15. Portable Buildings
Tents and canvas houses
Godfrey Rhodes. ‘Tents from their Earliest Period to the present Time &c’, Journal of the United Service Institution of India, 1859, pp 238-255
George Turner. ‘Tents Invented by himself’, Journal of the United Service Institution of India, 1861, pp 86-104.
(p) J W Ormsby. A Canvas Cottage. Chicago, no date [c 1910]. [Link]
General prefabrication
[John Stephens]. The Land of Promise. London 1839. Includes rare advertisements by the prefabricators J Harvey, J H Porter and Peter Thompson. Porter advertises his iron fence, portable pheasantries &c, but at this stage no iron buildings. Thompson gives a plan and perspective of a 4 roomed timber house. Henry Hewetson advertises zinc products, including buildings.
C F Bielefeld. Portable Buildings. London 1853. Two copies of Bielefeld's catalogue of his portable papier mâché buildings. Extremely rare: no other copies known in existence.
H M Waddell. Twenty nine Years in the West Indies and Central Africa. London 1863. Illustrates, p 243, King Eyambo's Liverpool-made iron house as it stood in 1846, deserted three years after its erection.
(p) Illustrated London News (extracts): 31 March 1866, pp 313-4. Page 313 illustrates 'Railway Bridge over the River Bremer, Queensland, Australia' and shows the bridge under construction, with scaffolding. 18 January 1868, pp 69-70. Page 69 illustrates 'The Bremer Railway Bridge near Ipswich Queensland'. 16 October 1868, pp 363-4. Page 363 illustrates 'Terminal station, Ipswich, Queensland'. The article on p 364, 'Queensland Railway Stations', refers to this as one of three stations designed by Sir Charles Fox and Son, engineers, for the Queensland Government, made in England by J & K Fisher of Westminster, and clad in corrugated iron.
(p) Iowa Railroad Land Co, Choice Iowa farming lands. 1,000,000 acres, for sale at low prices, on credit or for cash, by the Iowa Railroad Land Company, in tracts to suit purchasers IRLC, Cedar Rapids [Iowa] 1870). A large part of this booklet consists of illustrations of 'ready-made houses' offered by Lyman Bridges of Chiacgo,
H W Maynard. The Viaduct Works' Handbook; being a Collection of Examples from Actual Practice of Viaducts, Bridges, Roofs, and other Structures of Iron &c. London 1868. This is the business which grew from the construction of the Crumlin Viaduct, and the book illustrates mnainly engineering works, including the Murray River Bridge, Australia, plus a few buildings.
Ewing Matheson. Works in Iron. London 1873. Illustrates the structures made by Andrew Handyside & Co., including an iron railway bridge for Ipswich, Queensland, designed by Sir Charles Fox & Son. This bridge no longer stands, but there are related ones, possibly by the same manufacturers, at Wilcannia, N.S.W. and over the Adelaide River, Northern Territory.
Ewing Matheson. Works in Iron. 2nd ed, London 1877. Illustrates the same.
Boulton & Paul, Ltd., Manufacturers, Rose Lane Works, Norwich. Boulton & Paul, No 97, revised edition, Norwich 1898 [facsimile, Ottawa 1998].
Wrinch & Sons, Portable [Iron] Buildings, Illustrated Catalogue. Wrinch, Ipswich 1900.
Hill & Smith. Catalogue No. 307 of Iron Sheds, Houses, Roofing &c. for Agricultural & Other Purposes. Hill & Smith, Brierley Hill [Staffordshire] no date [c 1905].
(p) C & A Patented Building Construction Co, Portable Houses. C & A, New York no date [c 1910].
(p) Sears Roebuck & Co. Modern Homes. Chicago, no date [c 1910]. These are better described as pre-cut than prefabricated houses, and the materials supplied by Sears Roebuck account for less than half of the erected cost. [Link]
Miller Manufacturing Co. Miller's "Ready-Built" Buildings. St Louis [Missouri] 1918. [Link]
Hodgson Portable Houses. Boston 1919.
Catalogue No. 32, Aladdin Homes. 3rd ed, Bay City [Michigan] 1920. Two copies.
(ef) South-Western Appliance Co. (1929) Ltd. Solving the Housing Problem . Fulham [London], no date [1929].
Humphreys Limited: Manufacturer of Portable and Permanent Buildings of every description for Home and Export (Humphreys London, no date [c 1920])
Sutcliffe's Portable Buildings. Hebden Bridge [Yorkshire] 1930. [Link]
Prefabricated Homes [US journal] April 1943 (vol 1 no 1) - December 1944 (vol 4 no 2).
Hugh Anthony. Houses: Permanence and Prefabrication. London 1945.
Bernard Co. Prefabricated Homes . London 1945. Alan Murray's copy.
John Gloag & Grey Wornum. House out of Factory. London 1946. Two copies.
G M Campion. 'Prefabricated Homes' [book dummy: typescript with illustrations tipped in] Borthwick [Scotland] 1947. [Link]
A L Carr. A Practical Guide to Prefabricated Houses. New York 1947.
R K Graff, R A Matern & H L Williams. The Prefabricated House: a Practical Guide for the Prospective Buyer. Doubleday, Garden City {New York] 1947.
Pol Abraham, Architecture Préfabriquée. 2nd ed, Dunod, Paris 1952.
Edward Aubury. The Bailey Bridge and Uniflote Handbook. London 1961.
R B White. Prefabrication. London 1965. Two copies.
Ducker Portable House Co
Ducker Portable House Co. Ducker Portable Houses. New York & London 1888. Illustrates a camping cottage, summer cottages, lawn pavilions, billiard room, photographer's studio, bowling alley, boat house, 'contractor's building' [dormitory], racing stable, carriage house & stable, 'athletic and bicycle hall', lawn tennis pavilion, 'administration building', and hospital. One summer cottage has a most elaborate concave Chinese roof. Ducker had won a special medal for a model field hospital at the Red Cross Society's Exhibition at Antwerp in 1885, and his hospital had been used by British and American authorities.
(p) [Ducker Portable House Co]. Instructions for Putting up the Ducker Portable Buildings [illustrated broadside]. No date. [Link]
(p) Ducker Company, Erected without Nail or Screw: Ducker Houses, Sectional and Ready-Made (Ducker Company, New York no date [c 1910]). [Link]
(p) Ducker Company, Price List, Lista de Precios, Ducker Sectional Buildings (as shown in catalogue.) Edificios Seccionales de 'Ducker' (Casas Portatiles) (segun se dumuestran en el catalogo (Ducker Company, New York 1910). [Link]
William Cooper
William Cooper Ltd. Illustrated Catalogue of Goods Manufactured and Supplied by W. Cooper Ltd., Horticultural Providers. London, no date [attributed by Blackwells to c 1903, but perhaps slightly earlier than the Gardener's and Poultry Keeper's Guide] A less complete catalogue than the following, but pages 1 to 9 are identical, as is much of the remainder. No separate sections on pigeon cotes, church and mission hall furniture, or billiard tables.
William Cooper Ltd. The Gardeners and Poultry Keeper's Guide, &c. London, no date [1903]. Two copies. This is a comprehensive catalogue of gardening and related merchandise, including many prefabricated structures like conservatories, kennels, &c, but also with two major sections on prefabricated buildings. Section V, p 283ff deals with portable wooden buildings, including contracto rs' offices, kiosks, sports pavilions, stables and coach houses, and 'motor car houses and shelters'. Section X, p 411ff deals with iron buildings of similar types, but also much larger ones including residence and bungalows, concert and drill halls, hospitals and churches designed not only for local use but for 'The Colonies, South Africa, and India'. This catalogue is written up by Nigel Kendall. 'The House of 500 Houses in the Old Kent Road', House & Garden (London), XXVI, 8 (October 1971), pp 106-7, and it is Kendall who assigns the date of 1903 to it.
See also:
(sec 1) Practical Mechanic's Journal, I, pls 21, 22M pp 207, 224-5, for J H Porter's iron market house at San Fernando, Trinidad, 1848. Architectural Record, LXXIV, 4, for Harrie T Lindeberg's proposal for cellular steel house construction. (sec 4) Loudon. Encylopædia, §§ 509-514, for Manning's portable buildings. Chabat, Dictionnaire, sv Phare, for La Suède's iron lighthouses. (sec 5) Great Britain. House Construction (sec 6) Adams, Lighthouses and Lightships, pp 204-8, for British iron lighthouses, and pp 249-252, for the iron lighthouse of Walde, the Enfant Perdu, and New Caledonia. (sec 11) Shaw, Sketches for Cottages (for W H Lascelles's patent cement slab buildings). Lakeman, Concrete Cottages (advertisement p ii, for Perry's sectional concrete cottages) (sec 13) G Jennings & Co. Price List (sec 16) Young, Treatise on Fencing; Walmsley. Iron Roofs, p 30, Kiosk for India (cf Matheson). (sec 22) Bemis. The Evolving House, III, Rational Design (sec 36) Hudson. Cottage Homes (sec 38) Cyclone Co. Catalogue 41, 1948 (sec 39) Hudson's "Ready-Cut" Homes.