Building and Craft Autonomy in London 1670-1870

Judy Stephenson, University College London

It is often assumed that building and construction are ‘backwards’ industries that have not industrialized and saw no technological change through the key period of industrialization. In fact, construction was revolutionised by the use of iron and glass and many other new techniques of a new modularity through the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The building industry and its artisans were the focus of much social debate led by social reformers and designers such as John Ruskin, who mourned the loss of agency and artistry that workers of craft skills lost through industrialisation. This paper examines construction workers in Britain throughout the industrial revolution and asks how their autonomy as skilled workers was affected by organisational and technological changes. We study three major projects—all technologically ‘cutting edge’ in their own time— and use client and contractor records to assess whether workers lost autonomy or agency. The sites are St Pauls Cathedral 1670–1711, Somerset House 1775–1785, and the Royal Albert Hall 1867–1871. We analyse team structure and hierarchy, design management, project management strategy, and onsite control to discuss and compare the relationship of working conditions and hours; decision making about inputs of skill, time, and materials; the governance of processes to what we know of worker reports and outcomes. We place each of these cases in the context of other less technologically advanced contemporaneous projects to draw a more representative picture of known working practice. Although the development of new modular and architectural technologies led to less worker autonomy regarding materials inputs and the conditions of skilled workers in the nineteenth century, the key difference between the three sites was the level of decision making in the design process that happened in advance, away from the site. The job control of workers onsite was similar across all three projects.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 211. Work, Technology, and Wellbeing