Wage rises and reluctant rent payers mean less labour. While the garden rent remained the same, wages had risen by around 70% since the war. The budget would only run to a 1 or 1 1/2 man-day’s labour, compared to the 3 man-days possible with the pre-war budget. . The gardener’s wages were £45 per anum or approximately 17/6 per week in 1926, and had risen to £52 per annum or £1 per week by 1937, roughly a 7% rise over 12 years.
Despite the poor wages Mr. R.J. Hall was the dedicated and loyal gardener during this period and remained so for 35 years until his death in 1948. Mr Hall either supplied his own tools, or used ones from another garden. No purchases of garden tools or repairs to garden equipment, even a lawnmower, have been recorded in the accounts. When the new gardener was hired in 1948, £5 was spent on tools and a wheelbarrow.
Increasing Multi-occupation and de-gentrification.
A feature of the interwar period is professional families deserting the inner city in droves, in favour of one of the three million new and easier to run houses in the suburbs, and the houses they abandon being “made down” into flats or rooming houses. With the “made-down” houses come ill-controlled children whose destructive behaviour costs the garden dear in repairs.