Mr. Ritchie, introducing the Bill into the House of Commons, said[168]:—

“We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that whereas every other borough in the country possesses a body directly representing the ratepayers, no such body exists in London.

“There is no one elected by, or responsible to the ratepayers.

“We propose to take London, as defined under the Metropolis Management Act, out of the counties of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, and we propose to create it a County of London by itself, with a Lord Lieutenant, a Bench of Magistrates, and a County Council of its own.

“We propose that the Council shall be directly elected by the ratepayers, as in all other counties and boroughs—that the franchise shall be the same—and that it shall consist, as in all other cases, of elected and selected members; the elected members sitting for three years, the selected for six years (one-half of their number retiring every three years).

“It will take over the licensing powers and all the duties of the Metropolitan Board of Works, which will cease to exist.”

The “City” of London was to be allowed to retain its separate existence within the new County, together with its ancient privileges and immunities for the most part unaltered and untouched.

The Bill developed into an Act, which created a new central authority for London, under the title of the London County Council.

The area of the new “Administrative County” of London was made co-extensive with that of the former district of the Metropolitan Board of Works.

And to the new Authority was transferred the powers, duties, and liabilities of the Metropolitan Board of Works; and to those were added functions much wider and more extensive than those of that Board.

The Act also conferred upon the Council the power of appointing a Medical Officer of Health for the County, and additional powers of making bye-laws.

It did not, however, materially interfere with the Vestries and District Boards, nor did it alter their relation to the Central Authority. Practically it left them untouched.

The Council was to consist of 137 members, of whom 118 were to be elected triennially by direct election in the various metropolitan constituencies, and 19 to be elected by the Council itself as Aldermen.

Finally, the Act set a limit to the existence of the Metropolitan Board of Works.

While the Bill was going through Parliament the Royal Commission had been pursuing its inquiry into the allegations made against that Board, and had ascertained that several of the officials had been carrying on—

“… A nefarious course of proceeding by which they had been able to obtain for themselves large sums of money out of dealings with the Board’s land.”

And that—

“… Two of the members of the Board in the architectural profession had availed themselves of their representative position to make personal profit out of some of the business which came before them.”

Under the growing disfavour with which public authorities were regarded who were only indirectly elected, and so not amenable to the influence or control of the electorate, it is improbable that the existence of the Metropolitan Board of Works would have been much prolonged. But it was an unfortunate ending to a great public body which had done really great service to London.

Its own final words[169] may be quoted in its defence:—

“It has been a source of pain and sorrow to the Board that, at the close of thirty-three years’ administration of the local affairs of London, which has been attended with at least some measure of success, and in the course of which the Board has carried out some of the greatest works of public utility of which any city can boast, its good name has during the last year of its existence been sullied by iniquitous proceedings of which, though carried on in its midst, its members as a body were entirely without knowledge. It is some satisfaction to remember, however, that a body of Commissioners, who in a judicial spirit made the most searching inquiry into the Board’s proceedings, were able, while exposing the wrong-doings which were revealed to them, and justly distributing the blame, to speak of the Board, as they do in their report, in the following terms:—

“‘It has had a multitude of duties to perform, and very great works have been constructed by it, which have transformed the face of some of the most important thoroughfares of the metropolis. And there has hitherto been no evidence that corruption or malpractice has affected or marred the greater part of the work which it has accomplished. The same may be said, too, in relation to the conduct of the vast majority of the members of the Board. We have received very numerous communications, some anonymous, some bearing the signature of the writers, impugning the action of the Board and certain of its members, but against the vast majority of them not even a suspicion of corruption or misconduct has been breathed. We believe that many members of the Board have cheerfully given for the public good much valuable time, and have rendered most important public services.’”

The change in the constitution, nature, and character of the central authority of London effected by the Act was momentous and far-reaching.

Instead of an indirectly elected body such as the Metropolitan Board of Works, over which the inhabitants of London had practically no control, there was brought into being a body directly chosen by an electorate of nearly half a million of the ratepayers of the metropolis, responsive to the views and desires of the electorate, endowed with the great authority derived from its representative character, and entrusted with the carrying out of the views and policy of London as one great city.

London had been unified and welded together into one whole by the constitution of its new central authority; for the first time in his history it had been given a voice—the voice of one great city—and though much remained to be done before its entrance into its full rights as one city—and that the greatest which has ever existed in the world—the idea had been born, and had been embodied in the statutes of the realm that London was one great city, and not a mere conglomeration of petty jarring authorities.

The first election of councillors took place on January 17, 1889.

The first meeting of the Council took place on the 21st of March, when the Earl of Rosebery was elected Chairman, and the Council entered energetically on the work lying before it.

The sanitary evolution of London was vitally involved in the change, but it was at once discovered that the powers of the Council relating to the public health of London were of a very limited and unsatisfactory nature.

Matters concerning it were regulated by the Metropolis London Management Act and a large number of other Acts, the execution of which was in the hands of the Vestries and District Boards.

These bodies were practically uncontrolled, and no machinery existed for securing any uniformity of administration in the different parts of the county.

And even the Metropolitan Board had not used certain powers it possessed of making bye-laws for certain sanitary purposes.

“We cannot,” reported the Sanitary Committee of the Council, “too strongly emphasise our opinion that the London County Council should be empowered to frame bye-laws for the proper sanitary government of London, that the new or existing local bodies should put them in force, and that the County Council should be the supervising body to see that they are properly carried out.”

A somewhat similar report was made by the Housing of the Working Classes Committee.

“The Committee,” they said, “feels that until the law is strengthened, and fuller powers to enforce the law are placed in the hands of the Council, its action in dealing with insanitary areas will be of an imperfect character.”

The question of the housing of the poor in London was at once energetically taken up by the new body.

Representations were made to the Government as to the necessity of the Acts relating to the housing of the working classes being consolidated and amended.

Consequent upon this, the Government introduced a Bill which was passed—“The Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890,”[170] which repealed and codified fourteen enactments, all having for their object the improvement of the dwellings of the artizan and labouring classes, and the clearing away of unhealthy areas. Very large powers were placed in the hands of the Council and of the district authorities to secure the better housing of the working classes. And the Act may be said to mark a new era in the history of reform in the matter of insanitary areas, giving full power to the Council as a central authority to enforce its provisions.

Before the end of this decade Parliament passed two other Acts of great advantage to the health of London. One was, “The Infectious Diseases Notification Act, 1889,” making the notification of certain specified diseases compulsory in London—smallpox, cholera, diphtheria, membraneous croup, erysipelas, scarlet fever, typhus, and other fevers.

In accordance with well-worn usage London had been left behind in this matter. Other cities and even towns had, by means of local Acts, secured the advantages of such legislation long before. So far back as 1874, indeed, machinery had been in existence in London for the notification of infectious disease in houses let in lodgings. But owing to the neglect of the majority of the Vestries and District Boards to make or enforce regulations under the Sanitary Act of 1866, that machinery was left unused to the great detriment of the people of London. Thousands of lives must have been sacrificed by this neglect, and innumerable cases of preventable disease not prevented. It was not until a general Act was passed that London became possessed of the advantages resulting from such notification.

In London, indeed, the health of cattle was better looked after in this respect than that of the people, for cases of infectious disease in cattle had to be notified to the Sanitary Authorities.

By this Act it was made compulsory on medical attendants to certify, and on householders to notify, the existence of any of these diseases.

Hitherto information as to infectious illness only reached the Medical Officer of Health after a sufficient time had elapsed to allow of the spread of the infection.

The results of the Act of 1889 were soon found to be very beneficial in checking the spread of disease.

The receipt of the notices of infectious diseases led to the more prompt and general disinfection of premises where infectious diseases prevailed, and led also to the discovery of sanitary defects which might not otherwise have been discovered.

The information, moreover, kept the Medical Officers of Health informed of the progress of disease not only in their own districts, but also in contiguous ones, and so assisted them to take prompt measures for the eradication of disease in their respective districts.

The other measure which passed the legislature in this same year contained provisions of the highest importance as affecting the metropolis. This was “the Poor Law Act, 1889.”

Until 1889 patients could be admitted only to the infectious hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board on the order of the Relieving Officer and District Medical Officer, so, except in certain cases, the hospitals were only open to Poor Law cases.

This measure made practical concession of two principles. Free admission to the hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board of sick persons in need of isolation, and devolution upon the Metropolitan Poor Fund of all charges incurred in the maintenance of the sick in those hospitals.

The Managers were, therefore, enabled to admit other than pauper patients reasonably believed to be suffering from fever, smallpox, or diphtheria.

The system was attended with the happiest results in reducing the amount of infectious disease in the metropolis, and proved a great boon to all classes of the community.

The Board in its annual report wrote:—

“The Managers are now, for the first time since the establishment of the Board in 1867, virtually recognised as the Metropolitan Authority for the provision of accommodation for the isolation and treatment of infectious disease—both pauper and non-pauper—and are now empowered to legally perform duties which the Legislature had imposed on the District Sanitary Authorities, but which the Managers had hitherto been called upon to perform in consequence of the failure of most of such Authorities to provide accommodation for non-pauper patients.”

The Managers by this date had increased the accommodation for patients afflicted with any of these infectious diseases. There were six fever hospitals, 2,463 beds; 350 beds in smallpox hospital ships; and 800 beds in the hospital for convalescing smallpox patients.

One other Act[171] deserves mention before the close of this decade as it contained an unique section which required the Medical Officer of Health, on notice from the owner of property in which there are separate dwellings let for 7s. 6d. or less a week, to visit them and examine all their sanitary arrangements, &c., so as to be able to certify or not—

“That the house is so constructed as to afford suitable accommodation for each of the families or persons inhabiting it, and that due provision is made for their sanitary requirements.”

The certificate, if granted, was to be handed to the owner, who was then able to obtain the remission of the inhabited house duty.

The owner, therefore, obtained a remission of taxes to which he was justly liable, because the dwelling which he lets was in a sanitary condition!

In many ways, then, the sanitary evolution of the great city was developing satisfactorily, though by no means so rapidly as was to be desired, or as it might have developed if local governing authorities had done their duty.

“The war of the community against individuals for the public good,” which had now lasted for over thirty years, and the war against disease in its most dangerous forms, was being waged with good effect; and though an immensity remained to be done, a great deal had been accomplished. Larger numbers of all classes were beginning to grasp the idea and to realise that the necessity of securing and guarding the public health was not a craze or form of mental aberration, but was of absolutely vital consequence, not merely to certain classes but to the great community of the metropolis and to the nation itself, and that the future welfare and power, even the very existence, of the nation are dependent upon it.

Larger numbers, too, were beginning to see who really were responsible for the widely prevalent evils, and who really were obstructing progress towards a higher standard of public health, and how little claim they had to consideration, either from the hands of the Legislature or of local administrators.

The reports of the Medical Officers of Health of the latter part of this decade were distinctly more hopeful in tone, and recorded more progress than ever before.

The catalogue of things in which improvement had taken place had lengthened—sewerage, water supply, the removal of refuse, paving, the regulation of offensive businesses, of cowhouses, dairies, and bakehouses, the provision of open spaces, the better disinfection of houses and of infected articles, the erection of hospitals for the isolation of cases of infectious diseases—all of which things were elemental necessaries if the public health was to be assured.

In some parishes, in place of the smaller class of houses, great blocks of artizans’ dwellings had been erected. In others great blocks of flats.

With the increased wealth of the population finer buildings had been erected in many districts. London had grown enormously in wealth, and the wealth showed itself in finer public buildings and private houses. The District Board of Westminster, for instance, said in their report for 1885–6:—

“Whether viewed as to its character, its statistics, its topography, or its sanitary condition, the change which Westminster has undergone in thirty years can only be described as a complete transformation.”

“In the St. Margaret’s portion, whole streets of fine houses which were occupied by the nobility and the wealthy for residential purposes are now let out in offices for the transaction of legal, scientific, or mechanical business, while narrow streets, wretched courts, and melancholy homes of squalid poverty and misery have been replaced by ‘mansions,’ ‘flats,’ &c.; and on the other hand by huge blocks of artizans’ dwellings, comprising upwards of 1,200 homes.”

The Education Act was indirectly producing some good results as regarded the health of the rising generation.

A most marked improvement had come over the mortality of children at school ages. Mortality has lessened—

due to the fact that children had been gathered into the schools from their crowded and insanitary homes, and had thus escaped some of the perils of disease.

And the Medical Officer of Health for Lambeth referred to this same subject in his report for 1886:—

“The children of the pauper and mendicant are withdrawn from the atmosphere of vice and intemperance to which their fathers had become acclimatised, and are placed under supervision in the schoolroom….”

Some slight improvement there was also as regarded the mortality of children under five years, though in many parishes it was still fearfully high.

In Mile-End-Old-Town, for instance, in 1890 the deaths under five years amounted to 51 per cent. of all deaths. In Deptford district in 1890–1 they amounted to 50 per cent. In Bermondsey in 1889 they amounted to 52 per cent. In St. Olave, Southwark, in 1888–9 to 49½ per cent. In St. Mary, Newington, in 1890, very slightly under 50 per cent.

Infantile mortality was becoming of greater concern than ever as the birth-rate was showing a decided diminution—that for 1889 being the lowest on record since 1849.

Though the tables as to death-rate in many of the parishes were still more or less vitiated by various local circumstances, there was considerable unanimity that the death-rate was falling and the public health better. Some diseases which had previously claimed their victims by thousands, now only claimed them by hundreds. Death from tubercular disease had steadily fallen, and the mean death-rate from phthisis in London showed a very satisfactory decrease between 1861–70 and 1881–90.[173]

The Lancet of January, 1887, stated that, measured by its recorded death-rate, London was healthier in 1887 than in any year on record.

In the Strand in 1886:—

“The efforts that have been made by the Board and its officers have resulted in a marked and continuous improvement in the sanitary state of the district.”

In St. Pancras in 1888 the death-rate was “by far the lowest yet recorded.”

In Bermondsey, in the same year, “so few deaths have not occurred since 1865.”

These and similar reports from other districts showed that sanitary progress was being made. But, unfortunately, in the autumn of 1888 there was an epidemic of measles of exceptional severity, which raised the death-rate. And in 1890 there was a sudden increase from 18·4 per 1,000 to 21·4, a mortality which was higher than any since 1882.

The increase served to show the great necessity there was for unceasing watchfulness and for steady perseverance in sanitary work. The forces of disease are ever on the watch for the opportunity to work their evil will, and there were still many weak places in the defences against them. The central government of London had been improved enormously, but the corrective was not extended to where it was most wanted, namely, the local Sanitary Authorities, the Vestries and District Boards.