Letter to the Rt. Hon. Sir George Grey, BT., M.P., Her Majesty's secretary of state for the Home Department, from Charles Purton Cooper, Esq. with papers respecting the sanitary state of part of the parish of St. Giles in the Fields, London.

  • Cooper, Charles Purton, 1793-1873.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to the Rt. Hon. Sir George Grey, BT., M.P., Her Majesty's secretary of state for the Home Department, from Charles Purton Cooper, Esq. with papers respecting the sanitary state of part of the parish of St. Giles in the Fields, London. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    XVIII. 456, Oxford Street, November 9, 1850. Sir, I CANNOT report to you any improvement in the condition of Church Lane since my last letter [August I3th, 1850] ; the Commissioners of Sewers have, how- ever, commenced making a small sewer in the neighbour- hood. I have taken many gentlemen through the place who have read your pamphlet, and heard much of it from me, all of whom concur in saying that bad as they believed it to be from the descriptions they had been given of it, yet the reality is far worse than they had at all imagined. Mr. Macdonald, a gentleman from Glasgow, perfectly acquainted with all its localities, informs me that bad as it was and is in many parts, it never, at any time, con- tained any place at all to be compared with this. I have caused summonses, under the “ Nuisances Re- moval and Disease Prevention Act, 1848,” to be taken out at Bow Street against many of these houses, but should they he successful it will merely prove a palli- ative for a time. The only remedy would, I think, be the licensing such lodging houses, and placing them under the control of the police, or somebody appointed for the purpose. In the medical certificate on which Mr. Hall granted the summonses it is stated that typhus fever is very generally found in these houses; and in a conversation which I had yesterday with Mr. Bennett, the yjrincipal medical oflScer of these parishes, he told me that typhus fever is now very prevalent in Church Lane, and that they have many very severe cases of it in the parish infirmary, all of wdiich have been taken out of the street. I am. Sir, Your most obedient servant, Joseph Banks Durham. To C. Pwrton Cooper, Esq.