Dunstan House was erected in 1899 by the East End Dwelling company. The mansion block located on Stepney Green in East London was built at a high point for philanthropic housing, which was one of the major social, architectural and urban developments of the 19th century.

 

This movement which led to the creation of thousands of flats, notably across the East End of London had its roots in a report published in 1842 by social reformer Edwin Chadwick. Entitled ‘The Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain’. Chadwick’s report highlighted an urgent need to improve the living conditions of the poor. He drew a direct link between the appalling living conditions that many of the poor suffered and the spread of death and disease. 

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Chadwick also noted that the poor and working classes were less productive because of their poverty and poor health. This, he argued, had knock­ on effects on the performance of the national economy, and so it was in the national interest to improve the living conditions and health of the poor.

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In the 1860s several major organisations were established whose work remains an important feature of London to this day and would in time influence the development of state funded social housing. The Peabody Trust founded in 1862, is perhaps the best known and has gone on to become one of the largest philanthropic housing organisations in London with around 27,000 properties.

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A year later in 1863, Sir Sidney Waterlow successfully launched the Improved Industrial Dwellings Company. Waterlow demonstrated that there were commercially viable models for private enterprise to build philanthropic housing for the working classes. This became known as ‘five percent philanthropy’ as investors usually expected a five percent return on their investment.

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The East End Dwellings Company (EEDC) was founded in 1882, by, among others, Dr Liddle the highly respected Medical Officer for the Whitechapel Union and Samuel Augustus Barnett, the Vicar of St Jude's Church in Whitechapel. Barnett was a renowned social reformer, who with his wife Henrietta Barnett, founded Toynbee Hall and the Whitechapel Art Gallery. The aim of the East End Dwellings Company was to provide decent living accommodation for the poorer working classes.

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Unlike some of the other model dwellings companies which focused on the artisan classes, the EEDC initially developed blocks that could be let by the room, enabling the casual poor and day labourers to rent accommodation while still returning a profit. 

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In his 1973 study of five percent philanthropy housing, John Nelson Tarn noted that the EEDC built “a better class of dwelling” than some of their peers. 

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Starting in 1884 the EEDC would go on to build numerous blocks of flats in Stepney, Whitechapel and Bethnal Green.

Over the decades the flats within Dunstan have been developed and improved but always conserving the red bricked Victorian facade and pretty interior courtyard which have been lost in other mansion blocks of its type. 

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Dunstan Houses has been used for various TV and Film shoots including call the Midwife on the BBC.