Planning Ballyfermot 1936 Dublin Lord Mayor came along with TDs and other top officials from Dublin Corporation in 1936 to Inspect for a housing estate they also viewed other sites in Inchicore, Rialto, Chapelizod as there was a major tenement housing problem in the city and it was being talked about in all the papers and this was reaching other countries throughout Europe so it was an embarrassment. But Ballyfermot was selected but building did not begin till 1948 after the war (can mention the Painters Hut – first Church, Stew House, OLV Youth Club
href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ballyfermot/14594101239/in/photolist-SpWQoP-RneQFB-AdZnWN-zyH3FB-oeCzRa-8sLcEK-8sLjqV-7W7wuU-7U8DYh-6RRTjr">www.flickr.com/photos/ballyfermot/14594101239/in/photolis...

The address Stone House as mentioned in the map above was featured in Le Fanu’s book ‘The House by the Churchyard’ and was situated in what is now Markievicz Park. The house is now long gone and its last residents were the Merriman family.

Dublin Corporation purchased the farmland from Patrick Rafter in 1946/47, for lower Ballyfermot housing development. But on Maps in the Valuation Office it showed that Dublin Corporation had planned the housing development as far back as 1937. The Second World War started in 1939 and ran to 1945.

Notes taken from the Book Ballyfermot Building a Community 1948 - 2006

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www.flickr.com/photos/ballyfermot/14594101239/in/photolis...

Planning Ballyfermot 1936 Dublin Lord Mayor came along with TDs and other top officials from Dublin Corporation in 1936 to Inspect for a housing estate they also viewed other sites in Inchicore, Rialto, Chapelizod as there was a major tenement housing problem in the city and it was being talked about in all the papers and this was reaching other countries throughout Europe so it was an embarrassment. But Ballyfermot was selected but building did not begin till 1948 after the war (can mention the Painters Hut – first Church, Stew House, OLV Youth Club

The address Stone House as mentioned in the map above was featured in Le Fanu’s book ‘The House by the Churchyard’ and was situated in what is now Markievicz Park. The house is now long gone and its last residents were the Merriman family.

Dublin Corporation purchased the farmland from Patrick Rafter in 1947, for lower Ballyfermot housing development. But on Maps in the Valuation Office it showed that Dublin Corporation had planned the housing development as far back as 1937. The Second World War started in 1939 and ran to 1945.

Notes taken from the Book Ballyfermot Building a Community 1948 - 2006

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Members of Dublin Corporation Housing Committee who went on tour for possible sites for building purposes

href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ballyfermot/14594101239/in/photolist-SpWQoP-RneQFB-AdZnWN-zyH3FB-oeCzRa-8sLcEK-8sLjqV-7W7wuU-7U8DYh-6RRTjr">www.flickr.com/photos/ballyfermot/14594101239/in/photolis...

Planning Ballyfermot 1936 Dublin Lord Mayor came along with TDs and other top officials from Dublin Corporation in 1936 to Inspect for a housing estate they also viewed other sites in Inchicore, Rialto, Chapelizod as there was a major tenement housing problem in the city and it was being talked about in all the papers and this was reaching other countries throughout Europe so it was an embarrassment. But Ballyfermot was selected but building did not begin till 1948 after the war (can mention the Painters Hut – first Church, Stew House, OLV Youth Club

The address Stone House as mentioned in the map above was featured in Le Fanu’s book ‘The House by the Churchyard’ and was situated in what is now Markievicz Park. The house is now long gone and its last residents were the Merriman family.

Dublin Corporation purchased the farmland from Patrick Rafter in 1946/47, for lower Ballyfermot housing development. But on Maps in the Valuation Office it showed that Dublin Corporation had planned the housing development as far back as 1937. The Second World War started in 1939 and ran to 1945.

Notes taken from the Book Ballyfermot Building a Community 1948 - 2006

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Link to some of his work

archiseek.com/tag/herbert-g-simms/


Housing architect to Dublin Corporation from 1932 until 1948. Herbert George Simms, son of George William Simms, train driver,of 33 Victoria Road, London, was born in London on 30 November 1898. He was educated at Haverstock Industrial and Commercial School. During the First World War he served in the Royal Field Artillery, and, as a result, was awarded an ex-service scholarship of £150 and tuition fees for three years which enabled him to study architecture at Liverpool University. He entered the university in October 1919 but had to give up the Diploma course for financial reasons when the three years were up. By this time he had received the Certificate in Architecture in 1921 and had passed the third and fourth years of the Diploma course in June 1921 and June 1922. On the grounds of his previous office experience and the standard he had reached in his studies, he was permitted to take the course for the Certificate in Civic Design in the summer term of 1922 in lieu of practical work. He was awarded the Certificate in March 1923.

On leaving the university Simms came to Dublin, where he worked for a time in the office of AUBREY VINCENT O'ROURKE . In February 1925 he was appointed temporary architect to Dublin Corporation at a salary of eight guineas per week.(1) The appointment, initially for six months, was extended at least until December 1927.(2) In 1926 he was authorized to visit London, Liverpool and Manchester to investigate the latest trends in flat buildings.(3) In 1929-1930 he worked for about a year in India as a town planner in the Punjab, before returning to Dublin.

Until 1932 new housing in Dublin had been the responsibility of the city architect, HORACE O'ROURKE . Between 1923 and 1931 new dwellings were being erected at an average rate of 555 per annum, but the shortage of adequate housing in the city remained acute. In 1932 or 1933 a separate housing architect's Department was formed with specific responsibility for the design and erection of new dwellings, as distinct from their administration and maintenance. Simms was appointed to the new post of Corporation housing architect. He immediately recruited a temporary staff to assist him in the task which confronted him.(4) In 1935 alone 1,552 dwellings were completed.(5) During the sixteen years he was in office, Simms was responsible for for the design and erection of some 17,000 new homes,(6) ranging from striking blocks of flats in the central city, influenced, as Rothery points out, by new apartment blocks by de Klerk in Amsterdam and J.P. Oud in Rotterdam,(7) to extensive suburban housing schemes such as those at Crumlin and Cabra.

When Horace O'Rourke retired in 1945, the post of city architect remained unfilled, which increased the pressure of work on the housing architect. On 28 September 1948 Simms, who had already suffered one nervous breakdown, took his own life by throwing himself onto the railway line at Dun Laoghaire; he was not killed immediately but died later the same day at St Michael's Hospital, Dun Laoghaire. According to the suicide note found on his person, he felt that overwork was threatening his sanity. He was survived by his widow, Eileen (1908-1978), daughter of Garda Superintendent Thomas Clarke of Mount Merrion, Co. Dublin, whom he had married in 1929.(8) He was buried in Deansgrange cemetery.(9)

A tribute by Ernest F.N. Taylor, the city surveyor , was published in the Irish Builder: 'Behind a quiet and unassuming manner there lurked a forceful personality; and Mr Simms could uphold his point of view with a vigour that sometimes surprised those who did not know him well. By sheer hard work and conscientious devotion to duty, he has made a personal contribution towards the solution of Dublin's housing problem, probably unequalled by anyone in our time…It is not given to many of us to achieve so much in the space of a short lifetime for the benefit of our fellow men.' (10)

RIAI: elected member, 1939, having been proposed by JOHN JOSEPH ROBINSON , seconded by RICHARD CYRIL KEEFE and HARRY ALLBERRY. (11)
RIBA: elected associate, 11 June 1923, having sat the Special War Exam and been proposed by C.H Reilly, John Murray and Sir Henry Tanner.(12) Diploma in Town Planning, 1928; elected fellow, September 1943, having been proposed by JOHN JOSEPH ROBINSON , PATRICK ABERCROMBIE and FREDERICK GEORGE HICKS. (13)
Town Planning Institute: associate, 1928; member, 1932.

Addresses: Work: 3 Parliament Street, 1933-1938;(14) 5 Wellington Quay, 1940-1947.
Home: 45 Mobhi Road, Glasnevin, <=1939-1948.


See WORKS and BIBLIOGRAPHY


References
All information in this article not otherwise accounted for is from the records of Liverpool University School of Architecture, kindly supplied by Adrian Allan, University Archivist, and from the obituaries of Simms in RIAI Year Book (1949), 25, and Irish Times, ? Oct 1948. See also David O'Connor, 'Housing in Dublin 1887-1987', Irish Architect 67 (Jun-Aug 1988), 30-33; 'Public Housing 1839-1989' in J. Graby, ed.150 Years of Architecture in Ireland: RIAI 1839-1989 (1989), and 'Slums and other housing problems' in 'Architecture Yesterday and Today', supplement to Irish Times, 21 Jun 1939, 34. Some of his housing is illustrated in Architectural Design, July 1947, 189. While no formal portait photographs are known, snapshots of him appear in two personal photograph albums, now (2011) the property of Pauline Williams, his widow's daughter by a second marriage. Scanned copies of these are in the IAA. (ref. 2011/136).

(1) IB 67, 7 Feb 1925, 73,114.
(2) IB 69, 19 Mar 1927, 198.
(3) Ruth McManus, Dublin 1910-1940: Shaping the City & Suburbs (2002), 135. According to the evidence of his photograph albums, he revisited these cites when he attended the fourteenth International Housing and Town Planning Congress in 1935.
(4) IB 75, 26 Aug 1933, 714.
(5) See Simms's article in Centenary Celebration of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland and Conference of The Royal Institute of British Architects 21st to 24th June 1939, 47-56.
(6) IB 90, 16 Oct 1948, 836.
(7) Sean Rothery, Ireland and the New Architecture 1900-1940 (1991), 150-151. Some of these are illustrated in AJ 89, 22 Jun 1939, 1086, Architectural Design, July 1947, 189, and Rothery, op. cit, 151-154. While Simms's photograph albums (see above) record visits to Germany in 1935 and Austria and Hungary in 1936, they provide no evidence that he actually visited the Netherlands.
(8) Irish Times, 29 Sep, 1 Oct 1948; information kindly supplied by Enda MacMahon in e-mail to editor, Jun 2009, citing marriage certificate in General Register Office.
(9) Information from Enda MacMahon, as above, citing Deansgrange burial records, Dublin civic Archive.
(10) IB 90, 16 Oct 1948, 836.
(11) Jones transcript from RIAI council? Minutes, 1939; JRIAI (1940), 18.
(12) RIBAJ 30 (1922-23), ?.
(13) RIBAJ (1942-43), 248; IB 85, 23 Oct 1943, 412.
(14) IB 75, 17 Jun 1933, 525; 80, 8 Jan 1938, 31.


Herbert Simms was born in London and from a very modest background his he studied architecture at Liverpool University with the aid of a scholarship earned as a result of his service in the imperialist First World War.
He designed and built approximately 17,000 new dwellings in Dublin during that time
His works included flat blocks in the city centre (Henrietta House, Chancery House, Marrowbone Lane Flats) two-storey Houses in Crumlin, Cabra and Ballyfermot. Thees were the Corpo Houses. Many people that grew grew up in theses Houses will tell you
although the areas may have had their problems in the past, at least the houses were very well built. Solid. Of substance. Herbert, was a stickler for decent building standards. Most of Herbert’s buildings are still standing to this day.

He travelled to Rotterdam in 1925 with Dublin Corporation Colleagues and this is where his Dutch influence came into play seen building displays of Apartment Blocks

Pressure from extra work and hassle from the Corporation and Church led Herbert Simms, to tragically commit suicide by jumping onto the railway tracks at Dun Laoghaire in 1948. The suicide note found on him read that overwork was threatening his sanity.

Website Links

www.google.ie/search?q=Herbert+Simms&rlz=1C1CHBH_enIE...

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www.flickr.com/photos/ballyfermot/14594101239/in/photolis...


The address Stone House as mentioned in the map above was featured in Le Fanu’s book ‘The House by the Churchyard’ and was situated in what is now Markievicz Park. The house is now long gone and its last residents were the Merriman family.

Dublin Corporation purchased the farmland from Patrick Rafter in 1947, for lower Ballyfermot housing development. But on Maps in the Valuation Office it showed that Dublin Corporation had planned the housing development as far back as 1937. The Second World War started in 1939 and ran to 1945.

Notes taken from the Book Ballyfermot Building a Community 1948 - 2006

Ps Doyle Link en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peadar_Doyle

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