Flats were almost unknown in Britain until the 1850s when they were developed, along with other industrial dwellings, for the laboring classes. These vast blocks were plainly a convenient means of easing social conscience by housing large numbers of the ever-present poor on compact city sites. During the 1880s, however, the idea of living in comfortable residential chambers caught on with the affluent upper and upper-middle classes, and controversy as to the advantages and disadvantages of flat life was a topic of conversation around many a respectable dinner-table. In Paris and other major European cities, the custom whereby the better-off lived in apartments, or fiats, was well established. Up to the late nineteenth century in England only bachelor barristers had established the tradition of living in rooms near the Law Court: any self-respecting head of household would insist upon a West End town house as his London home, the best that his means could provide.
The popularity of flats for the better-off seems to have developed for a number of reasons. One is the introduction of the railways, which had enabled a wide range of people to enjoy a holiday staying in a suite at one of the luxury hotels which had begun to spring up during the previous decade. Hence, there is no doubt that many of the early luxury fiats were similar to hotel suites, even being provided with communal dining-rooms and central boilers for hot water and heating. Rents tended to be high to cover overheads, but savings were made possible by these communal amenities and by tenants being able to reduce the number of family servants.
One of the earliest substantial London developments of flats for the well-to-do was begun soon after Victoria Railway Station was opened in 1860, as the train service provided an efficient link with both the City and the South of England. Victoria Street, adjacent to both the Station and Westminster, had already been formed, and under the direction of the architect, Henry Ashton, was being lined, with blocks of residential chambers in the Parisian manner. These fiats were commodious indeed, offering between eight and fifteen rooms apiece, including appropriate domestic offices. The idea was an emphatic departure from the tradition of the London house and achieved immediate Success.
Perhaps the most notable block in the vicinity was Queen Anne’s Mansions, partly designed by E.R. Robson in 1884 and recently demolished. For many years, this was London’s loftiest building and had strong claims to be the ugliest. The block modeled on the American skyscraper, and was nearly 200 feet high. The cliff-like walls of dingy brick completely overshadowed the modest thoroughfare nearby. Although bleak outside, the mansion fiats were palatial within, with sumptuously furnished communal entertaining and dining rooms, and lifts to the uppermost floors. The success of these tall blocks of flats could not have been achieved, of course, without the invention of the lift, or ’ascending carriage’ as it was called when first used in the Strand Law Courts in the 1870s. One effect of the railways’ coming to central London was to stimulate the building of