THE HAMPSTEAD GARDEN SUBURB.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—It was on March 6th last year that you admitted a letter from the Garden Suburb Trust signed by Lord Crewe, the Bishop of London, Sir John Gorst, Sir Robert Hunter, Mr. W. Hazel], Mr. H. Marnham, and the honorary secretary, putting forth the fourfold hopes of the writers,—namely : (1) To advance the solution of the housing problem ; (2) to lay out a large estate as a whole ; (3) to promote a better under- Standing between the members of various classes ; (4) to
preserve the natural beauty of the foreground of the western view from Hampstead Heath.
To-day (March 6th) it has been my great pleasure to attend a Committee meeting when the prospectus of the Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust, Limited, was signed by Mr. Alfred Lyttelton the president, and by the five directors, Mr. Frank Debenham, Sir Robert Hunter, Mr. Herbert Marnham, Mr. Henry Vivian, M. P., and myself, and under this guidance the one-year-old child has been launched into this troublous but appreciating 'world.
You and your readers, Sir, have always shown so kindly an interest in this undertaking that the news will be welcomed that already over £10,000 has been informally promised for investment in the new Company, £45,383 in debentures and £25,015 in shares, about half the sum which is needed. But perhaps what is still more hopeful is the fact that so many people of all classes of society have applied for sites that our estate is already peopled in imagination, and the success of the project reasonably assured. Arrangements are being made to work the seventy acres allocated to the cottages of the industrial classes on a co-partnership basis. Solicitors, bankers, auditors, secretaries, surveyors, and such mundane but necessary people have been engaged, and all or any of them can be communicated with at the new Company's registered office, 4 Raymond Buildings, Gray's Inn, W.C. My much enjoyed duties as honorary secretary are now com- pleted; the reins are taken now by abler hands than mine, and I am full of hope for the whole scheme, rich as it is in social promise and civic possibilities. "The cry of the children" has brought many laws on to the statute-book. For years it has sounded in my ears round our Whitechapel walls, and as I hold that women's chief duty is to be "home-makers," it is good and gladdening to me to feel that engardened homes will soon be provided within a twopenny fare of Charing Cross for children whose laughter is as music to the gods.
More capital is still wanted if the Company is to be, as Sir Richard Farrant put it when giving us his blessing, "adequately financed"; so will those who read and care consider what capital they have which they will invest at four or five per cent.; and will they write to the official secretary, or else to the one-time honorary secretary of the Trust, and now a director of the new Company, who subscribes herself, yours thankfully and hopefully,
HENRIETTA 0. BARNETT.
Toynbee Hall, 28 Commercial Street, E.
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