Fascinating photos show 1930s Brighton in forward motion

But that would have been unthinkable in the Brighton of the Thirties as these fascinating photos from The Keep archive in Falmer show.

Between the First and Second World War, construction sites popped up across the area as slums were cleared and pioneering council flats were built in their place.

In 1921 only West Ham in London was more densely populated than Brighton.

Slums rife with poverty, prostitution and insect infestations had provided homes for most workers since the 19th century – some even felt fortunate to live them.

Laying a pipeline in Hove or Preston c1937 Photo: East Sussex Record Office/The Keep

The Brighton Corporation began demolishing these poorly built houses in the 1890s but there was still plenty of work to be done by the end of the First World War.

Brighton’s medical officer believed more than 3,000 houses were needed to house the city’s workers.

So a mass building programme began, as well as mass demolition.

More than 900 slum properties were destroyed between the wars, leaving more than 4,400 people without a home.

But 4,285 council homes were built in their place by the Brighton Corporation, though many of them were unaffordable for those straddling the poverty line.

District nurses on bicycles, 1938 Photo: East Sussex Record Office/The Keep

One photo shows a labourer pulling up floor boards of a Carlton Hill slum house in 1937, the newly built Milner Flats behind him.

Previous attempts to move Carlton Hill slum tenants into new estates in Whitehawk in the early Thirties had led to many returning to the town centre in search of work, unable to afford rent.

Despite this early warning, the Brighton Corporation continued to rapidly expand the town’s fringes with new estates.

Developments in Bevendean, East Moulsecoomb and Manor Farm were completed in quick succession.

But as the problem of slum housing disappeared, it was replaced with rising poverty.

Workmen chopping up an elm tree, c 1937 Photo: East Sussex Record Office/The Keep

Rents in these new homes were too expensive for many workers.

Even those who could afford to live in a council home often had to go without food.

Only in Croydon and Newcastle were more houses let for at least 12 shillings per week.

Brighton’s poverty problem was not seriously tackled until after the Second World War when employment rose and the economy improved.

But the effects of Brighton’s interwar housing blitz in the Twenties and Thirties changed the face of the town for ever.

• The Keep archive is currently closed but you can purchase digital or paper copies of these pictures and others like them by visiting thekeep.info or calling 01273 482349.