History of Prefabricated Houses

Buildings have been built in one place and reassembled in another throughout history.

Possibly the first advertised prefab house was the Manning Portable Cottage.

A London carpenter, Henry Manning, constructed a house that was built in components, then shipped and assembled by British emigrants.

The peak year for the importation of portable buildings to Australia was 1853, when several hundred arrived.

These have been identified as coming from Liverpool, Boston and Singapore (with Chinese instructions for re-assembly).

As the buildings were moveable they were legally regarded as chattels.

In Barbados the Chattel house was a form of prefabricated building which was developed by emancipated slaves who had limited rights to build upon land they did not own.

In five months he designed a 1,000 patient hospital, with innovations in sanitation, ventilation and a flushing toilet.

In 1855 during the Crimean War, after Florence Nightingale wrote a letter to The Times, Isambard Kingdom Brunel was commissioned to design a prefabricated modular hospital.

The world's first prefabricated, pre-cast paneled apartment blocks were pioneered in Liverpool.

A process was invented by city engineer John Alexander Brodie, whose inventive genius also had him inventing the football goal net.

The tram stables at Walton in Liverpool followed in 1906.

The idea was not extensively adopted in Britain, however was widely adopted elsewhere, particularly in Eastern Europe.

During the Gold Rush when quick construction was required due to time restraints prefabricated homes were in high demand.

Prefab kits were produced in order for Californian prospectors to cater to the high demand of quick construction.

Prefabricated housing was popular during World War II due to the need for mass accommodation for military personnel.

The United States used Quonset huts as military buildings, and in the United Kingdom prefabricated buildings used included Nissen huts and Bellman Hangars.

McDonalds uses prefabricated structures for their buildings, and set a record of constructing a building and opening for business within 13 hours on pre-prepared ground.

In the UK, the major supermarkets have each developed a modular unit system to shop building, based on the systems developed by German cost retailers Aldi and Netto.

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