CHAPTER V. The Building of County Hall 1909–1922
Work began on the construction of County Hall in 1909,
before either elevations or internal planning had been
finalized. Considerable delays resulted, partly because of
the clumsy dual responsibility of the architects, and partly
through unforeseen problems over the construction of
such a massive building on the riverside site. However,
not only the river wall and foundation slab, but to some
extent the substructure, were sufficiently independent of
the superstructure to allow construction to begin before
the design of the latter had been fully thought out.
The general plan of construction (fig. 21) was to erect
a coffer dam up to the boundary with Holloways' premises,
behind which the embankment wall could be built, and
then to clear the site of made ground and Thames mud
by excavation – about 19 feet in all – and lay a five-foot
thick concrete foundation 'raft' on top of the ballast which
underlies the area. Over and above the structural advantages of this scheme on a piece of littoral with uncertain
bearing strength and stability, the slab gave complete
flexibility for the planning and setting out of the building
(Plate 6).
The immense task of constructing the building presented problems of its own. These were made more serious
as the process of designing fell far behind in relation to
site works. Riley suggested to Knott in the summer of
1909 that the contract for the construction of the building
itself might be split into two sections: the first to cover
substructure and the building up to ground floor level
(including foundations and two basements); and the
second to cover superstructure – the remaining, more
complicated and contentious part of the building. Knott
immediately acknowledged the advantages of this idea,
and there is no doubt that the building was completed
more quickly as a result of this separation of contracts. (fn. 1)
In addition the building was divided vertically into
Sections and Blocks (fig. 22), on which work started
progressively.
The Embankment Wall
The contract for building the embankment wall was won,
in October 1908, by Price & Reeves, of Waterloo Place. (fn. 2)
They began by erecting the coffer dam, starting work on
this in January 1909. The dam was closed on 10 September
and the area behind it cleared of water during the following
week. It was a single-pile construction, consisting of a
row of 600 tongued-and-grooved timber piles, 14 inches
square, driven through 4 feet of mud and 11 feet of ballast
into the clay, 'until their points were 9 feet below what
would be the bottom of the new wall'. (fn. 3)
The wall itself, on which work began in September
1909, is an impressive structure, similar in its main features to the embankment wall in front of St Thomas's
Hospital (Plates 8b, 9b). Built of concrete founded on
clay, it is faced with ashlar work of Aberdeen and Cornish
granite and surmounted by a granite parapet. The engineering work and overall design of the wall were the
responsibility of the LCC's Chief Engineer, Maurice Fitzmaurice, who also supervised its construction, Knott's
contribution being limited to designing the architectural
features of the central section. (fn. 4) The massive ornamental
bronze mooring-rings of lions' and horses' heads (Plate
31a, b) were modelled by the sculptor Gilbert Bayes on
Knott's recommendation (see page 59). (fn. 5) The wall was
completed in September 1910 at a cost of £58,090, some
£4,500 below the contract price. (fn. 6)
Foundations and Substructure
The contract for the construction of the raft foundation
had been awarded to F. & H. F. Higgs in April 1909. (fn. 7) The
late departure of Lambeth Borough Council from the
site delayed demolition work, and further problems arose
because of friction with Price & Reeves over access. A
technical problem arose too. Behind the coffer dam a deep
foundation trench was dug, and the gap strutted on to the
unexcavated foreshore. When Higgs began their excavation at this point, they faced the prospect of a collapsing
coffer dam (Plate 6a, b). These problems were eventually
overcome, but, together with flooding of the excavation,
they increased the original contract sum of £46,900 by
nearly £5,000. (fn. 8)
The work was also considerably delayed. The contract
had divided the raft into two sections, from Holloways'
boundary to the southern boundary of the Lambeth site,
and from there to Westminster Bridge Road. The intention was to build the centre section of County Hall first,
and to gain time by dividing up the foundation and substructure work. Although Higgs's whole contract was finished only four months late, on 3 October 1911, Section
A was delayed by 13 months – from 7 June 1910 to 5 July
1911. (fn. 9)
Discovery of the Roman Boat
Fig. 21. Outline plan of County Hall, and the New County Offices (North and South Blocks), showing the relationship to the existing
street plan. Much of the east side of Belvedere Road (Narrow Wall) was demolished for road widening after the building of
County Hall
During excavations for the raft, in May 1910, the sub
stantial remains of a Roman boat were uncovered on the
foreshore. Theories about its origin have varied, from the
initial one of a galley, sunk in a battle between Allectus
and Constantius, AD 296, to a ferry boat holed in old age
by her own mooring post. The modern view is that it is
an authentic Roman 'round-bottomed ocean-going' boat
with a 'protruding keel'. (fn. 10)
The discovery was apparently made by F. L. Dove, a
former Chairman of the Establishment Committee. In
January 1910, while inspecting the excavation for the
concrete raft with R. C. Norman, Dove noticed a dark
curved line in the face of the excavation, which the
workmen suggested was a sunken barge, but he realized
that it must be of considerable antiquity, and should be
treated with care. Removal of the soil revealed the 'remains
of a Roman boat, carvel-built of oak, lying N.E.-S.W., its
bow towards the shore', 19 feet below high water. It
measured approximately 38 feet in length, and about 18
feet in beam. (fn. 11) The vessel was protected in situ and then
stored by the Council, eventually finding its way into the
Museum of London.
Progress of the Building Programme
The delay to the contract caused by Higgs's late finish was
more theoretical than real as there were other problems. A
major difficulty was that the design details and even the
method of construction were not yet finalized, partly due
to the activities of the Assessors, and partly to a fruitless
attempt by Knott to persuade Riley to adopt new methods
of construction. Knott expended months of effort attempting to convince Riley of the wisdom of using a reinforcedconcrete floor structure. Riley, being responsible for this
part of the design, was extremely critical of Knott's proposal to use a patent flooring system. He argued so
strongly, always backed by structural and cost calculations,
that Knott eventually gave in and a system of steel joists
with concrete casing and infill was adopted. (fn. 12)
The only stanchions and girders of heavy construction
are in Block 2, the area occupied by the Main Committee
Room, where the upper floors are built above large clear
spans over the boiler room. Because the architectural style
is of a massive nature, load-bearing brickwork seemed the
obvious choice and the idea of using steelwork generally
for vertical structure was ruled out virtually from the
beginning. The roof, however, is steel framed, with plate
girders built up in curved sections from the top of the
brickwork at fifth-floor level to form the structure of the
sixth floor as well as the roof slope (Plate 9a). Walling is
generally of London stock brickwork, with blue engineering bricks set in sand and cement where loading
demanded higher strength. The clearest sense of how
County Hall is built is to be felt in the sub-basement,
where the heavy solidity of the building is apparent in the
massive piers visible in corridors of painted brickwork.
Drawings for the substructure were by no means ready
for sending out to tender in the middle of 1910. Although
Riley complained in the autumn of 1909 that Knott's
revisions to the design had already held up the works by
nine months, (fn. 13) it will be seen from events described in the
last chapter that many design changes were still to come.
But in mid-June 1910 Riley's schedule still foresaw
Knott's drawings coming into his office at the end of
August. These would be checked by Riley, given to the
quantity surveyors at the end of October, and work would
begin at the end of March 1911. Allowing fifteen months
for substructure works, it was estimated that the whole
building (Sections A, B and C) would be completed
towards the end of 1915. To save time, Riley recommended the procedure, eventually adopted, of asking
contractors for both sub- and superstructure contracts to
quote for Section A, and to agree the construction of
Sections B and C at the same rates, thus saving the
time and expense of preparing new bills of quantities and
getting tenders for those parts of the building.
While Riley undoubtedly hoped that the 1915 completion date would be met, the Establishment Committee
were warned in June 1910 that this might have to be
modified because of unexpected difficulties. (fn. 14) A major
problem was Knott's slowness in providing drawings,
compounded by the cumbersome method by which they
were then checked in Riley's office.
Knott had originally promised to deliver drawings of the
whole building by October 1909. Two firms of quantity
surveyors, John Learning & Sons and J. Rider Hunt &
Company, were chosen by tender in February of the
following year, but still had nothing to work on. At the
beginning of June 1910 Knott was only promising substructure drawings at the end of that month. Steelwork
drawings were of particular importance, and although
some of these were being delivered, subsequent changes
meant that many, having been checked and sent to the
quantity surveyors, were rendered useless, because of
altered loadings. Riley complained at the end of November
that he still had not received small-scale plans of the
building, dealing with drainage, ventilation, water supply,
means of escape, and so on. He warned that dealing
with matters of detail before more general questions were
settled, 'involves considerable risk of alterations being
required ... later on'. (fn. 15)
Plans and sections of the whole building were finally
delivered by Knott on 20 January 1911, (fn. 16) nearly fourteen
months after they had been requested by Riley. Nevertheless, changes were still required, some of them substantial. Thus the height of the Council Chamber – 100
feet in Knott's original scheme – was only reduced to its
eventual height of about 50 feet in March 1911. (fn. 17)
Substructure tenders for Section A were presented to
the Council on 25 July 1911. Charles Wall Limited won
the contract with the lowest tender of £47,738, considerably below Riley's estimate of £56,000, and at the
same time it was agreed to award them the contract for
Sections B and C as well, at an estimated cost of
£104,000. (fn. 18) By early December the brick piers beneath
the Council Chamber were built up to a height of 12 feet
and some steel joists and girders were being fixed at
basement-floor level. The average number of men on the
site was 68, most of whom were bricklayers. (fn. 19)
The Establishment Committee were very concerned
about the delays. At a meeting in December 1911, Isidore
Salmon, the Vice-Chairman, complained that it would be
nearly three months before the working drawings for the
Council Chamber block would be ready for the contractor.
Both Riley and Knott were asked to explain the delay, the
former blaming the latter, and the latter the changes made
by the Assessors and the illness of Norman Shaw. (fn. 20)
Fig. 22. Plan of County Hall showing the division of the building
into Blocks (numbered) and Sections (lettered) for construction
purposes
A few months later a revised completion date – the end
of 1917 – was put forward, (fn. 21) and the matter was discussed
at length in Council. Edward Smith, a Progressive
Member of the Establishment Committee, declared that
the present condition of affairs was a crying scandal and
the LCC was the laughing-stock of London. He referred
sarcastically to the arrangement by which Riley had
responsibility for checking Knott's steelwork drawings,
and the inevitable delays and disagreements which arose
as a result. (fn. 22)
If in public Riley did nothing to diminish the feeling
that Knott was to blame, in private he said it outright.
However, with a growing feeling that adverse criticism of
one architect would reflect badly on both, or that Knott
might snap back, Riley began to find other reasons for the
lack of progress on the building. He made the point that
there had been a coal strike, preventing the manufacture
of bricks, and in early June 1912 a dock strike began,
stopping delivery of any materials. He was also quick to
point out the value of his suggestion to split the contract
into sub- and superstructure, contrasting it with Knott's
delays over various points, like the 'extension of the Crescent' or the construction of floors. (fn. 23) When comparisons
were made with other sites, Riley provided Salmon with
ammunition about other London buildings which were
behindhand including various government contracts, such
as the War Office, which took over six years to build. (fn. 24)
In June 1912, dissatisfaction at the lateness of the drawings led Edward Smith to threaten to move the adjournment of the Council if the complete superstructure
drawings were not delivered as promised on 9 July. This
date was met, though Knott delivered only the complete
general drawings, saying that he had always meant to
supply only those and not the details as well. He got away
with this, though the Council rather felt they had been
deceived by the qualification. (fn. 25)
Confidence was partly restored, however, and at the
Council meeting on 16 July, when Smith asked facetiously
if any steps were being taken to secure the erection of the
new County Hall within the next 10 years, Salmon, now
Committee Chairman, was ready with a revised schedule.
Tenders for the first section of the superstructure would
be invited in January 1913, construction would begin in
April, and it was hoped to complete the whole building by
midsummer 1916, (fn. 26) an improvement of roughly eighteen
months on the completion date given only four months
earlier.
There is no obvious reason for Knott's slow progress
with the drawings. If we had any record of his version of
events, to oppose or balance Riley's detailed records, the
reasons might become clear. It seems evident, however,
that Knott was spending a disproportionate time in redesigning the scheme, and doing so in an unsystematic way.
Riley pointed out on several occasions that Knott was
working out detailed arrangements of groups of rooms
without reference to what was happening elsewhere in the
plan. The problems could well have been caused by his
inexperience. He had virtually opened his career with one
of the largest commissions of the Edwardian period and
could hardly have been expected to deal efficiently with
such a complex problem. It was here that Knott needed,
but did not always welcome, the help which Riley's experience and technical skill could provide. The friction
between the two men was seized upon by some politicians
and sections of the press as an important factor contributing to the delay, Knott and Riley being seen as more
interested in quarrelling than in getting on with the job
in hand.
The question of who was to blame for the delay was to
simmer on as a political issue long after it had ceased to
have any practical significance. In 1913 Salmon defended
the Municipal Reformers' record over the new County
Hall, blaming the Progressives, and claiming that the
greatest delay had taken place because of the competition
and the three years taken to find, select and appoint an
architect. Norman, too, was inclined to put the blame
on the competition and on the choice of a young and
inexperienced architect. (fn. 27) The Progressives were held to
be responsible because they had devised the 'system of
the two architects', an implication vigorously repudiated
by Percy Harris and Edward Smith, who implied the real
reason for delays was that the two architects did not get
on, and that this in itself was, 'a crushing condemnation
of the Moderates' business capacity'. (fn. 28)
The Laying of the Foundation Stone
By March 1912 the works were sufficiently advanced for
King George V, accompanied by Queen Mary, to lay the
foundation stone. There was some discussion about where
the ceremony should be held. It was suggested that the
stone might be laid in a convenient place and relaid in a
prominent one at a later date, but the idea was rejected as
unconventional. So a permanent location had to be chosen,
one that was visible either on the outside of the building
or on the Principal Floor inside it. The latter seemed the
only practical solution, and the stone – a large block of
Iona marble – was laid in the north-east lobby adjacent
to the Council Chamber (fig. 31) on Saturday 9 March
1912 (Plate 7a, b). Edward White, Chairman of the
Council, and Maurice Fitzmaurice, the Chief Engineer,
were knighted on the occasion. The ceremonial tools used
for laying the stone are among the finest artefacts commissioned by the Council. The trowel was designed and
made by students of the Central School of Arts and Crafts,
and the mallet, plumb-rule and spirit-level by the
Bromsgrove Guild of Applied Arts (Plate 7c-e). (fn. 29)
The Erection of the Superstructure
Shortly after the foundation stone was laid, the Council
considered ways of speeding the works along. It was hoped
to time things so that the superstructure could be begun
immediately the substructure was complete – estimated
as mid-April 1913. One suggestion was to invite contractors to submit alternative tenders for three- and twoyear periods of construction, with a bonus for each week
saved on the contract time. However, no contractor was
interested in such an arrangement so, as with the substructure, bills of quantities were prepared for Section A
only, and tenderers were asked on what conditions they
would be prepared to take on the work for Sections B and
C. While other firms submitted lower prices for Section
A, Holland & Hannen and Cubitts agreed to do all three
sections at the same rates and this brought their overall
price below the rest, at an estimated £968,211. (fn. a)
The contract with Holland & Hannen and Cubitts was
signed on schedule in April 1913. Knott made such good
progress with the drawings for the other two sections
that these were issued to the contractors in mid-June. (fn. 31)
Moreover, completion of the substructure was sufficiently
advanced by the end of August 1913 to allow Holland &
Hannen and Cubitts to make a start. (fn. 32)
While construction was under way, minor changes were
being made to the internal organization of County Hall.
Many suggestions were offered, the most ambitious
and romantic coming from R. M. Sebag-Montefiore, a
Municipal Reformer, who wanted the Establishment
Committee to consider 'the advisability of providing a
roof garage for the use of members' aeroplanes'. F. L.
Dove, the Committee Chairman, replied that, as aviation
was not yet an 'exact science', the river would make a safer
landing place. (fn. 33) More mundane but more practical were
Salmon's efforts to organize staff restaurants and locate
committee rooms where they would be most useful.
Isidore Salmon (1876–1941) was Chairman and Managing
Director of the well-known caterers J. Lyons, who were
at the time expanding rapidly. Their Strand Palace Hotel
had opened in 1909, and both the Regent Palace Hotel
and Strand Corner House were to open in 1915. These
projects made him well qualified to superintend catering
arrangements for the new County Hall.
The building of County Hall was dogged by bad luck,
as well as by unfortunate politics. Having missed their
chance to build during the last years of a period of stable
prices before 1895, the LCC held their competition just
as costs began to rise at an increased rate after 1906. By
the time a start was made on construction, widespread
strikes and lockouts prevailed, making progress slow and
erratic. The coal and dock strikes of 1912 have already
been mentioned; two years later came the so-called Triple
Alliance of miners, railway men and transport workers,
each agreeing to support the others in strike action. 1914
also saw the famous strike and lockout in the building
industry brought about by employers' use of non-union
labour. A principal reason for union solidarity, and of this
strike in particular, was the growing numbers of tradesmen
who were being put out of work by new processes and
methods of construction. (fn. 34) The employers, the Master
Builders Association, reacted to the strike by locking out
all workers who were unwilling to sign a document which
would bind them to ignore blackleg labour. This ploy,
designed to lure blackleg workers and often used successfully in previous disputes, was less successful on this
occasion; few competent workmen would sign, and the
strike dragged on. (fn. b)
In addition to the waste of public money involved, and
the political embarrassment, Council staff were increasing
at a rate unforeseen when building work began, and space
was urgently needed. Between 1908 and 1911 there had
been an increase of 16 per cent from 2,100 to 2,441;
Sections A, B and C would hold only 2,270. (fn. 36)
The strike hurt. After years of underspending on the
capital vote for County Hall, the beginning of 1914 had
seen the job moving ahead at last. From the 68 men
employed on site in December 1911, the number had
risen to 560 in January 1914, with 139 at work on the
substructure and the remainder employed on the super
structure contract, 250 of them on site and 171 in outside
yards. (fn. 37) Now all that came to a halt. Settlement of the
strike was being slowly worked out when the declaration of
war in August 1914 ended all strikes practically overnight.
However, the County Hall schedule had slipped by some
four months.
Extension of the County Hall Site
In the autumn of 1912 the Committee had decided to
take possession of Holloway Brothers' site for building
Section D. The Council were bound to give two years'
notice of their intention to end Holloways' lease, and 1914
was one of the optional years for acquisition. (fn. 38) Early in
1914 Salmon had told Riley that he wanted to be ready to
begin Section D (fig. 22) 'the moment Holloway Brothers
vacate'. Riley assumed that the working drawings for the
raft foundations were well forward, and that Knott's suband superstructure drawings for the section were also
ahead of schedule. (fn. 39) Knott provided drawings for the
preparation of bills of quantities in July, and a contract
for the river wall extension was signed towards the end of
the month with Morrison & Mason of Glasgow, for
£23,000, although work began only after war had been
declared, on 17 August. (fn. 40) (fn. c)
The Effect of the Great War
The war's initial impact was not on manpower but on
supplies, and the County Hall job was fairly well stocked
in many areas. As late as March 1916 there were still 400
men at work, (fn. 42) though the northern extensions of the
embankment wall had fallen behind schedule. Because of
military demand for the railways, moving granite up from
Cornwall for the wall was proving difficult and only about
20 per cent of the contract value had been executed. (fn. 43)
Even so, work to the building was progressing as never
before, and in December 1915 the contractors were estimating that the roof would be on by the following June.
But this optimism was misplaced: when an expenditure of
£200,000 on the building in 1916 was suggested, the
Comptroller pointed out that there was a Treasury objection to spending on building because it tied up scarce
labour needed for the armed forces, and competed with
projects needed for the war, and that work would probably
have to stop once the building was covered in. (fn. 44)
The Council was of course in direct competition with
the Ministry of Munitions, which wanted builders in great
quantity for the construction of factories. The Ministry
had been formed in the early part of 1915 under Lloyd
George, and County Hall, as one of the largest office
developments in London, was not to escape its attentions.
The building first suffered when the contractors took men
off because the supply of materials dwindled. Holland &
Hannen and Cubitts had written to the Council in March
1915 proposing suspension of works, but were told that
they must continue as best they could and that the architects would consider claims for an extension of time. (fn. 45) The
contractors argued that there were insufficient materials to
continue the job properly, and negotiations went on until,
on 24 January 1916, Riley caught their men dismantling
a crane without the Council's permission. He was told
that they had been ordered to do this by the Ministry of
Munitions. Riley ought to have known that with Henry
Holloway in that very Ministry, busily earning his knighthood, he was unlikely to get very far. His protest was met
by a Ministry letter ordering a complete stop to the works
under the Defence of the Realm Act. (fn. 46)
Wartime occupation of County Hall
There is little doubt that the move to stop work at County
Hall was ill-timed, although there is some reason for
believing the LCC view that the Ministry was influenced
to act by Holland & Hannen and Cubitts, if not by Holloway. (fn. 47) It can be argued that the completion of the building
would have served the war effort as well as complete
cessation. Besides wanting men and equipment to build
munitions factories, the Ministry needed somewhere to
house its burgeoning administrative staff, which was to
grow from nothing to 65,000 by the end of the war. The
Government had already taken over and occupied many
London buildings. The new County Hall would make an
ideal place for the Ministry for exactly the same reasons
that it suited the LCC; but it was unfinished. There were
no doors, no windows, no partitions or plastering. It was
a shell, and there was no question of its being immediately
habitable.
After necessary work had been done to close the
contract, the building stood idle for almost a year. Knott's
office was running down as his staff enlisted.
The office is like the ten little nigger boys, one by one they
disappear, & I think the final end of the County Hall stint will
be a mass of drawings, mostly torn, & every one in the wrong
drawer, possibly a skeleton of a bulky person will be lying near
(tho' not near enough to be of use) supposed by its bulkiness to
be Collins. If any survivors are found, they would of course be
redrawing the seating in the Council Chamber. (fn. 48)
Knott himself joined the Royal Flying Corps at the end
of 1916, and spent the war designing 'shops' for them.
However, he was stationed in London and hoped to visit
his office in the evenings to take care of the little business
there was to be dealt with. (fn. 49)
In February 1917, the Principal Architect to the Office
of Works had a look around the partly completed building,
and was critical of the Ministry of Munitions' decision to
stop work on County Hall. (fn. 50) Early in March Riley reported
that the Office of Works wanted to take over Sections A
and B from basement to third-floor level, and works were
soon in hand to fit up these areas. (fn. 51)
Next in line was the Food Controller, who wanted
various rooms on the Principal Floor for a Food Economy
Exhibition, which took place in the summer of 1917 – the
first public function to take place at the new County Hall.
Many government departments and other organizations
contributed. As The Times reported:
the new L.C.C. Hall will be given over to working exhibits,
practical demonstrations and lectures dealing with every phase
of national economy and welfare. The Council chamber is to be
transformed into a French market where London housewives
may study the shopping methods of our allies. A war economy
restaurant conducted by the Savoy Hotel management will be
installed in a series of rooms and terraces overlooking the
Thames and in the Great Courtyard, where the Ministry of
Munitions occupies the Central Stand; open air concerts will be
given by bands of the British Army. (fn. 52)
By November 1917 the Army Council was fitting up the
rest of the building for occupation by up to 1,900 Ministry
of Food staff. (fn. 53)
To mark the end of the war, fireworks were launched
from the roof of County Hall on Saturday 16 November
1918, provided naturally enough by the Ministry of Munitions. (fn. 54) (fn. d)
If the LCC thought they would get all this back when
the war ended they were badly mistaken. Not only was
the Ministry of Food staying put in the spring of 1919,
but having given up occupation of Grosvenor House,
Mayfair, to the Ministry of Pensions they were concentrating their forces at County Hall. (fn. 56) In May of that
year 134,400 square feet were occupied as government
offices and a further 112,900 square feet used as storage. (fn. 57)
Construction work could, of course, continue while the
building was part occupied, and an arrangement was made
for Holland & Hannen and Cubitts to complete their
contract at cost plus a fixed profit. Building operations
resumed in mid-May 1919 (Plate 8c), despite the wartime
removal of plant and scaffolding, and by the end of the
month 110 men were back at work. (fn. 58) However, the LCC
itself was desperate for office space and wanted to transfer
its own staff there. During the war the Government had
taken over other Council premises, and because of a staff
depletion during the war, the leases of yet other buildings
had not been renewed. Now the staff was growing again.
Further, as the Clerk, James Bird (Plate 11), pointed out,
the LCC was under pressure to contribute to post-war
reconstruction: 'the Ministry of Labour [was] pressing us
to go on with the New County Hall; the Local Government
Board pressing us to begin Housing; and the Ministry of
Education probably looking for an early resumption of the
40 and 48 suspended schemes'. (fn. 59) The staff of the LCC
was to grow now much more rapidly than had been foreseen before the war, indeed, to a large extent as a result
of it.
Repossession of County Hall
During the war elections had not been contested, and the
Progressives under the Rev. J. Scott Lidgett and the
Municipal Reformers under Norman formed a coalition
administration on the lines of that at Westminster. The
first post-war election was held in March 1919. The Progressives had agreed not to contest many seats if the
Municipal Reformers would incorporate certain Progressive material in their manifesto. At the last minute
this agreement was cancelled, and the election went ahead
on party lines. A Municipal Reform victory resulted, but
at the same time the first significant Labour group of
fifteen Members was elected.
One subject united both major parties. They were
demanding an extension of the geographical area under
Council control, as well as higher government grants for
such work as housing, and a generally strengthened central
local authority for London. The Government was hesitant
even to discuss these matters, the Prime Minister Lloyd
George refusing for some months to receive an LCC
delegation headed by Norman and Lidgett. The Ministry
of Health, which had replaced the Local Government
Board in 1919, later set up a Royal Commission – the
Ullswater Commission – to consider if any changes were
needed, but its report in 1923 did not advocate any.
The Municipal Reformers' 'centralist' phase was to last
until 1922, when the London Municipal Society challenged for the right to make Municipal Reform policy,
and won. Thereafter the LMS ideal of a weak central
authority in London combined with strong local boroughs
would be Municipal Reform doctrine.
This was an uneasy period in relations between the
LCC and central government, partly because of the LCC's
demands for reform and the government's resistance to it.
There was also pressure on the LCC to deal with the
urgent post-war issues of housing and education. The
tension engendered did not help the Council in its struggle
to repossess its partly completed headquarters. (fn. 60)
The Ministry of Food were understandably hesitant to
quit premises on which they had spent £100,000, but of
which they had had little use. (fn. 61) The Council's patience
was nevertheless wearing thin. At the beginning of June
1919, they sent a deputation to meet Sir Alfred Mond
(1868–1930), the First Commissioner of Works. An
extremely successful manufacturer in the chemical industry and one of the founders of ICI, Mond had been
responsible for the building during the war, but now he
came to the LCC's aid, promising a gradual reduction of
the 1,000 Ministry of Food staff over the next few months,
with complete withdrawal by the end of September. (fn. 62)
With this problem finally resolved the Council could plan
the completion of County Hall.
Knott had been discharged from the Royal Air Force
in January 1919. It seems the war had a softening effect
on the previously brittle relationship between himself and
Riley and the job proceeded smoothly thereafter. Riley,
who had been due to retire as Architect to the Council in
1918, had been kept on for an extra year because of the
war. (fn. 63) Amid protests from the Department, his post went
to George Topham Forrest (1873–1945), a Scot, who had
worked in the North and for Essex County Council. He
was Architect to the Council from 1919–1935 (Plate 11). (fn. 64)
Riley's retirement did not affect his involvement in the
County Hall project, for which he retained his personal
appointment. Although this was an anomaly, no-one could
have foreseen in 1907 that the building would still be
unfinished twelve years later. He was given administrative
assistance and a room at County Hall, a reasonable one at
first and later a small and viewless one – room 524a, on
the crescent, behind the cornice.
County Hall now began to take on the image of an
important public building. By July 1919 349 men were
working on the contract, a number which kept steady
through the autumn. In October it was reported that over
6,000 cubic feet of Portland stone had been fixed, together
with a large number of marble columns, plinths, pilasters
and wall linings in the Council Chamber and lobbies. In
other areas, structural work was being disrupted by lack
of steel due to coal and rail strikes. The building had
reached fifth-, and in some places, sixth-floor level. (fn. 65) Other
decisions were being taken over the decorative finishes of
the Principal Floor, where a large number of rooms were
under completion. In this area, some pre-war decisions
on finishes and decoration were revised, the whole floor
not being completed until well after the official opening
date in 1922.
The Establishment Committee were able to meet in
County Hall, the first committee to do so, in July 1919,
though it must be said that they resumed meeting at
Spring Gardens immediately after. (fn. 66) Staff from the Architect's Department started moving in the summer, and by
early September the whole department was in the new
building. (fn. 67)
By March 1921 over a thousand men were on the job,
the highest number ever. The roof structure was up,
windows were being fixed, and the marble work to the
Ceremonial Staircase was nearing completion. (fn. 68) By
October the Evening News could report the installation
of the Education Department from their offices on the
Embankment, to be followed by part of the Comptroller's
Department, and before Christmas by the Librarian:
But it has been a long business. It is now thirteen years since
the plans were accepted. During that time Londoners have
grown weary of watching the slow progress of the great new
structure.
The present generation has grown up to believe in an incomplete LCC hall, and it will take years to change their convictions. (fn. 69)
Nevertheless, County Hall was being completed at a time
of growing optimism, the beginning of 'normal times'
after the years of war and post-war hardship. The official
opening in July 1922 was to be a royal occasion which
gave Londoners an opportunity to see their long-promised
Hôtel de Ville.
Sketch of a clock designed by Ralph Knott in the Main Entrance
Hall, Belvedere Road