
Welwyn Garden City
– Howard’s Second
Experiment
After the first world war, Howard began
work on a new garden city project at
Welwyn, Hertfordshire – this time with
the involvement of the accountant
Charles Purdom and Frederic Osborn,
who had already promoted garden
cities with Howard and who would
become instrumental in the campaign
for garden cities and the postwar new
towns programme. Having persuaded
the then chair of the Garden Cities and
Town Planning Association to raise a £500
deposit, on 30 May 1919, Howard bought
600 hectares of land at Welwyn for £51,000
(approximately £184,000 in today’s money)
‘without the cash to pay for it’.
Second ...