For the 3 million people living in slums in post-war Britain, the refrain that “they had never had it so good” was an insult. Families were living in single rooms with no bathroom, sharing toilets and cooking facilities with multiple other residents. The housing was often substandard, with no foundations and crawling with vermin. Paying extortionate rents, they were exploited by rogue landlords and lived with the daily fear of eviction.
One man, moved by their plight, inspired a group of like-minded people to take action against the appalling housing conditions in post-war Notting Hill. He established the Notting Hill Housing Trust (NHHT) and co-founded the homeless charity, Shelter.
The Reverend Bruce Kenrick was born in Liverpool on 18 January 1920. After serving as a stretcher bearer in the Second World War he studied medicine at Edinburgh University. While a student, his involvement in mission work influenced him to switch to a degree in divinity. At Edinburgh, he met Isabel Witte; they married in 1954 and had four children.
During a stay at Princeton’s Christian theology seminary in New York he became involved with the East Harlem Protestant project. He learnt a more relaxed approach to pastoral care in the community, where the clergy did not wear dog collars. It inspired him to later write his book Come Out of the Wilderness, which became a best seller and encouraged many other young ministers to work in poor inner-city areas.
After working as a missionary in Calcutta he returned to Britain to live with his family as part of a Christian community on the Scottish island of Iona. In 1962, the family moved to Blenheim Crescent in Notting Hill. With a legacy from his father, he purchased a run-down house which had no bathroom, kitchen or heating.
Kenrick quickly realised a lot of the problems and suffering he saw in Notting Hill came from the appalling housing conditions. A contributing factor was rent deregulation; the local byword for which was “Rachmanism”. This was named after Peter Rachman; an infamous slum landlord in Notting Hill, he was notorious for vindictively exploiting his tenants.
In 1963 a fundraising meeting was called at the Kendricks’ home in Blenheim Crescent. The aim was to raise money to buy dilapidated houses, which could then be renovated and rented out to needy families. To raise funds, they initially rented a stall at the nearby Portobello Road market. Over four consecutive Saturdays they managed to raise the princely sum of approximately £12.
Kenrick soon realised that the key element to drumming up funds and support from the public was to run an emotive and hard-hitting advertising campaign. One such campaign showed a photograph of a family of six sharing a single room under the headline “Heartbreak Notting Hill and You”.
The success of such campaigns meant that in its first year the trust was able to buy five properties and rehouse 57 people. By the end of its fourth year 739 people had been rehoused thanks to the trust. Significantly, at a time of racial discrimination, the selection of the trust’s tenants was based only on need.
Kenrick soon came to believe that the campaign for better housing needed to be national. In 1966 he co-founded the nationwide charity Shelter with Des Wilson. By coincidence, the charity’s launch came days after the BBC’s screening of Cathy Come Home. The seminal docudrama, directed by Ken Loach, depicts a young family’s descent into poverty and homelessness. It was a pivotal factor in gaining the attention and empathy of the public, and triggered an outcry over the plight of the homeless.
NHHT concentrated on fundraising appeals in its immediate locality, leaving Shelter to campaign on a national level. Following the setting up of Shelter in December 1966, Kenrick retired as chair from NHHT, in order to avoid a conflict of interest. He left Shelter after the appointment of Des Wilson as its director.
Kenrick’s legacy of founding both the Notting Hill Housing Trust and Shelter has made a massive difference to social housing in the UK. The Notting Hill Trust now has 31,000 properties, housing individuals and families who cannot afford to buy or rent on the private market. Meanwhile, Shelter has become a major force championing the rights of private tenants and responsible for major changes to the law. Over the years, they have helped millions of people facing bad housing, eviction or homelessness.
Bruce Kenrick remained in Notting Hill until 1980, working within other London parishes. He and his wife divorced in 1983, although they remained close. He spent the last twenty years of his life living quietly as part of the community on Iona, until his death in 2007.
By Jennie Paterson, a U3A Shared Learning Project researcher for the Citizens Project.
Sources
Image: Dr Neil Clifton / Acker Street, Rochdale, Lancashire / CC BY-SA 2.0
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Michael White, ‘Obituary: The Rev Bruce Kenrick,’ The Guardian, 19 January 2007
‘Obituary: The Rev Bruce Kenrick,’ The Scotsman, 24 January 2007
The Observer Archive, 4 December 1966
NHH 50th Anniversary, 18 December 2013
‘Obituary: The Rev Bruce Kenrick,’ The Telegraph, 19 Jan 2007
Shelter History at 50
