On sanitary legislation and administration in England : an address, portions of which were read before the Public-Health Department of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, at its Inaugural Meeting, held at Birmingham, in October 1857 / by Henry Wyldbore Rumsey.

  • Henry Wyldbore Rumsey
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On sanitary legislation and administration in England : an address, portions of which were read before the Public-Health Department of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, at its Inaugural Meeting, held at Birmingham, in October 1857 / by Henry Wyldbore Rumsey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    rived from existing local sanitary administration. In a report on the mortality of Gloucester, which I presented to the Kegistrar- General in 1848, I showed, by a comparison of the deaths, the ages at death, and some apparent causes of disease, in the city proper and in the suburbs, that the latter were by far the more unhealthy and the more urgently in need of vigorous measures of sanitary reform. Mr. Cresy, the superintending inspector sent by the General Board of Health, confirmed the correctness of my distinction, and accord- ingly recommended that a considerable district of country, extending in some directions two miles from the centre of the city, should be included within the jurisdiction of the local board. But political questions arose; the town council claimed exclusive powers, and the provisional order was ultimately applied only to the parliamentary borough. The result was thus described, four years afterwards, by a resident gentleman of great intelligence, and belonging to no pro- fession :— “ The jurisdiction of the Local Board, I am sorry to say, does not extend beyond the boundaries fixed by the Municipal Act, which practically excludes one-third [more now] of the population from any control. Upon this serious obstruction to sanitary improve- ment, my attention has long been fixed. I counted seven hundred houses on one side of the city, whose only drainage is Sudbrook, all beyond control; and, owing to the direction of the prevailing winds, the town has the full benefit of all the effluvia which their refuse creates.” The suburban residents looked in vain to the managing authority of the outlying districts for redress; for, said he, “ The board of guardians does not co-operate with either the Local or General Board, but, I believe, offers all the obstruction in its power.”1 Now this I believe to be a very common case. 11. Suburban populations, for reasons already stated, consist more and more of persons belonging to the humbler classes of society. Now,, unless efficient building laws, founded on established sanitary principles, be enacted and enforced to protect the working classes against the injurious speculations of unscrupulous capitalists; unless, moreover, a sounder system of education than the present be ex- tended to the whole working population—I mean a moral, industrial and physiological education, which may enable men and women to comprehend their true relations to the external world, and their duties to society and to their families unless they are thus trained in thrifty habits, and induced to devote some portion of their wages (now often worse than wasted at the beer-house, the gin-shop, and the casino) to the payment of a somewhat higher rent for Veil- located, well-drained, and well-ventilated dwellings; unless I sav these social changes be effected, we must expect to see/ amone suburban and village populations, an aggravation of those sanitary and social evils which were formerly more conspicuous in towns.
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