William Barnes – Housing chief who cut homes queue to just 12
Published: July 28, 2011
WHEN William Barnes left his job as director of Camden Council’s housing division, social housing in the borough had been transformed. There were just 12 families on the waiting list, yet, as the Gospel Oak-based Quaker said at the time, he felt it was 12 too many.
William, who has died aged 92, was at the head of Camden’s massive investment programme which saw it buy up and build thousands of council homes.
Born in The Temple, City of London, in 1919, he showed academic flair, becoming Westminster School captain in 1937. He invited newly-crowned George VI and his Queen to visit the school and wrote a prologue for a play staged for them in Latin.
His Classics studies at Cambridge were interrupted by war. A pacifist like his father, William registered as a conscientious objector, and joined the Friends Ambulance Unit.
He was based at an East End hospital and watched the first raid by German bombers on the city. Later, he would travel across the Atlantic and to China, where he served with a medical unit and made vital runs of supplies into India.
After the war, William put his talents at the disposal of the Attlee government, working at the Ministry of National Insurance. He would also work for the Board of Trade, spend time in Paris for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and was a key figure in the 1960s in establishing the London Business School in Regent’s Park.
He married Mary in 1961 and they had three children, Peter, Susannah and Tom.
In 1971, William became housing director for Camden Council. He retired in 1980, wary of the Thatcher government’s attitude to social housing.
He worked tirelessly for the rights of disabled people through the charity Arts Access, served as a governor for the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children and was a reader at Hampstead Friends Meeting House.
He wrote books: he was an expert on the Renaissance Popes, the novels of Marcel Proust and Wagner’s operas.
Those who knew him will remember a solid, learned and reliable friend who had time for all who needed him.
His children’s friends often relied on William for a steady adult influence when they were teenagers. His house was often full of guests, who would stay overnight and treat the home he and Mary created as a haven.
DAN CARRIER