The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Sanitary Evolution of London, by Henry Lorenzo Jephson

And his opinion is weighty. But the local authorities were very far from doing what they might have done to abate many of the insanitary evils connected therewith.

“This is not a question of a defect in the law. These bodies have the power of appointing Inspectors, but when Inspectors are appointed it brings of course a large amount of work in low property, and expense and trouble are incurred. Therefore the easiest way to avoid it is not to have Inspectors enough, so that the work may not be found out.”

In fact, the fuller the information on the subject is, the more clear it is that most of them did not want to move in the matter.

The evidence of witnesses, not under Vestry control, examined before the Select Committee on Metropolitan Local Government in 1866, throws some light on this point.

“I should say you may divide Vestries into divisions—one-third, as a rule, are of the right class of men who ought to be returned, and two-thirds are not of the class who ought to represent the intelligence or the property of the districts from which they are sent.

“The powers of Vestries are administered with too great a regard to economy. Efficiency is always sacrificed to economy. If an Act of Parliament requires them to do certain things, it is as a rule avoided.”

He attributed the failure of the Vestries to the inferior calibre of the persons composing them—“they agree to resolutions, but do not carry them out. The ratepayers take no interest in the elections in our parish. There is a large number of the owners of small house property in the Vestries who regard with great disfavour any increase of the rates, however beneficial the increase might be to the general health of the district.”

But some witnesses went further. Dr. William Rendell, who had been Medical Officer of Health for St. George-the-Martyr, said:—

“I believe, the law being new to the Vestry, they did not quite understand the mode of carrying it out; but it was partly from corrupt motives, for on one occasion one of the principal members of the Vestry, an owner of considerable property in the parish, called me aside and requested me to pass over certain property of his that I found in an extremely bad condition. I did not pass it over, of course. The chairman of the local committee was, as I thought, appointed as a positive obstructer of sanitary measures; at all events he acted as such. The obstructions arose from an unwillingness to incur expense for fear of increasing the rates, and from an interest that the members of the Vestry had in keeping up the present state of things.”

Jobbery, and the exercise of influence to obstruct and defeat the law, are hard to prove, especially after the lapse of years, but one fact which stands out conspicuous, and which is incontestable, shows how reprehensibly the great majority of the Vestries and District Boards failed to administer laws which in the interests of the public health, and therefore of the public welfare, it was their duty to administer. Deliberately, and in the light of knowledge, they would not make adequate arrangements even for the sanitary inspection of their respective districts.

Thus, in Bethnal Green, in 1861, there was a population of 105,000 persons, and 14,731 houses. The Vestry appointed one single Inspector of Nuisances to cope with the insanitary conditions of this city of houses, and of this mass of people. Shoreditch, with a population of 129,364 persons, and 17,072 houses, also one Inspector. St. George’s, Hanover Square, with 88,100 persons and 10,437 houses, one Inspector; Paddington, Bermondsey, and several others, all with large populations and thousands of houses, one Inspector each.[103]

A few had appointed two Inspectors: St. Marylebone with 161,680 persons and 16,357 houses, and Islington with 155,341 persons and 20,704 houses.

Kensington, Lambeth, and Limehouse, had appointed three Inspectors each. St. Pancras headed the list with four, but its population was close upon 200,000 living in close upon 22,000 houses.

How could it be expected that one Inspector could within a year possibly inspect even one tithe of the places which it was his duty to inspect apart altogether from other duties he ought to perform? The Vestries and District Boards had the facts constantly before their eyes (in the returns of work made to them by the Medical Officer of Health)—the numerous insanitary houses unfit for human habitation, the overcrowding, the terrible amount of sickness and misery, and they could calculate from the one man’s work, the number of houses in the parish which were in a condition dangerous to the health of their inmates, and to the public health generally. The salary of an Inspector was so paltry that they had no excuse on the ground of economy; and the conclusion is inevitable that either they did not care what the sanitary condition of the people was, or that “vested interests in filth and dirt” were so powerful on those bodies that filth and dirt must not be interfered with at the expense of “owners” upon whom the cost of improvement must fall.

And a grimmer light is thrown upon these figures by the following statement of the Medical Officer of Health for Lambeth made in 1889, but referring to 1869.

“The Sanitary Inspector of twenty years ago (that is to say of 1869) was an unskilled workman, holding that which might almost be regarded as a sinecure office; an official recruited into the services of the Vestry from the rank of ex-sailors, ex-policemen, or army pensioners. A knowledge upon sanitary matters acquired from a course of technical training was not expected from him.”

The treatment meted out to some of the Medical Officers of Health also showed the hostility of the Vestries to action. Numerous are the passages in their reports complaining of their recommendations being ignored. These officers were miserably paid, allowing even for their being able to take private practice. The Medical Officer of Health for Lambeth was stated to have been the worst paid—receiving only £200 a year for the performance of duties attaching to an area of 4,000 acres with 23,000 inhabited houses upon it, inhabited by 162,000 persons.

“I believe that in certain districts in London the Medical Officer of Health is under all sorts of restraints. If he is active, they look upon him with disfavour, and he is in great danger of dismissal.”[104]

The Vestry of St. James’, Westminster (1866), checked the zeal of their Medical Officer, Dr. Lankester, whose salary was £200 a year, by reducing it to £150 after a year or two when they found he was very earnest in his work.

Dr. Rendell, the Medical Officer of Health for St. George-the-Martyr, Southwark, resigned “in disgust that he was not allowed to carry out the duties of his office.”

Once more the approach of Asiatic cholera—the nemesis of insanitation, and of “fainéant” local authorities—created anxiety.[105]

It had been widely prevalent in Europe in 1865, and had even shown itself in England, and it stirred into spasmodic and panicky activity the local authorities of London.

In Lambeth a systematic house inspection was inaugurated; 987 houses were examined—735 of them required sanitary improvements.

In Bethnal Green 2,018 were inspected—955 required cleansing and purification.

In many other parishes and districts extra sanitary work was done. The disease made no further demonstration in the winter, but in April, 1866, a case was reported from Bristol, then one from Swansea—then from other places; and in July the Privy Council issued Orders in Council putting the Disease Prevention Act in force in the metropolitan area.

On July 18th, from Poplar, the first case in the metropolis was reported. Two days later an alarming number of cases in parts of East London.

Regulations were issued by the Privy Council defining and requiring the specific services which local authorities ought to render the public.

Some parishes appointed extra Sanitary Inspectors. Thus in Hackney, where there had been but one, four additional ones were appointed; in St. James’ two; in Camberwell two; in Lambeth two; in St. Mary, Newington, five extra were appointed. Some of the work which was reported brings into striking prominence the extraordinary inefficiency hitherto of the authorities in dealing with insanitary houses as well as the neglect into which houses had been let fall, and which was tolerated by those who were responsible for the health of their districts.

In Lambeth 6,935 houses were inspected in 1866; 3,983 improvements were effected.

In Camberwell, 5,594 houses were inspected; in 4,324 sanitary work had to be done.

“A house-to-house visitation was commenced August 4th, and concluded on November 20th, in which period the Sub-Inspectors called at 12,919 houses.

“A record was thus obtained of the condition of nearly every house in the parish. The house-to-house visitation was carried out with but little real opposition, and with a great deal of satisfaction…. Strict impartiality was the rule of action, and all classes and those in every station were alike subject to inquiry.”

As the summer went on, the mortality from the cholera increased—it reached its acme on August 1st, when there were 204 deaths from it, and in the week ending August 4th when the total of 1,053 was reached.[106]

During the 23 weeks of its prevalence 5,548 persons died—of whom 3,909 died in the East Districts alone, and 702 on the South side of the river.

And by the end of the year it had gone. That the mortality should have been so much smaller than on previous visitations was attributed to the fact that London was unquestionably less filthy at the time of this outbreak.

“A comparison of the mortality with that of former cholera years,” wrote the Medical Officer of Health for St. Giles’, “demonstrates that sanitary work—imperfect as it is—has deprived the disease of much of its power.”

“The power,” wrote the Medical Officer of Health for Fulham, “of sanitary arrangements to check the progress of such a formidable disease was clearly evidenced.”

“I believe the great sanitary improvements effected in the parish in providing proper drainage, abolishing many miles of open stinking ditches, and the removal of other nuisances, rendered an outbreak of cholera, such as experienced in former years, very improbable…. Moreover, by the employment of sanitary arrangements for treating the sick, Lambeth and other parts of the metropolis were saved from the ravages of the pestilence experienced on former occasions.”

That the epidemic had been as disastrous as it was, was, however, attributed to “an illegal and most culpable act of the East London Water Company. In contravention of the 4th Section of the Metropolis Water Act of 1852 that company distributed for public use a water (and a most improper water) which had not passed through its filter beds; and strong evidence was adduced to show that the outbreak was occasioned by this illegal and most culpable act.”

One result of this epidemic was to demonstrate, at the cost of thousands of lives, that the system of private water companies supplying the community with this necessity of life was absolutely opposed to the interests of the community.

Dr. Simon, in summing up his report (1869) on the water supply to the metropolis, wrote:—

“I have been anxious to show what enormous risks to the public are implied in any slovenly administration of water supplies: yet as regards the London supply, what imperfect obedience to the law, and in some cases what flagrant and systematic disobedience was exhibited (at the time of the cholera outbreak in East London in 1866); and above all what criminal indifference to the public safety was illustrated by the proceedings of the Southwark and Vauxhall Company.”

“Not only had there been the long-standing gross inefficiency of the apparatus of subsidence and filtration, but the administrators of the supply had from time to time dispensed to a great extent with even a pretence of filtration, and during some time had, worst of all, either negligently or wilfully distributed as part of their supply the interdicted tidal water of Battersea Beach.

“It seems to me that the public is hitherto very imperfectly protected against certain extreme dangers which the malfeasance of a water company may suddenly bring upon great masses of population. Its colossal power of life and death is something for which till recently there has been no precedent in the history of the world; and such a power, in whatever hands it is vested, ought most sedulously to be guarded against abuse.”

Cholera was once more a blessing in disguise, though it seems hard that the sacrifice of thousands of lives should have been required to move Government and Parliament to fresh measures for the protection of the people from it and the other deadly diseases which unceasingly worked such deadly havoc among them. But the proof given by it was so overwhelming and decisive as to the insufficiency of the existing sanitary law, and the inefficiency of the local authorities, that Parliament felt forced to take action. The measures taken were of such increased comprehensiveness and stringency, that the passing of the Sanitary Act of 1866 [107] marked another great step in the sanitary evolution of London.

The Act applied to England and Wales—and this time actually included the metropolis.

The previous definition of the term “nuisance” was enlarged, and “overcrowding” was now for the first time declared to be a “nuisance.”

“Any house or part of a house so overcrowded as to be dangerous or prejudicial to the health of the inmates” was henceforward a “nuisance” and punishable as such. And it was further enacted that “where two convictions for overcrowding of a house, or for the occupation of a cellar as a separate tenement dwelling-place” should have taken place within three months, it should be lawful for the magistrate to direct the closing of such premises for such time as he might deem necessary.

Under another extension of the term “nuisance” the industrial classes got the shadowy boon of all factories, workshops, and workplaces (not already under special Acts), being made subject to the sanitary supervision of the local authorities; and those authorities were given power to inspect such places to ascertain if they were kept in a cleanly state, were properly ventilated, and not overcrowded so as to be dangerous or prejudicial to the health of the inmates.

A section in the Act aimed at the inefficiency and inaction of the local authorities, and made it obligatory (no longer optional) upon them to make inspection of their districts.

“It shall be the duty of the Nuisance Authority to make from time to time, either by itself or its officers, inspection of the district, with a view to ascertain what nuisances exist calling for abatement under the powers of the Nuisances Removal Acts, and to enforce the provisions of the said Acts in order to cause the abatement thereof.”

An effort was also made to check the spread of infectious disease by giving the local authority considerable powers as regarded disinfection. It was enacted that the local authority might provide a proper place for the disinfection of clothing and bedding which might have been rendered liable to communicate disease to others; and the authority was empowered to maintain carriages for the conveyance to hospital of persons suffering under any infectious or contagious disease. A blow was struck at the iniquitous but common practice of letting a room where there had been dangerous infectious disorder, until it had been disinfected. And provision was made for the establishment of a hospital for the reception of the sick.

All these were most considerable reforms, and would have been most useful had they been given effect to and properly enforced.

The most important and wide-reaching provision of the Act was that directed against overcrowding.

The 35th Section enacted that regulations might be made by the Sanitary Authority (in other words, the Vestry or District Board) for fixing the number of persons who might occupy a house, or part of a house, let in lodgings, or occupied by members of more than one family. Houses so let were to be registered by the Vestry. The regulations could fix a certain number of cubic feet of air space which should be available for each person. By this means the number of persons who might live in a house, and in the rooms of the house, could be limited.

That was the plan—simple enough in appearance—which Parliament devised for contending with the great evil of overcrowding.

And then, as regarded the sanitation of the houses when registered, it enacted that regulations should contain provisions for their being put into and kept in a clean and wholesome state. And to secure this being done, regulations were made for their inspection.

It was an original and comprehensive scheme of reform. It struck at the root of the two great evils—overcrowding and insanitary dwellings; at overcrowding, by the limitation of the number of persons inhabiting a house, or part of a house, and at insanitary dwellings by a series of regulations enforcing the necessary measures for a decent standard of sanitation. But it was something far more than this. It was the declaration of principles of the utmost importance. It was a declaration of the principle that the responsibility for the condition of the “houses let in lodgings” should be on the shoulders of the “owner” of the house. It was the declaration of the principle that the “owner” should not be allowed to use his property to the detriment, to the injury of the public. It affirmed, so far as London lodging or tenement houses were concerned, the great principle, abhorred by so many “owners,” that “property has its duties as well as its rights.”

The Act was, however, even more remarkable for the recognition it contained of another principle of vital importance to the people of London—the principle of central authority over local sanitary authorities who neglected their duties.

Hitherto the local authorities were practically their own masters, and could with absolute impunity neglect to put the provisions of the existing health laws into operation; and “often their inaction had been an absolutely inexcusable neglect of duty.”

A power of appeal against this inaction was given. Where complaint was made to a Secretary of State that a nuisance authority had made default in enforcing the provisions of the Nuisances Removal Acts, he could, if satisfied after inquiry that the authority had been guilty of the alleged default, make an order limiting a time for the performance of the duty, and if the duty was not performed within that time, he could appoint some person to perform the duty and charge the costs to the authority. And where the local authority had made default in instituting proceedings against some sanitary law breaker, he could order the chief police officer to institute them. These provisions were a recognition of the fact, long patent to even the blindest, that local authorities did not do their duty, and of the necessity of devising a means of securing that a necessary public duty should be done.

The fact was emphasised a few years later by the Royal Sanitary Commissioners, who pointed out (1871) that—

“However local the administration of affairs, a central authority will nevertheless be always necessary in order to keep the local executive everywhere in action.”

The real underlying truth now beginning to be discerned was that in the matter of health or disease, London could not be treated in bits, each governed by an independent body, but must be regarded as, what it really was, one single entity or whole.

In another way also was the principle of central authority very clearly affirmed. The Vestries were not to have a free hand in making their regulations under the 35th Section. Any they made had to be approved by a Secretary of State.

This was a considerable limitation of the freedom of the Vestries, but it secured more or less uniformity in the powers of the local authorities in this particular matter.

But the vigorous administration by all the local authorities of the laws passed to secure the health of the public, was even more greatly to be desired; for, from force of circumstances, the consequences—one way or the other—could not be confined to the sphere of action of each local authority.

The lives and welfare of the inhabitants of this vast city are so closely, so inextricably interwoven that, in matters affecting the public health, the action or inaction of one authority may vitally affect the health and the lives, not alone of its neighbours, but even of the people of the city as a whole. Disease and death are no respecters of municipal boundaries, and are not hemmed in or restrained by lines drawn upon maps or recorded in Acts of Parliament.

This community of interest of the inhabitants of London was, however, scarcely, if at all, recognised by the general public—it was but seldom the motive to action by the local authorities—but some of the Medical Officers of Health now and then referred to it in their reports.

Thus the Medical Officer of Health for Mile-End-Old-Town pointed out (1863) that—

“An untrapped drain, an overcrowded house, an unventilated alley, a rotting dungheap, or a foul closet, may spread disease and sorrow in an entire neighbourhood.”

“The danger of harbouring a contagious disease is not confined to the individual suffering—it is a matter that concerns the community.”

“Here I would remark, that a uniform system of inspection of all the houses in the several districts in London which are let out in separate tenements should be repeatedly and systematically adopted; for if all the Vestries and local Boards do not act together in this important matter, hotbeds of epidemic diseases will remain undiscovered which will serve as centres from whence such diseases may emanate, and extend over the entire metropolis. The whole population of London, therefore, is interested in the prompt removal of nuisances.”

Immediately on the passing of the Act some of the Vestries made efforts to deal with overcrowding under the Section which enacted that—

“Any house so overcrowded as to be dangerous or prejudicial to the health of the inmates” is to be considered a “nuisance.”

That, however, was only a temporary remedy, and affected only overcrowding. Section 35 went to the root of the matter when it insisted that in addition to the prevention of overcrowding, the house in which the people lived should be kept clean and in sanitary condition.

“The very foundation of our sanitary structure,” wrote the Medical Officer of Health for St. George-the-Martyr, “depends upon the right housing of the poor.”

The Section 35 was promptly put in force by a few of the Vestries—Chelsea and Hackney being the first to make Regulations and to enforce them.

Under the Regulations, whenever the Vestry deemed it desirable to put them in force in respect to any house let in lodgings or occupied by members of more than one family, the number of persons allowed to live in that house was fixed on a basis of 300 cubic feet of air for each adult for sleeping, or 350 for living and sleeping, and the owner had to reduce the number of lodgers to the number so fixed on receiving notice to that effect.

“The owner of such house shall cause the walls and ceilings of every room, and of the staircase and passages, and yards of such house to be well and sufficiently coloured or limewashed, or otherwise thoroughly cleansed once (at least) in every year.

“He shall provide such accommodation for washing, and such a supply of water for the use of the lodgers as shall be satisfactory to the Vestry’s Officers;” and sundry and numerous minor directions.

The Medical Officer of Health (Chelsea), after the first year’s work, reported that the number of houses in the parish inhabited by two or more families was very great, and in many cases their condition was deplorable, and it was found necessary to embrace whole streets as well as courts and alleys in the registration.

By 1869 the registration in Chelsea had been completed, and in 1870 the Medical Officer of Health wrote: “I have seen no reason to alter my opinion of the beneficial action of the measure by which we have been able to bring under direct and constant supervision the majority of the houses occupied by the poorer classes in this parish….”

Its Medical Officer of Health reported in 1867 that nearly 5,000 houses had been measured and examined, and in a large proportion of cases the numbers of persons allowed to inhabit them had been fixed. And as to the result of the enforcement of the Regulations, he wrote (1869): “A very large number of families now occupy two rooms who formerly lived and slept in one. The gain in health and morality has therefore been considerable.”

Poplar was another of the District Boards which made and enforced the Regulations. The Medical Officer of Health for the north part of the District reported (1868):—

“Extensive improvements have been already effected, but the work must still be systematically continued, for even when every house in the district has been put into good sanitary state (which is far from being the case as yet), it will be necessary to maintain a constant and watchful system of re-inspection to ensure their being kept in order.

“Of the 1,610 houses inspected nearly all required more or less sanitary improvement, and 630 were registered as containing more than one family, and therefore coming under the Board’s regulations as to registration.”

But if a few of the Vestries made real efforts to utilise the Act, others of them either made only a pretence of doing so, or refused altogether.

The reports of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Giles’ (1866–7) present a typical picture of the attitude and conduct of these bodies.

“A most important amendment of the sanitary laws was made by the ‘Sanitary Act,’ of which Section 35 gives precisely the powers which, not last year only, but every year since the constitution of the Board, the Medical Officer has demanded for the efficient discharge of his functions in respect of houses inhabited by the poorer classes. That section has given to the local authority the power of making bye-laws for the regulation of sub-let houses, and of enforcing the observance of its rules by penalties.

“In St. Giles’ District, it is this class of houses almost exclusively which need the supervision of the sanitary authorities, and which become without that supervision nests of filth and disease.

“Accordingly, soon after the passing of the Sanitary Act, bye-laws were adopted by the Board, and sanctioned by the Secretary of State for the regulation of sub-let houses….

“The Board proceeded to inform owners of all sub-let houses that such houses must be registered in conformity with the Regulation. The intention of the Board was to apply with all proper discrimination, but quite universally and impartially, the powers vested in them in regard to sub-let houses…. The systematic application of these powers by the Board would have done for sub-let houses what the systematic application of the police of their powers under other Acts had done for common lodging-houses. Cleanliness and decency would have been universally secured, and would have been maintained with a minimum of inspection by a fine for every gross violation of the regulations.

“But against a system that should work thus directly and efficiently to the sanitary good of the district, the interests of numbers of house-owners and agents were at once arrayed, and these speedily organised an influential deputation to the Board.

“The opposite interests, those of the families dwelling in the close and miserable rooms of these sub-let houses, found no organised expression.

“The Board resolved to recall the notices which had been issued for a systematic registration, and to apply their powers, in the first instance, only to selected instances of flagrant and continuous sanitary neglect.”

Here are some instances of it on the authority of the Medical Officer of Health in 1869.

“In	King Street	there are	254	families in	273	rooms.
„	Lincoln Court	„ „	164	„ „	168	„
„	Little Wild Street	„ „	139	„ „	182	„
„	Wild Court	„ „	109	„ „	116	„ ”

“Unfortunately,” wrote the Medical Officer of Health, the Act was permissive, not compulsory.

“I brought under the notice of your Board several houses which in my opinion ought to be registered.

“… The Board having reserved to itself the power of determining as to the propriety of causing any house to be placed upon the register, this enactment, which was framed not only for the improvement of the moral and physical condition of the poor, but for the benefit of the whole community, has been carried into effect in only one instance.”

In Islington, draft Regulations were prepared, but it does not appear that they were ever adopted.

In Westminster, “such obstacles were offered by the holders of small property” to the Regulations that they were not enforced.

The sting of the enactment was that it put house-owners to the expense of putting the house into, and maintaining it in, habitable and sanitary repair, and to the expense of annually painting or lime-washing it; the provision of proper ventilation—of sanitary and washing accommodation, and for a supply of water: in fact, of doing to the houses that which was essential for the health of their occupants. The Regulations simplified and shortened, and made more effective, the processes for enforcing penalties for breaches of the sanitary laws—all which was of course unpalatable to the sanitary law-breaker.

And so the great bulk of the local authorities would have nothing to do with this 35th Section or its Regulations.

The law was not compulsory, but permissive—and they availed themselves of that permission.

But the Vestries and District Boards who took no action, and allowed the principal provision of the Act to be a dead letter, proved by their conduct their deliberate determination not to impose what was a just expense upon the “owners,” even though the not doing so should result in a frightful annual sacrifice of human life, and in an untold amount of human suffering and misery, and a long train of physical and moral evils of the very worst character.

That the Act had been successfully administered by some two or three Vestries proved that it was quite a workable measure—so no excuse could be raised on that ground by the recalcitrant Vestries.

Their attitude is an irrefutable proof of their selfish indifference to human suffering where it clashed with the “rights of property,” and of their incapacity for the position they held as guardians and trustees of the people.

“The slaughter-houses and cow-houses are ordered to be whited at least twice a year, while the houses of the poor are allowed to remain for years without this important means of purification.”

The problem of overcrowding was, undoubtedly, a most difficult one—and some of the Medical Officers of Health were realising how difficult it was to treat with any hope of success.

Thus the Medical Officer of Health for Bethnal Green set forth the state of his parish in 1867:—

“The population of Bethnal Green has now nearly reached 120,000, and we have no more house room than heretofore. The consequence is that overcrowding is as great as ever; and although the Public Health Act of 1866 was framed to obviate this great evil, it is practically unworkable, owing mainly to high rents (which in some cases have increased as much as 50 per cent.), dearness of provisions, scarcity of employment, and the imposition of taxes for the first time upon the tenant; and many families who could ordinarily afford to occupy a whole house have been obliged to let lodgings; others who have occupied two rooms have been obliged to put up with one; and where overcrowding has existed, and the law enforced, the people have merely removed to other houses and thus perpetuated the evil which it was the intention of the Legislature to obviate.”

But doing nothing while overcrowding got worse was not likely to make the problem less difficult.

Except, then, in a few parishes overcrowding was permitted to pursue its own course unchecked, to the great benefit of the various “owners,” and to the great misery of great masses of the people, and the evil extended itself year by year and became steadily acuter.

And this, too, after Parliament had placed in the hands of the local authorities large powers specially designed for coping with an evil which was eating into the very vitals of the community.

So rapid was the increase of population that the increase in the number of houses did little to mitigate the over-crowding; nor was the construction of the majority of the houses conducive to the health of those who went to inhabit them.

“Many large tracts of our formerly open spaces have been rapidly covered, nay densely packed with buildings.

“The operations of the builder have annihilated acres of garden ground by the hundred.”

“Little garden plots, green spots, open spaces, were being absorbed and swallowed up one after another, and covered with houses….

Paddington afforded an interesting example of this growth. A space near Ranelagh Road, about 25 acres, had almost all been built upon within the last 15–20 years. The streets were 40 feet wide. Here were 900 houses packed with 12,000 people, or 469 persons to the acre (1871). And another example near Paddington Road, where 275 houses had been built, and the population was 493 to the acre, showing—

“A high density of population such as ought not to have been tolerated under a wise municipal policy.”

The rapidity of the increase was extraordinary. In Lambeth in the year 1866–7, 1,078 houses were erected. In Battersea in 1868–9, 1,530 houses were erected—a large number of which were filled with people within a few days or weeks of their completion.

The newness of a house, however, gave no guarantee of its sanitary fitness, and a great proportion of them were of the most objectionable and insanitary description. All the art and craft of the speculating builder was too often exercised to evade such legal provisions as there were for the protection of the public, and to get the largest profits he could for the worst constructed house, and the result was that very many of the new houses were little better than the worst of the old ones.

Unfortunately, the law was very ineffective to prevent this. As was pointed out by the Medical Officer of Health for Fulham (1871), the sanitary legislation for the metropolis had never been accompanied by an amalgamation of the Building Act with the general sanitary statutes.

“The Building Act still works an independent course, and it is not too much to say of it that, whilst its provisions deal strictly with the strength and quality of bricks and mortar, they utterly fail to ensure for us dwellings, especially for the working classes, which have the least pretensions to perfection in sanitary conditions. A large number of habitations of this description have been completed and occupied during the last few years both in Fulham and Hammersmith, and take the place of our former fever dens in fostering disease. Unfortunately the Sanitary Authorities see these wretched structures raised before their eyes, and have no power to check their progress. It is truly to be hoped that this anomaly will soon be remedied.”

Such as the houses were, however, they were quickly inhabited. The Medical Officer of Health for Paddington gives a graphic description of the result in his parish (1871):—

“There has been for some years a large influx of persons, mostly of the working class, coming from over-crowded and unwholesome houses of other districts of the metropolis. Large numbers of the newly-built houses being let out in tenements and single rooms attract a class of persons barely able to obtain necessaries of life; amongst these are not a few of intemperate and demoralised habits, with feeble vital stamina, consequently there is, and will be, a larger proportion of sickness, chronic pauperism, and death in the parish than formerly.

“This deterioration of race has for some time been recognised by Medical Officers of Health.

“It must be remembered that most of the working people are fixed to the spot, and cannot get a periodical change of climate, or remove from a locality in the event of impending ill-health, or of contagious disease breaking out near them.

“It is of no avail to lament over the laws of absolute necessity, but all parties should combine in a demand for that even-handed justice to the working ranks which, though it may not interfere with a stern destiny which confines them to a life of toil, is bound at least to provide that the theatre of that toil shall be free from the pollutions that endanger the functions of life, and uncontaminated by contagion and death.

“I must say it is a scandal to the present constitution of society that the reverse of this continues from year to year in spite of all suggestions of Medical Officers of Health, and the warnings of experience. In vain does one plague after another ravage the family of industrial orders, and like doomed men they stand amidst the harvest of death looking earnestly, but in vain, to the Legislature for that help which no other power can give. Parents, children, and friends, drop around them, the victims of a poisoned atmosphere; while they hear and feel successive warnings, the irrevocable law of necessity fixes them to the spot, and they cannot flee from the danger.”

The Central Authority, the Metropolitan Board of Works, had, during the decade, been doing much useful work affecting the public health, of London, in addition to its great work, the great system of main drainage.

It had undertaken and had completed several large street improvements by 1870, intended to provide new and improved means of access from one part of the town to another.

“The Board had to supply the deficiencies resulting from centuries of neglect: it had also to keep pace as well as it could with the wants of the ever-increasing population, and the needs of a traffic which grew relatively even more than the population,” and each work contributed to the improvement of the public health, by facilitating and increasing the circulation of air in crowded neighbourhoods.

Another matter, important also in reference to the health of the metropolis, had also occupied their attention, namely, the acquisition or preservation of open spaces in London for public recreation and enjoyment.

A piece of land, of over 100 acres in extent, was acquired and opened to the public as Finsbury Park in 1869; and on the south side of the river, in Rotherhithe, some 63 acres of land were purchased in 1864, and converted into a public park a few years later.

On the outskirts of London there were a number of commons and other tracts of open ground available for public resort, to which the public had no legal rights, and which were rapidly being absorbed by railway companies or builders. London was thus in danger of losing open spaces which were urgently required in the interests of the public health.

Parliament, after an inquiry by Select Committee, passed the “Metropolitan Commons Act”[108] in 1866, which prescribed a mode of procedure under which the commons in the neighbourhood of London could be permanently procured for the people of London, and the Metropolitan Board set to work to procure them. The acquisition of Hampstead Heath was happily arranged in 1870.

Another great work was also undertaken by the Central Authority—namely, the embankment of the Thames.

The offensive state of the river had been greatly enhanced by the large areas left dry at low water on which sewage matter collected and putrefied; and the only way of removing this cause of mischief was by confining the current within a narrower channel.

Parliament passed an Act in 1863, entrusting its execution to the Metropolitan Board, and the work was soon after commenced.

Thus in these matters, all of which were closely associated with the public health, the sanitary evolution of London was progressing, and the Board was giving visible demonstration of the necessity of that which had so long been denied to London—namely, a central governing authority to deal with matters affecting London as a whole.

The Board, in their report for 1865–6, stated they were: “Deeply sensible of what remained to be done to remedy the neglect of past ages, and to render the metropolis worthy of its position as the chief city of the Empire;” but they were hampered by the want of means to enable them to carry out desired improvements.

“It cannot be questioned,” they wrote, “that direct taxation now falls very heavily upon the occupiers of property in the metropolis…. It appears to the Board that the most equitable and practicable mode of raising the necessary funds would be by imposing a portion of the burden on the owners of property. It cannot be denied that the interest of the latter in metropolitan improvements is much greater than that of temporary occupiers, and yet at the present time, the occupiers of property in the metropolis bear almost the whole cost of the improvements effected by the Board. It is hoped that the representations made by the Board will satisfy the Legislature of the injustice of the present state of things, and lead to some equitable remedy.”

The visitation of cholera was doubtless in the main accountable for the excess of energy displayed by Parliament about this period in matters affecting the public health.

In the same session that the Sanitary Act was passed, a measure of considerable importance to the consumers of water in London was passed, though many years would elapse before its effect would be appreciable. This was “The Thames Purification Act.”

“Whereas … the sewage of towns situate on the river Thames above the metropolis is carried into the river, and thereby its waters are polluted and the health and comfort of the inhabitants of the valley of the river below those towns of the metropolis are affected,” powers were given for the diversion therefrom of the sewage of Oxford, Reading, Kingston, Richmond, &c., &c., “whose cloacal contributions to the stream were distributed to masses of the people of London.” No less than 56 towns, it was said, cast their impurities into the river.

And in the following year the scope of the Thames Conservancy Board was extended and very stringent care exercised to prevent unnecessary pollution of the river. And in 1868 the river Lea, another of the water suppliers, was placed under a Conservancy Board.

In 1867 an Act of far-reaching consequence was passed, making vaccination compulsory. In 1836 an Act [109] dealing with this matter laid it down that the parent of a child, or the occupier of the house in which a child was born, might, within 40 days, give notice to the Registrar as to the vaccination of the child. There was no punishment for the neglect to do so, and no penalty for refusal to give the Registrar the information.

This new Act, which came into operation on the 1st of January, 1868, enacted that—

The Act was to be administered by the Poor Law Authorities; and Boards of Guardians might appoint public vaccinators and establish vaccination stations.

In 1867, also, another Act of very great consequence was passed dealing with one important element in the sanitary evolution of London, to which no reference has yet been made, namely, the provision of hospitals for the isolation of infectious or contagious disease, for the prevention of mortality, and for the speedy restoration of the sick to health.

There is, indeed, no part of sanitary work requiring more constant attention than the protection of the community from the spread of infectious diseases, and this is best secured by hospitals affording proper provision for isolation and treatment of infectious cases.

Next to the adoption of proper measures for the prevention of disease, a suitable provision for the speedy restoration of the sick to health is obviously of the greatest importance to the community.

So far as the absolutely destitute were concerned, all had, by the law of England, subject to certain conditions, right to food, shelter, and medical attendance; and they accordingly received gratuitous medical treatment at workhouses, or dispensaries, and in sick wards.

Indeed, any person suffering from an infectious disease might, if willing to become a pauper, take advantage of such provision as was made by the Guardians of the Poor, the provision being imperfectly isolated wards and buildings attached to the several Metropolitan Workhouses and Infirmaries. Those not so willing were compelled to remain at home, a source of danger to those around them, and if poor, with insufficient medical attendance and nourishment.

For a long time the only special provision for certain infectious diseases for the whole of London was that in the London Fever, and the London Smallpox Hospitals, both of which were maintained by private charity.

Happily, where neither the State nor the local authorities did anything, charity stepped in, and on a larger scale supplied an inevitable want; and medical charities grew up to give relief in time of sickness to those of the working classes of society who were unable to provide for themselves, but this was mostly for non-infectious or non-contagious diseases.

None of the Vestries or District Boards gave any sign of making provision for those who were not paupers, although the duty of giving opportunity for isolation of infectious persons whose diseases made them dangerous to others, be they paupers or not, devolved upon them under the Sanitary Act of 1866 as the Sanitary Authorities concerned in the prevention of the extension of disease.

“Indeed it must be admitted,” wrote the Medical Officer of Health for Chelsea some years later, “that the Vestries never recognised their responsibilities (as sanitary authorities) from the very first.”

Grievous scandals having occurred in the treatment of the sick in many of the metropolitan workhouses, the Government of 1867 decided on a great measure of reform. Once more the necessity of central government had to be recognised, and by the Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867 a Board—elected by the Poor Law Guardians, who themselves were elected bodies—was created as a central authority to relieve Poor Law Guardians of the care of and treatment of paupers suffering from fever and smallpox who could not be properly treated in workhouses, and to provide for their treatment and accommodation, as well as that of the harmless insane of the metropolis.

The Board was entitled the Metropolitan Asylums Board, and consisted of 73 members; 55 of whom were elected by the various Boards of Guardians in London, and the remaining 18 being nominated by the Home Secretary.

In the early stage of its existence its duties were strictly confined to those of the pauper class suffering from these diseases.[110] Admission to its hospitals could be obtained only on orders issued by the relieving officers, and those admitted became, if they were not so already, “pauperised” by admission and ipso facto paupers; but later its scope was extended, and it became the Hospital Authority for infectious diseases in London, and afforded another illustration of the necessity for having one central authority for matters relating to the public health of the inhabitants of the metropolis.

The erection of hospitals was at once commenced. The first was opened in January, 1870, and the isolated treatment of many cases of infectious disease was of great benefit to the community.

In 1867, too, Parliament again dealt with the condition of the workers in Factories and Workshops. The legislation dealt with the kingdom as a whole, but inasmuch as London was so great a manufacturing city, it affected also the masses of the working population of the metropolis.

The Commissioners on Children’s Employment, who had been at work since 1862, had completed their inquiry, and made many recommendations, and in the concluding part of their fifth report, dated 1866, they wrote:—

“We heartily trust that we may have thus, in some degree, contributed to bring the time nearer when so many hundreds of thousands of your Majesty’s poorer subjects of the working classes—especially the very young and those of the tenderer sex—will be relieved from the totally unnecessary burden and oppression of overtime, and night work; will be confined to the reasonable and natural limits of the factory hours … will perform their daily labour under more favourable sanitary conditions, breathing purer air, amid greater cleanliness, and protected against causes specially injurious to health and tending to depress their vigour and shorten their lives.”

Only in 1867 was factory legislation at last of an approximately general character.

“Fully two-thirds of the century in which England’s industrial supremacy swept to its climax was allowed to pass before even an attempt was made to regulate on sound general principles the recognised and inevitable workings of unchecked individualism in the industrial field.”[111]

The Act of 1867 [112] made better provision for regulating the hours during which children, young persons, and women, were to be permitted to labour in any manufacturing process conducted in an establishment where fifty or more persons are employed—the regulation being in the direction of less onerous conditions of labour.

And by another Act passed at the same time—“The Workshop Regulation Act, 1867,”[113] the protection afforded to workers in factories was extended to workers in smaller establishments, so far as regarded the regulations relating to the hours of labour to children, young persons, and women.

“Any room or place whatever (not a factory or bakehouse) in which any handicraft is carried on by any child, young person, or woman, and to which the person employing them had a right of access and control.”

No child under 8 was to be employed, and none between 8 and 13 was to be employed more than six and a half hours a day—and sundry other directions. The workshops, moreover, were to be kept in a proper sanitary state, and the administration of the sanitary provisions of the Act was placed in the hands of the local authorities—the Home Office Inspectors having concurrent jurisdiction.

These Acts had a two-fold effect in the direction of sanitary evolution: the improvement of the sanitary conditions under which the people worked, and the prohibition of work entailing consequences detrimental to the physical well-being of the workers.

Their effect would have been of the greatest value in London had they been vigorously enforced. Some of the Medical Officers of Health endeavoured to enforce the Act.

Thus the Medical Officer of Health for the Strand reported to his employers (1868–9):—

“During the past year the provisions of the Workshops Regulation Act, 1867, have, so far as practicable, been enforced.”

And the Medical Officer of Health for St. George, Hanover Square, wrote (1870–1):—

“I have endeavoured to carry out the Workshops Act by the abatement of overcrowding, by enforcing due ventilation, and closing at the legal time, so as to prevent the scandal and suffering of dressmakers still being compelled to toil for 16 hours.”

But the silence of others on the subject told its own tale and pointed its own moral. Active inspection was essential for success, but inspection was not encouraged by the Vestries or District Boards, and the intentions of the Legislature were once more frustrated by the failure of the local authorities to do their duty.

After four years Parliament took the duty away from their incapable hands and transferred it to the Factory Department of the Home Office.

One other Act of importance Parliament also passed about this time, “The Artizans’ and Labourers’ Dwellings Act, 1868.”

Sanitary legislation has as yet done little more for old property, and the whole of Central London was old property, than to improve the drainage, and occasionally to cleanse or whitewash some small fraction of it; and there remained the fact that numerous districts or conglomerations of houses were unreformable, and when the most was done to them that could be done under the law were still unfit for human habitation.

In the previous year a Bill had been introduced into Parliament by Mr. Torrens:—

“The objects of which were, first, to provide means for taking down or improving dwellings occupied by working men which were unfit for human habitation; and secondly, for the building and maintenance of better dwellings instead. But the Act of 1868 retained the former only; the latter having been struck out of the Bill during its progress through Parliament.

“The intention of Parliament was to provide the means whereby local authorities might secure the effectual repair of dilapidated dwellings, or, when necessary, their gradual reconstruction.”[114]

The Act conferred powers far exceeding any heretofore possessed by the local authority for effectually dealing with houses unfit for human habitation.

“On the report of the Medical Officer of Health that any inhabited building was in a condition dangerous to health, so as to be unfit for human habitation, the Vestry, after certain inquiries, &c., was to have power to order the owner to remove the premises, and, in default, themselves to remove them; or they might order the owner to execute the necessary structural alterations, and in default, might either shut up or pull down the premises, or themselves execute the necessary work at the owner’s expense.”[115]

The Act proceeded upon the principle that the responsibility of maintaining his houses in proper condition falls upon the owner, and that if he failed in his duty the law is justified in stepping in and compelling him to perform it. It further assumed that houses unfit for human habitation ought not to be used as dwellings, but ought, in the interests of the public, to be closed, and demolished, and to be subsequently rebuilt.

Use began to be made of the Act soon after its passing, but the operations under it can be more conveniently described in the following chapter.

The energy of Parliament had a most beneficial effect, and many of the Medical Officers of Health bore testimony to the encouraging sanitary progress which was being made.

“Our district is gradually and most manifestly improving in all those great features of hygiene which are truly essential where such masses of people congregate together.”

And the Medical Officer of Health for St. Martin-in-the-Fields, who wrote in 1864 that:—

“Upon the whole, I am of opinion that all classes, even the very poorest, are much more alive to their own interest in supporting measures for the maintenance of health.”

“The knowledge of a compulsory power, as well as the spread of sanitary knowledge, and a greater appreciation of it, has led to a vast amount of sanitary improvement.

“I can but express a strong conviction that the sanitary measures carried out are working slowly but steadily a vast improvement in both the morale and physique of the inhabitants of this metropolis in particular … a great work is progressing, the effects of which will be seen more and more as years roll on, and will be recognised in the greater comfort, better health, and augmented self-respect of the people, and in an increased and increasing improvement in the homes of those on whose strength or weakness must depend in no slight degree the position for better or worse of the English nation.”

The Medical Officer of Health for St. George the Martyr, in his report for 1870, makes a retrospect of fifteen years:—

“When the Vestries began (1856) their mighty task they had to contend against evils and prejudices which had their origin in far away back generations, and which have cast down their roots deep and intricate into our social system….

“The Acts under which the Vestries had to work were very imperfect. Opposition was strong on every hand, the magistrates sympathised with the defendants. Property and its rights were apparently invaded; and property and its rights have always claimed more support than property and its duties.

“In every yard were one or more of ‘the foulest receptacles in nature,’ namely, cesspools; these gave off, unceasingly, foul effluvia, filling meat safe, cupboard, passage and room. The smell met you on entering the house, abode with you whilst you remained in it, and came out with you on leaving it. The parish was burrowed with them, and the soil soddened with the escape of their contents. The emptying of them proved a true infliction. They have now been emptied for the last time, filled up with coarse disinfecting materials…. They would not now be endured for a moment, yet with what difficulty they were abolished. They were clung to as if some old and honoured relic was about to be ruthlessly torn from its possessors.”

Dr. Simon, the Medical Officer to the Privy Council, gave, in his report of 1868,[116] a view of sanitary progress in the country generally, much of which applied equally to London:—

“It would, I think, be difficult to over-estimate, in one most important point of view, the progress which, during the last few years, has been made in sanitary legislation. The principles now affirmed in our statute book are such as, if carried into full effect, would soon reduce to quite an insignificant amount our present very large proportions of preventable disease. It is the almost completely expressed intention of our law that all such states of property and all such modes of personal action or inaction as may be of danger to the public health, should be brought within scope of summary procedure and prevention. Large powers have been given to local authorities, and obligation expressly imposed on them, as regards their respective districts, to suppress all kinds of nuisance and to provide all such works and establishments as the public health preliminarily requires; while auxiliary powers have been given, for more or less optional exercise, in matters deemed of less than primary importance to health; as for baths and wash-houses, common lodging-houses, labourers’ lodging-houses, recreation grounds, disinfection-places, hospitals, dead-houses, burial grounds, &c. And in the interests of health the State has not only, as above, limited the freedom of persons and property in certain common respects: it has also intervened in many special relations. It has interfered between parent and child, not only imposing limitation on industrial uses of children, but also to the extent of requiring that children shall not be left unvaccinated. It has interfered between employer and employed, to the extent of insisting, in the interests of the latter, that certain sanitary claims shall be fulfilled in all places of industrial occupation….

“The above survey might easily be extended by referring to statutes which are only of partial or indirect or subordinate interest to human health; but, such as it is, it shows beyond question that the Legislature regards the health of the people as an interest not less national than personal, and has intended to guard it with all practicable securities against trespasses, casualties, neglects and frauds.

“If, however, we turn from contemplating the intentions of the Legislature to consider the degree in which they are realised, the contrast is curiously great. Not only have permissive enactments remained for the most part unapplied in places where their application has been desirable; not only have various optional constructions and organisations which would have conduced to physical well-being, and which such enactments were designed to facilitate, remained in an immense majority of cases unbegun; but even nuisances which the law imperatively declares intolerable have, on an enormous scale, been suffered to continue; while diseases which mainly represent the inoperativeness of the nuisance-law, have still been occasioning, I believe, fully a fourth part of the entire mortality of the country. And when inquiry is made into the meaning of this strange unprogressiveness in reforms intended, and in great part commanded, by the Legislature, the explanation is not far to seek. Its essence is in the form, or perhaps I may rather say in the formlessness, of the law. No doubt there are here and there other faults. But the essential fault is that laws which ought to be in the utmost possible degree, simple, coherent, and intelligible, are often in nearly the utmost possible degree, complex, disjointed and obscure. Authorities and persons wishing to give them effect may often find almost insuperable difficulties in their way; and authorities and persons with contrary disposition can scarcely fail to find excuse or impunity for any amount of malfeasance or evasion.”