WELWYN GC at 100

A year of celebrations is planned as remarkable Welwyn Garden City marks its centenary

- Kate Adam

Welwyn Garden City is 100 years old in 2020 and to mark the major milestone, Welwyn Garden City Centenary Foundation, a community-led organisation, has planned a full year of celebrations with well over 100 events for residents and visitors to the town. The second garden city was founded by Ebenezer Howard, a visionary with utopian ideas who believed in social justice and healthy living in a ‘marriage of town and country’. The events planned in this special year commemorate that vision.

Howard was born in London in 1859. He had a basic education and was from a humble background, yet went on to be a town planner of international importance. A diminutive figure, he had a powerful voice and great ambition. In his early 20s he spent time in the US trying his hand at farming. He returned to an overcrowded, unhealthy and polluted London where he found work as a shorthand writer in parliament. It was to be a life-changing position – as here he listened to debates about healthy living and sustainable accommodation.

Inspired by the American ‘can do’ attitude, he spent 20 years developing his vision for a new town planning concept and in 1898 his book, To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform was published (it was republished in 1902 as Garden Cities of To-morrow). His concept of a self-sufficient town (not a dormitory suburb for cities), would spread internationally, with more than 140 sites around the world based on his principles.

He also had a vision of a ‘Group of slumless, smokeless cities’. Ahead of his time, these included reservoirs, not only to supply water but to generate electricity; a town centre surrounded by green belt; electric rail; allotments, and an integrated transport system.