Land Settlement Associations
 

Just been reading an interesting article in the NDFHS magazine about LSAs. Set up during the depression in the 1930s to give unemployed miners and shipbuilders from the north east the opportunity to begin new lives as market gardeners. One of the settlements was established in a village called Sidlesham near Chichester in West Sussex. This was the largest of the settlements with 120 smallholdings.
Now a heritage trail has been created to explain the origins of the LSA and to share people's memories. The owner of the website and project is seeking information about various families and one of these is a Harry Smith from Amble who moved there with his family in 1937. According to the school registers the family "returned to Newcastle" in August 1941.
The website is http://sidleshamheritagetrail.co.uk/ and the entry for Harry shows daughter Nancy born April 1928, Amble in the school admission register and her leaving in August 1941. Ring any bells?

I've had a look on the 1939 register and it shows the family living at Old House Farm, Sidlesham. Harry (Henry TS) is a public works contractor (heavy worker) born 1900; his wife is Harriet M and Nancy is actually Ann E.

On this subject I think Swarland was one of these settlements.

On the census for 1901 and 1911, Henry Smith, born Amble, is the son of John, coal miner, and Charlotte. 1901 living in Henderson Street, Amble, 1911 at Cross Row, Radcliffe. Lots of siblings: 3 brothers, Robert, David and John; 3 sisters, Annie, Ada and Daisy.

Found a mention of Swarland in Country Life magazine from 1935, under the heading Land Settlement Association.

"An alternative to land settlements is the subsistence settlement. Mention is made of an experiment of this type being made at Swarland in Northumberland and the Upholland Scheme, where P Scott is developing the idea of enabling unemployed men to raise produce for their own consumption and exchange among themselves".

Apparently the Swarland settlement was founded by the private Fountains Abbey Land Settlement Company. Eleven of the oldest buildings at Swarland are listed. There was a Land Settlement Association farm at Stannington.