History
It was founded as the East End Dwellings Company in 1884 by the clergyman and social reformer Rev. Samuel Barnett, vicar of St Jude’s, Whitechapel, following a meeting he had held in 1882 to discuss the provision of housing for the poor (Rosemary O’Day, ‘Caring or Controlling? The East End of London in the 1880s and 1890s’, in Clive Emsley, Eric Johnson, and Pieter Spierenburg ed, Social Control in Europe, 1800–2000, 2004)
Its first social housing project, Katharine Buildings, opened in late 1884 in the East End itself (Rosemary O’Day, ‘Caring or Controlling? The East End of London in the 1880s and 1890s’, in Clive Emsley, Eric Johnson, and Pieter Spierenburg ed, Social Control in Europe, 1800–2000, 2004)
It became Charlwood Properties Ltd in or before 1956, and then in 1960 merged with the Alliance Economic Investment to form Charlwood Alliance Properties Ltd, which was acquired by Town & City Properties Ltd in 1974
Town & City Properties Ltd was rescued from its financial difficulties in the 1970s by the Sterling Guarantee Trust, and merged with the P&O Group in 1985
The properties in Bloomsbury had long ceased to be owned by the group
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What was reforming about it?
Its aim was to provide housing for those too poor to qualify for Peabody Trust or similar projects, many of them Jewish people
It was a classic example of so-called ‘five per-cent philanthropy’, or philanthropy which made a return on its investment
Where in Bloomsbury
In 1896 it held its meeting in Midhope Street (The Times, 10 February 1896), although thereafter the meetings seem to have been held in Chancery Lane
Website of current institution
The successor institution is Sterling Guarantee Trust plc, part of the P&O group; it has no website
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Books about it
None found (although there are many books about Victorian working-class housing generally)
Archives
The minutes and accounts of the EEDC are held at Tower Hamlets Local Library and Archives, ref. B/CAP/A; details are available via (opens in new window)
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