A GARDEN CITY OF OLD AGE.
ONE of the most remarkable bequests of recent years has been the leaving by the late Mr. Whiteley of a million of money to found homes for the aged poor. It will probably be some time before the bequest can take actual effect, for the money is invested in shares in the Whiteley business in Westbourne Grove, and it would be obviously unwise to attempt to sell large quantities of shares in a hurry. But the delay in realising the securities may very well turn out to be of advantage in the long run, if it leads to increased care and deliberation in laying out so considerable a sum, and if as a result the " homes " which Mr. Whiteley intended to endow are built in the right way and with the right objects always kept in mind. They ought to be essentially " homes " ; it Would be the greatest possible pity if they became somehow metamorphosed, as they easily might., into a superior kind of asylum or barracks.
Doubtless the trustees will have a large number of sugges- tions offered them as to the way in which the money may be best spent. Perhaps a suggestion may be made here which has not hitherto, we believe, been contemplated by the executors of similar bequests in the past. It is that the money should be laid out in founding a settlement for aged poor persons on the lines of a garden city. It is impossible, of course, in the limits of a short article to do more than indicate very roughly the possibilities of such an idea; but we believe that if the idea were developed in the right way, it might lead to the foundation of a'settlement unique alike in comfort and economy, and one into which it would be a relief and a delight to old people to enter. Let us try to sketch the main lines on which such a settlement might be founded, and if the appor- tioning of the various sums of money may seem to some of our readers inadequate in one direction and superfluous in another, they may be able to think out better schemes to amuse themselves.
First, the land must be bought. It might not be possible to obtain it easily and cheaply ; but let us suppose for argument's sake that a compact plot of a thousand acres could be purchased somewhere in the country for, say, £20 per acre. We will divide our million into two halves of £500,000, and apportion one half for buying land and building on it, and the other half for providing pensions, paying salaries, and so on. Out of the £500,000, then, we have spent £20,000 in acquiring the land. We now have to develop it. Roads have to be cut; there must be proper systems of drainage and lighting, and a good water-supply. It is difficult to guess at the cost of these, for so much would depend on the situation of the land ; but let us place the expense at £80,000. That leaves us £400,000. Half of this might be invested at 4 per cent. to provide for upkeep, rates, taxes, and contingencies, and the other half might be used for building. We know that a cottage with living-room, kitchen, and three bedrooms can be built for £150; but although some such cottages might be useful, the chief aim should be to design smaller separate sets of rooms, grouped into buildings large enough to give the architect scope for good design, but not so large as to bear resemblance to the workhouse, or "the county," as villagers commonly call the asylum. Rooms might be designed in buildings planned like the quadrangles of an Oxford College or three sides of a court; sometimes they would be wanted for old married couples, sometimes for single persons. It is, of course. cheaper to build groups than single buildings. But cheapness of building ought not to be the main object to aim at. Such buildings should be designed and built with the solidity and dignity which the largeness of the sum and the purpose of the gift require. They should be as delightful to look at and as worthy a memorial of their age as, say, the Abbot Hospital at Guildford or the Whitgift Hospital at Croydon. To be given the opportunity of creating such a memorial of his age and his work would delight an architect.
Probably it is allowing a generous margin if we calculate that a thousand poor people could be housed in this way for £120,000. But other buildings would be necessary as comple- ments of the main courts and quadrangles. A church would be required, probably also a chapel; there must be an infirmary or hospital, a laundry, and some form of Co-opera- tive Stores, to supply food, coal, clothing, and so on cheaply and on the spot. It would be an advantage, too, if there were assembly-rooms or an institute where the old people could be amused or spend their leisure time, and in the institute there might be a library. Also it would be necessary to arrange some kind of Mastership or Wardenship, and the Master, and also, perhaps, a Lady Warden, would have to be allotted a central dwelling and a headquarters office. For these other buildings we might set aside the remaining £80,000 of the whole building fund. Next as to pensions. Half-a-million invested at 4 per cent. would bring in £20,000 a year. Out of this sum a certain amount would have to be set apart for salaries. The Master, who must be a good organiser and a man of educa- tion, perhaps might have £500; doctors possibly would need another £1,000, though if the pensions of the poor people were adequate it might be as well if they paid some small sum weekly into a doctors' club. The Lady Warden's salary could hardly be leas than 2200 ; ten sick nurses would account for £500; and laundry-maids, charwomen, and other servants probably another £500. These salaries alone would amount to £2,700. That leaves a sum of £17,300 for pensions, and as a pension of 6s. a week for a thousand people amounts to £15,600, there would be left £1,700 for contingencies, among which would probably have to be included whatever salary was thought proper for ministers of religion. Six shillings a week may not be a very large sum, though with certain old people it might even be made to produce pocket-money. But of course a very simple way of increasing the amount avail- able for pensions is to reduce the number of pensioners. We only take a thousand pensioners and six shillings a week as symbols which provide specific illustrations for our suggestion.
With the amount of the pension is bound up the amount )f liberty allowed to the pensioners. Just as we should like to see the pension liberal, so the ideal of a home for the aged poor should be to allow the greatest amount of liberty compatible with order and regular living. The pensioners would, of course, be carefully selected; they would be of good character, and so far as possible of good health, so that the garden city in which they lived would be less an infirmary than a resting-place. Then, again, the idea of the garden must always be kept in mind. With a thousand acres for disposal it would be easy to allow so much ground as private garden to any pensioner desiring it; indeed, the old men and women should be encouraged to work in their gardens and interest themselves in them. Most of them would enjoy the opportunity of growing peas and cabbages and other simple vegetables immensely. There might be flower shows and vegetable shows with prizes ; under certain conditions they could even be allowed to keep pigs, goats, and poultry. A comparison of growing pigs would be a great attraction. In fact, the whole life of the community would be as nearly as possible that of an ideal village, with peace and quietness, and, so far as it could be assured, happiness, waiting for the old people until the end of their days. Their friends and relations, of course, would be encouraged to visit them
ryt (imagine the interest of a visit from a baby to the city of old
age), and it would be an advantage in that way if the settle- ment were near a railway station.
Perhaps our figures, in planning out a method of using Mr. Whiteley's million, may be amateurish and impracticable. But Mr. Whiteley's executors will not, we are sure, regard the attempt we have made to imagine a garden city of old age as in any way intended as interference or impertinence. It is merely an effort to sketch, roughly and rapidly, the outlines of a scheme which has never yet been carried out, but which, if it were planned with generosity and carried out with every reward to the personal liberty and happiness of the pensioners, would be an object-lesson for the world in dealing with the question of bow to carry out, a charitable bequest with the minimum of harm. We say this, not in cynicism, or with any desire to reflect upon the generosity of Mr. Whiteley's intention, but from the profound conviction of the difficulty of giving people anything which can be a worthy substitute for what they can provide for themselves, We have drawn what we think will be admitted to be a pretty enough picture of " a garden city of old age," with its tiny almshouses set round village greens and deep embowered in English greenery. Yet bow melancholy is the thought of such a retreat compared with what should be the natural heritage of old age—a real home among kindred and friends —a seat by one's own fireside or by that of one's son or daughter. Of right there should be no segregation for the aged. They should keep their place and add their testi- mony of experience where flows the full tide of life. We want to keep them with us, not to put them aside in a garden, however beautiful. Not the cold benevolence of the strange, dead hand, but the sacred charity of • blood should be theirs. Since, however, there must in a vast population always be many thousands of men and women who live in what Burke called with so profound a pathos "an inverted order "—who outlive those who should have followed them to the tomb—it is no doubt necessary to make provision for the aged who, through death or evil fortune, are bereft of their natural helpers and servers. For these, no doubt, the subdued calm of " a garden city of old age," however melancholy, would be better than the gaunt and barren grandeurs of some huge pile of brick or stone.
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