house became, according to Loudon, the most numerous house type in early nineteenth-century London.