VILLAGE TO TOWN

Stratford Evening Post, Volume II, Issue 88, 7 November 1932, Page 3

VILLAGE TO TOWN

I ENGLISH PHENOMENON i ~ TEN YEARS' GROWTH I The arrival of the new Englishmade Ford light car, which is now on view at Kleeman and Bishop's garage, makes the following article doubly'interesting, as it is at Dagen- ' ham "that Ford erected his English ! factory, where his new 8 hOrSe power car is manufactured. Official census figures for Essex, recently published, show that Dagen. ham has grown from a parish of 9127 people in 1921 to a town with a | population of 89,362 in 1931—an increase of 80,235 (says the Daily I Mail). There, where avenues of trim, red houses have sprung up like mushrooms, people with only seven or i eight years residence to their credit i are classed among the oldest inhabi--1 tants. One woman who seven years ago was living in Walworth, S.E., said that when she and her husband went to live in Dageuham their regular evening walk was' to a farm a few hundred yards down the road. "We always went there at milking time," she said. "We had never seen cows' milked before, and after the I busy streets of London it was I strange to be living in the country." Now this woman's house is just one in a long street, and there is a grocer's shop where the cow byres used to stand. It is difficult lor a stranger, Visiting for the first time this flourishing town, with itt; wide streets, gabled houses and trim gardens, its shops and schools, to realise that only, ten years or so ago it was a quiet village. The great housing scheme of ; -the London County Council is chiefly responsible for the transformation. Nearly 15,000 houses, uniformly small," but b'uil: in 85 different styles, have been erected, and more are be-.» ing built. Most of the inhabitants are people who have moved out from London, hut now that a new motor car works and other factories have opened in the district a strong North Countryclement is growing up. Thousands of Dagenham's residents work in London, and hundreds of them make the 12 miles journey-to town each day on bicycles or motor cycles. Soon a new railway station is to be opened :o deal with the growing numbers of daily travellers.