Rowton House – typical interior c 1925
Rownton Houses were a chain of hostels built in London by the Victorian philanthropist Montagu William Lowry (1838–1903) (Lord Rowton) to provide decent accommodation for working men in place of the squalid lodging houses of the time. The first one was established at Bondway, Vauxhall.
Rowton had been private secretary to Disraeli and had helped to set up the Guinness Trust in 1890. He made a survey of London’s common lodging houses for the Trust and decided to set up working men’s hostels. He put up the initial £30,000 and the first Rowton House (484 beds) was opened at Bondway, Vauxhall in 1892. In the first year 140,105 beds were let at 6d. (sixpence) a night. For this the customer received clean sheets and had the use of tiled wash rooms, foot baths and washing troughs for clothes, all with ample hot water.
Charles Dickens Jr listed them in Dickens’ Dictionary of London (1908 edition):
Bond-st, Vauxhall, London, SW., 484 beds,
Calthorpe-st, King’s Cross- rd, London, W.C., 964 beds.
Newington Butts, London, SE., 1,015 beds.
221 Hammersmith-rd, London, W., 800 beds.
Fieldgate-st, London, E. (near the London Hospital), 816 beds.
Arlington-rd, Camden-tn, 1,103 beds.