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178
REGULATION OF BAKEHOUSES.
The Bakehouses, to the number of 136, viz., 75 in North
Kensington, i.e., north of Uxbridge Road, and 61 in South
Kensington, i.e., the remainder of the parish south of that
road, have been regularly inspected, and such action has been
taken, in individual cases, as was found necessary for ensuring
compliance with the sanitary provisions of the Factory and
Workshop Acts, and the Public Health (London) Act, 1891,
relating to bakehouses.
From time to time references are made in reports of
Medical Officers of Health to the insanitary condition of some
of the bakehouses in London, which is due in large measure
to the fact that, as a rule, the premises where the making of
bread, biscuits, confectionery, &c. is carried on, are undergroundand
were not originallyconstructed for the use to which
they are applied. In the early part of the current session the
subject was referred to in the House of Commons, and in
May the Local Government Board addressed a letter to the
several Sanitary Authorities in the Metropolis, in which
attention was drawn to the " powers and duties in this
matter " of those bodies. The Board cited the sections of
the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, and of the Factory
and Workshop Acts, of 1878 and 1883, which impose on the
Sanitary Authority the duty of enforcing provisions " with
regard to cleanliness, ventilation, and other sanitary conditions,
with respect to any bakehouse, which is a workshop,
within their district; " the term " bakehouse " meaning " any
place in which are baked bread, biscuits, or confectionery,
from the baking or selling of which a profit is derived." The
Board stated that they " attach much importance to a strict
enforcement of the said provisions," and called attention to
the means whereby, in a court of summary jurisdiction, they
may be enforced, on the prosecution of a local authority,
when " any bakehouse is in such a state as to be on sanitary