Ebenezer Howard
Inventor of the Garden City
Published on 30. June 2023
Book
Hardback
240 pages
978-0-19-879081-5 (ISBN)
Description
Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928) is famous worldwide for founding the Garden City movement, and he continues to be frequently cited by planners and theorists. When he was dying, he urged his prospective biographer to remember that 'the spiritual dimension' had always been central to his life and work. He wanted this to be prominently brought out in any biography.
Almost a century after his death, Ebenezer Howard: Inventor of the Garden City is the first book that does justice to that wish. Frances Knight has written a very readable biography, the first since the 1980s, with a properly contextualized analysis of Howard's religious views. Shaped in the world of London Congregationalism, he became a keen seeker after unity and peace. He grafted new religious ideas, particularly from spiritualism, and later from Theosophy, into his biblically-informed, Protestant faith. Prone to spiritual epiphanies, he believed that he had been raised up to preach the 'gospel of the garden city' and to tackle the housing crisis by beginning to build the New Jerusalem in the Hertfordshire countryside. Although he sometimes appeared naive, he was astute, and highly skilled at combining different, and sometimes conflicting, ideas in a way that built consensus and gained support from people across the social and political spectrum.
As well as explaining the remarkable sequence of events that led from the publication of his ideas to the foundation of Letchworth as the world's first garden city, just five years later, this book investigates other neglected aspects of Howard's life including: the years he spent in America, his career as a shorthand writer, and his relationship with his first wife Lizzie - herself an important garden city pioneer. Howard wanted his garden cities to be places of spiritual exploration, and as this book shows, early Letchworth certainly lived up to those expectations.
Almost a century after his death, Ebenezer Howard: Inventor of the Garden City is the first book that does justice to that wish. Frances Knight has written a very readable biography, the first since the 1980s, with a properly contextualized analysis of Howard's religious views. Shaped in the world of London Congregationalism, he became a keen seeker after unity and peace. He grafted new religious ideas, particularly from spiritualism, and later from Theosophy, into his biblically-informed, Protestant faith. Prone to spiritual epiphanies, he believed that he had been raised up to preach the 'gospel of the garden city' and to tackle the housing crisis by beginning to build the New Jerusalem in the Hertfordshire countryside. Although he sometimes appeared naive, he was astute, and highly skilled at combining different, and sometimes conflicting, ideas in a way that built consensus and gained support from people across the social and political spectrum.
As well as explaining the remarkable sequence of events that led from the publication of his ideas to the foundation of Letchworth as the world's first garden city, just five years later, this book investigates other neglected aspects of Howard's life including: the years he spent in America, his career as a shorthand writer, and his relationship with his first wife Lizzie - herself an important garden city pioneer. Howard wanted his garden cities to be places of spiritual exploration, and as this book shows, early Letchworth certainly lived up to those expectations.
Reviews / Votes
This book is brilliant at evoking the culture of serious theological debate and earnest spiritual searching of which Howard was a part. * Church Times * Howard lived a full and interesting life that encompassed spells in the USA,...and he wrote a book which experts still consider the most influential and important in 20th century city planning. With this excellent new study we now better understand the spiritual core of that life. * Andrew Bradstock, Reform * This book is brilliant at evoking the culture of serious theological debate and earnest spiritual searching of which Howard was a part. * William Whyte, Church Times * This book is a must-read volume for anyone interested in the history of planned interventions in the built and natural environments as environmental crises and urban tensions involving religion accelerate globally. * Babak Manouchehrifar, JSRNC Vol. 18 * Knight (Univ. of Nottingham, UK) provides an excellent, lively, and readable short biography of Howard that is particularly strong on his spiritual interests. Recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals. * Choice * Knight has given us an excellent account of Howard's life and times, drawing on her extensive knowledge of the diverse religious culture of late Victorian and Edwardian England ... Her biography is also based on extensive primary research among Howard's correspondence, articles and lecture texts. She writes beautifully, with sensitivity, empathy and understanding of Howard, and of those who worked and dreamed with him. * Stewart J. Brown, The Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society * [T]his excellent new biography should be read by anyone with serious interest in the garden city tradition.... Frances Knight's biography restores an authentic sense of how it actually began, as a holistic prospectus, richly invested with Howard's own religious faith, for a better society. * Stephen V. Ward, Planning Perspectives * Frances Knight has done a superb job ofresearching and telling the storyof how Shaw's 'heroic simpleton'founded two garden cities, inspiredthe town-planning movement andearned a knighthood. * Rob Cowan, Context (Journal of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation) *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 197 mm
Width: 131 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
358 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-879081-5 (9780198790815)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
06/2023
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€39.49
Available for download
E-Book
05/2023
1st Edition
OUP eBook
€39.49
Available for download
Person
Frances Knight is Emeritus Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Nottingham. She is a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales and was President of the Ecclesiastical History Society in 2021-22. She taught at the University of Wales, Lampeter, and then the University of Nottingham for many years. She publishes mainly in the areas of the history of the Church of England from the late-eighteenth century to the present and the interactions between religion and culture in Britain in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.
Content
Introduction: Ebenezer Howard - the Man and the Message
1: The Early Years of Exploration 1850-1876
2: Laying the Foundations 1876-1889
3: The Days before To-morrow 1890-1898
4: The Path to First Garden City 1899-1904
5: Howard in Letchworth 1905-1914
6: The Spiritual Life of First Garden City 1904-1918
7: Howard and Welwyn - the Second Garden City 1919-1928
Conclusion-Ebenezer Howard - A Spiritual Life
1: The Early Years of Exploration 1850-1876
2: Laying the Foundations 1876-1889
3: The Days before To-morrow 1890-1898
4: The Path to First Garden City 1899-1904
5: Howard in Letchworth 1905-1914
6: The Spiritual Life of First Garden City 1904-1918
7: Howard and Welwyn - the Second Garden City 1919-1928
Conclusion-Ebenezer Howard - A Spiritual Life