Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Report of the Medical Officer of Health for the City of London for the year 1904
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MIDDLE DISTRICT.
St. James's Place Garlick Hill
Gun Yard Bishopsgate
Friar's Alley Upper Thames Street
WEST DISTRICT.
Cloister Court St. Andrew's Hill
King's Head Court
Gunpowder Alley
Shoe Lane
Fleur-de-Lis Court Carter Lane
Neville Court
Greystoke Place
Fleur-de-Lis Court
Fetter Lane
Boy Court Ludgate Hill
Half-Moon Passage Aldersgate
Middlesex Passage
Bartholomew Place
Bartholomew
Close
Montague Court
Little Montague Court
Little Britain
Britton's Court
Crown Court
Whitefriars
Dorset Court Dorset Street
Ball Court Giltspur Street
Holborn Buildings Holborn
Evangelist Court Pilgrim Street
Took's Court Furnival Street
Bed Lion Passage
East Passage
Back Passage
Sun Court
Back Court
Cloth Fair
SMOKE NUISANCES.
Smoke nuisances were reported at 55 premises during 1904. The number
of observations recorded in relation to them amounted to 1,202, as against
1,306 noted at 57 places in 1903.
In only one instance was the evidence sufficient to justify the institution of
legal proceedings for abatement of smoke nuisance.
In this case the owner of the "Queen's Arras," Bird-in-Hand Court,
Cheapside, was summoned at the Mansion House for non-compliance with a
prohibition order made on 2nd April, 1902. The summons was heard on the
28th March and on 16t,h May. The offence was proved at the first hearing,
but the nuisance having been abated and a guarantee given by the defendant
that it should not recur, the summons was withdrawn on the 16th May.
Generally the improvement recorded last year is maintained, but several
nuisances reported upon and dealt with by your Committee in the past
required frequent attention, old nuisances occasionally being permitted to
recur from carelessness, improper fuel or burning of refuse. Much assistance
has been rendered by the Police in notifying the occurrence of smoke nuisances.
A misleading suggestion having been offered in the public Press that
smoke may have some disinfectant properties, and therefore harmless,
I cannot too strongly emphasise the danger to public health from the
loss of light, vitiation of the atmosphere, and to the dirt, suffocation and
depression due to the pall of smoke suspended over London, especially in the
colder season of the year, arising not only from factory chimneys but from
every domestic fire. A wide-spread recognition of this evil is the first step
towards its abatement.