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"(b) A medical officer of health shall be removable by the
sanitary authority with the consent of the Local Government
Board, or by that Board, and not otherwise."
Provision (b) does not extend to limiting the discretion of the
Vestry with regard to the removal of its Sanitary Inspectors.
Under article 10 of the General Order of the Local Government
Board (8th December, 1891), the Sanitary Inspectors of
St. James's are removable at the discretion of the Vestry without
reference to the Local Government Board. But in section 108
of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, the qualifications
of the Sanitary Inspectors are prescribed by a new provision (d);
and this provision prevents the appointment of unqualified
persons as sanitary inspectors. The terms of this provision are
as follows:—
"(d) A sanitary inspector appointed after January 1st, 1895, shall
be holder of a certificate of such body as the Local Government
Board may from time to time approve, that he has
by examination shown himself competent for such office, or
shall have been, during three consecutive years preceding
the year 1895, a sanitary inspector or inspector of nuisances
of a district in London, or of an urban sanitary district out
of London containing, according to the last published
census, a population of not less than 20,000 inhabitants."
In some districts it has been found necessary to protect
medical officers of health and sanitary inspectors from arbitrary
dismissal consequent upon a fearless discharge of their important
public duties. I may, therefore, perhaps be permitted
to put upon record the fact that I have always received the
cordial support of the Vestry in the discharge of these duties for
the parish of St. James's. It is true that, in the course of 24
years of office, I have been brought into conflict with one or two
individual members of the Vestry who did not realise that they
were bound to be exemplary in the management of tenement
houses owned by themselves in the district which they publicly
represented. But in these cases I invariably received such
encouragement from the Vestry as to enable me to act as
strenuously as with less distinguished delinquents. This
support has been invaluable.