12 Facts About Raymond Unwin

Sir Raymond Unwin was a prominent and influential English engineer, architect and town planner, with an emphasis on improvements in working class housing.

Raymond Unwin was born in Rotherham, Yorkshire and grew up in Oxford, after his father sold up his business and moved there to study.

Raymond Unwin wrote articles for the League's newspaper and spoke on street corners for its cause and for the Labour Church.

Raymond Unwin became a close friend of the socialist philosopher Edward Carpenter, whose Utopian community ideas led to his developing a small commune at Millthorpe near Sheffield.

Parker and Raymond Unwin were involved in designing many of the interior fittings, which remain in the house to this day, and the initial layout of the large gardens.

Raymond Unwin renamed it Chetwynd House and when he married his star designer Clarice Cliff in 1940, she moved into the house and lived there until 1972.

In 1902 Parker and Raymond Unwin were asked to design a model village at New Earswick near York for Joseph and Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree, and the following year they were given the opportunity to take part in the creation of Letchworth, when the First Garden City Company asked them to submit a plan.

Raymond Unwin moved from Letchworth to Hampstead in 1906, and he lived here for the rest of his life at the farmstead Wyldes Farm.

Raymond Unwin became technical adviser to the Greater London Regional Planning Committee in 1929 and largely wrote its two reports, the first published in that year and the second in 1933.

Raymond Unwin was awarded an honorary doctorate by Norwegian Institute of Technology in 1935 and by Harvard University in 1937.

Raymond Unwin died at Lyme, Connecticut at the home of his daughter on 29 June 1940.

Raymond Unwin's great-great-grandson has unveiled a roundabout in his memory, one of which is in Siddington, Gloucestershire, as part of a YouTube video from YouTuber Max Fosh.