Title:
HARLOW DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
Level: Category
Public records
Level: Fonds
HARLOW DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION
Scope and Content:
The Fonds consists of all the key records of the Harlow Development Corporation, such as minutes and agendas of the Board and core financial records and an extensive selection of files. There are also plans, drawings, photographs, pamphlets and other type of material. They derive both from the Corporation and its successor, the Commission for the New Towns, and cover the entire history of the Harlow New Town from its creation in 1946 up to its dissolution in 1980.

The Fonds is divided in five Sub-Fonds according with the original Departmental organisation, with only few variations:

The Corporation Records Sub-Fonds (A/TH 1) has been created grouping those records from the Administration Department related to the creation, development and maintenance of the own Corporation structure. The Sub-Fonds includes the minutes and agenda of the Board meetings (A/TH 1/1) and other major committees (A/TH 1/3 and A/TH 1/5); General Manager’s Records (A/TH 1/2) as well as the whole Series of Planning Board meetings and plans (466 sets of plans containing 1412 plans) approved by this Board (A/TH 1/4); Also, Commission for the New Towns / English Partnership (A/TH 1/6); Annual Reports (A/TH 1/7); Legislation (A/TH 1/8) and Corporation Organisation/ Records Management (A/TH 1/9).

The Administration Department (A/TH 2) corresponds to those administrative records related to the business and activities of the organisation. It contains Series on Development Areas (A/TH 2/1); Design (A/TH 2/2), including files on Master Plan, Expansion and Dissolution of the Corporation (A/TH 2/2/1); Community and Education (A/TH 2/3); Contracts and Estate (A/TH 2/4); Commerce and Industry (A/TH 2/5); Marketing, Publicity and Promotion (A/TH 2/6); Statistics and Reports (A/TH 2/7) and Policies (A/TH 2/8). Its serial structure is very similar to that of the Social Development Department (A/TH 3), sharing both a large number of coincident subjects, in many cases with a mutual relationship.

The fact that Social Development Department (A/TH 3) covered three very important and strategic sectors (being the face and voice of the Corporation before Harlow citizens, having knowledge and making foresights of their needs and problems, and inform and promote on Corporation’s work) makes this Sub-Fonds the largest and most varied within the Fonds. It contains Corporation Administration (A/TH 3/1); Community (A/TH 3/2); Design (A/TH 3/3); Education (A/TH 3/4); Industry and Commerce (A/TH 3/5); Public Open Spaces and Amenities (A/TH 3/6); Residents and Tenants (A/TH 3/7); Publicity (A/TH 3/8), including some files relating to the visit of HM Queen Elizabeth II and HRH the Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh on 30 October 1957 (A/TH 3/8/3); Statistics and Research (A/TH 3/9), holding a huge range of studies and reports as well as several files on 1970’s Expansion Plan; Department Photographic Collection (A/TH 3/10) with 72 sets of photographs (1331 photographs from the late 1940’s up to the late 1970’s and 501 photographic negative glass plates covering the early period of the Corporation); and Published Material (A/TH 3/11) including books, pamphlets, leaflets and any other promotional material published by the Corporation.

The Legal Department (A/TH 4) contains more than 2600 files on contracts (A/TH 4/1), practically all the contracts generated by the Corporation, including original agreements, contract documents and bills of quantities, and 369 sets of contract drawings with more than 6000 plans. The Sub-Fonds also includes Extinguishment of Public Rights of way (A/TH 4/2) and Licences and Leases (A/TH 4/3).

The Finance Department (A/TH 5) presents a selected range of account books and ledgers (A/TH 5/1) and the whole Series of projects proposed for Ministry approval, covering all the planning and housing projects to be executed by the Corporation (A/TH 5/2).

Technical Departments Sub-Fonds (A/TH 6) merges all the records from the Architects’ and Engineers’ Departments kept in the Fonds. The Architects’ records (A/TH 6/1) consist in several files of projects (Town Centre Stage IV, Old Harlow Redevelopment and Expansion 1974); a set of microfilms of plans and drawings, and 108 sets of plans with 354 plans and drawings, including some sketches by Sir Frederick Gibberd, Harlow New Town Master Plan, Expansion and house numbering guides to all the existing housing areas. The engineers’ records (A/TH 6/2) are formed by a few miscellaneous files and a set of microfilms of schemes.
Dates of Creation:
1946 – 2000 (bulk 1946 – 1980). Records from 1980 correspond to files created by Harlow Development
Extent:
5343 records (596 boxes), including 944 sets of pl
Creator Name:
Harlow Development Corporation, Harlow (1947-1980); Commission for the New Towns Local Office, Harlo
Admin History:
The Harlow Development Corporation (HDC) was established in 1947 by the Ministry of Town and Country Planning, from the Advisory Board set up under the New Towns Act, 1946. The Corporation was financed by the government by means of loans for up to 60 years, and had wide powers to acquire land, to provide basic services, and to direct the building of the new town. It worked closely with Essex county council and private enterprises to provide schools, welfare facilities, and police and health services.

The chairman and eight members of the board of the corporation were appointed for their knowledge of town planning, housing, social welfare, and local government. From 1955 the board also included local councillors appointed by the government. There have been five chairmen: Sir Ernest Gowers (1947–1950); Sir Richard Costain (1950–1966); Sir John Newsom (1966– 1971); Mr. Bernard J. Perkins (1972-1979); and Dame Elizabeth Coker (1979-1980). The Board appointed a working committee composed of a general manager and seven chief officers, each responsible for his own department.

The master plan for Harlow was drawn up in 1947 by Sir Frederick Gibberd. The town was planned from the outset and was designed to respect the existing landscape. A number of landscape wedges - which later became known as Green Wedges - were designed to cut through the town and separate the neighbourhoods of the town. The development incorporated the market town of Harlow, now a neighbourhood known as Old Harlow, and the villages of Great Parndon, Latton, Tye Green, Potter Street, Churchgate Street, Little Parndon, and Netteswell. Each of the town's neighbourhoods is self-supporting with its own shopping precincts, community facilities and pubs.

Gibberd invited many of the country's leading post-war architects to design buildings in the town, including Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, Leonard Manasseh, Michael Neylan, E C P Monson, Gerard Goalen, Maxwell Fry, Jane Drew, Graham Dawbarn, H. T. Cadbury-Brown and William Crabtree.

HDC built Britain's first pedestrian precinct, and first modern-style residential tower block, The Lawn, constructed in 1951; it is now a Grade II listed building. Gibberd's tromp-l'oeil terrace in Orchard Croft and Dawbarn's maisonette blocks at Pennymead are also notable, as is Michael Neylan's pioneering development at Bishopsfield. The first neighbourhood, Mark Hall, is a conservation area.

From 1955 the Corporation began to hand over its functions to the newly formed Harlow district council. By 1978 the corporation's work was virtually complete. Under the New Towns (Amendment) Act 1976, it was intended that by the end of 1980 its remaining industrial and commercial assets should be transferred to the Commission for the New Towns (CNT). Eventually, the Corporation wound up its activities on 30 September 1980.

The CNT was set up under Part II of the New Towns Act 1959 and was launched in October 1961. It was established to manage the property of the New Towns and Urban Development Corporations and Housing Action Trusts transferred to it.

The functions of the Commission were to take over the development of new towns from the development corporations, following the completion of initial stages of development, and then to manage the commercial and industrial assets of the new towns. Land purchased by the corporations was transferred to the commission for this purpose; the Commission acted as landowner on behalf of the nation.

In 1979, the powers of the Commission were extended to include the selling of industrial and commercial premises, and the completion of outstanding contracts entered into by the Development Corporations. These enhanced objectives, and the powers of disposal of the Commission, are defined in the New Towns and Urban Development Act 1985.

In 1999 the CNT joined with the Urban Redevelopment Agency (URA) to form English Partnerships. Its core function was to redevelop urban areas in order to provide affordable housing and sustainable growth. Although CNT and URA trade as English Partnerships, they remained separate legal entities. On 1 December 2008, the powers of English Partnerships passed to a successor body, the new Homes and Communities Agency.

Sources: Harlow: Gibberd, Frederick, Hyde Harvey, Ben, and White Len: The Story of a New Town, Publication for Companies, Stevenage, 1980; https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/essex/vol8/pp149-158; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlow; https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C125
Archivist Note:
Fonds arranged and described by Hector Mir-Llorente, project archivist for the project ‘The Model New Town: Harlow Development Archives’, funded through an Archives Revealed Cataloguing Grant from The National Archives and supported by The Pilgrim Trust and the Wolfson Foundation.
Custodial History:
Originally, the Corporation archive was kept in its Harlow premises until its dissolution in 1980. Each Department was responsible of the keeping of their own records, not existing a centralised Archive.

The creation of the Harlow Urban District Council in 1955 implied the first transfer of documents to this newly created body. With the extinction of the Corporation in 1980 and the transfer of housing and other different assets to Harlow Council, all those documents related also passed to the Council, as well as some documents with historical value, such as the whole photographic collection and all the Architects’ Department microfilms of plans, were sent to the Harlow Museum.

Previous the Corporation’s wind up, the Essex County Archivist made an extensive selection of those records of permanent preservation and archival value. Result of it, the first transfer was made in 1981, when more than 400 boxes of documents and plans were sent to the Essex Record Office.

The remaining records, those part of or required for the ongoing business, were retained by the Corporation successor, the Commission for the New Towns, in its Harlow office until 1982 when the office was closed and all the Harlow documents were merged with its headquarters organisation, first in London, and later in Milton Keynes.

Later, the Commission for the New Towns/English Partnership did other transfers of Harlow records to the Essex Record Office in 1982, 1999, 2006 and 2007.

Thanks to the Cou
Acquisition Source:
Accessions A5967 (1979, probably part of A6306), A6306 (1981), A6447 (1982, probably part of A6306), A6624 (1982), A10417 (1999), A11942 (2006), A12116 (2007), A12270 (2007). All deposited by the Commission for the New Towns/English Partnership.
Destruction:
All the records transferred to the Essex Record Office have been preserved, only duplicates have been removed.
Accurals:
No further Corporation papers are expected.
System Arrangement:
The appraisal of all the Harlow records allowed to identify the original reference system used by each department. The original series appear more evident in those Departments where most part of their files were transferred (i.e., Administration and Social Development Departments, and partially, Legal and Finance Departments), while in others such as the Architect’s and Engineer’s Departments, formed merely by remnant files, the identification and reconstruction of their original series has not been possible.

Trying to preserve as much as possible its original organisation, the fonds has been classified organically, dividing it according to the original Departments and departmental series. However, some functional modifications have been made. So, to Sub-Fonds level, the Administration Department, with the largest number of series and activities, was split in two different new Sub-Fonds: Corporation (containing those records relating uniquely to the creation, maintaining and structu
Rules or Conventions:
General International Standard Archival Description (ISAD (G)).
Access:
A 20-year closure period policy was applied. The most modern record was disclosed in 2020.
Copyright:
Images under specified copyright.
Existence of Copies:
7 tape recordings (A/TH 3/9/2/22) have been digitised and held at ERO Sound Archive.
Related Unit of Description:
Other fonds directly related to Harlow Development Corporation can be found at the Essex Record Office:

• D/CP 8/25 - Deed of parsonage, St. Paul, Harlow New Town with St. Mary, Little Parndon, includes Development Corporation's Abstract of Title (1958) to Parndon Hall
• D/DU 387/46 - Todhunter family of Great Parndon. Correspondence and legal papers of the sale of Brockles, Maunds, Todsbrook and Kingsmoor farms to Harlow Development Corporation (1953 - 1956)
• D/DU 943/1-47 – Papers of Councillor R.O.C. Hurst of Harlow (formerly Deputy Chairman of the Harlow Development Corporation c.1947-1954), including meeting papers, reports, ‘Flagstaff’ staff magazines and books and pamphlets published by Harlow Development Corporation
• D/DU 1682/1 - Working papers of Mr. P.N. Lane. List of files created or retained by the Commission for New Towns relating to Harlow Development Corporation
• D/DU 1864 - Harlow Development Corporation Staff ‘Flagstaff’ magazines
• D/DU 3104 - 'Ron Bill Collection'. Books and pamphlets relating to Harlow New Town and some papers relating to his work with the Corporation within the Housing Department -1954/1957-, papers relating to reunions in 1992 and 1997 of the Flagstaff Association of Harlow Development Corporation Staff including some newsletters, issues 1 to 6 of ‘The Facts’, newsletter for the Harlow Development Corporation Staff (1960’s?)
• D/Z 346/2325 - Harlow Development Corporation drawing of sewer beneath Cambridge Main Line north of Harlow Station
• I/Mp 169 - Mint Portfolio Harlow (loose photographs of Harlow New Town, probably duplicates from the Social Development Department Photographic Collection)
• T/M 408/5 - Plans of Basildon and Harlow New Towns (Harlow New Town designation map and master plan)
• SA 22 - Harlow Housing and Design (Interviews about the development of the New Town in Harlow)
• Some BBC Essex interviews: SA 1/67/1 - Harlow Project; an Architect's Reminiscences; SA 1/68/1 - Harlow Project: A Housing Officer's Reminiscences; SA 1/78/1 - Harlow Project: A Long-Term Residents View – 2; SA 1/178/1 - Harlow -The Early Years: 40th Anniversary Programme; SA 1/464/1 - Origins of New Towns in Essex
• A13957/11 - Harlow Development Corporation Staff Rules and Conditions of Service, 1954, 1957, 1960 editions, 1950s-1970s
• A14101/33-34 – Two scrapbooks from the Local history material of the Loughton Library. Contain cuttings from various newspapers with news stories related to Harlow Development Corporation (1949 – 1955)

Along with the ERO fonds, the Harlow Museum collection is the other main source of information for a better understanding of Harlow Development Corporation. Its collection, developed thanks to the transfers of documents made by the Corporation to the Harlow Urban District Council in the late seventies/early eighties, contains a substantial number of documents, mainly reports, newspapers and magazines, the entire photographic collection of the Social Development Department, and Architect’s Department plans, drawings and a set of microfilms of plans.

The National Archives hold the Corporate archives of the Commission for the New Towns/English Partnership (FJ - Records created or inherited by the Commission for the New Towns and successors), as well as several records related to Harlow Development Corporation in the Ministry of Housing and Local Government fonds (HLG - Records created or inherited by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, and of successor and related bodies).

The Henry Moore Institute in Leeds has some significant material from Harlow relating to its sculpture. The four boxes of the accession 2007.59 contain the institutional papers of the Harlow Art Trust showing the development of public sculpture in Harlow new town.
Dates of Description:
November 2021