Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
The annual report on the health, sanitary condition of the Royal Borough of Kensington, etc., etc., for the year 1904
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3. The tenant shall pay to the Council the cost of replacing any windows broken, or keys
lost, and of repairing any other damage done to the tenement, not being ordinary wear and
tear, and of clearing the pipes and drains if choked by materials improperly allowed to pass
into them. No nails may be driven into the walls except with the permission of the
Council.
4. The tenant shall cause the floors, stairs, and windows of every part of his tenement
to be thoroughly washed and cleansed at least once in every week, the tenants * to be responsible
in alternate weeks for the cleansing of the entrance hall.
5. The tenant shall not beat any carpets or mats in the landings or passages, nor after
10 a.m. on the balconies.
6. The tenant shall not keep any animals, fowls, or pigeons in a manner not approved
by the Council.
7. The tenant shall not erect any shed-buildings, or other structure on his tenement.
8. The tenant 6hall place dust and refuse in the bins provided for that purpose, and on
the days fixed by the Council for the removal of refuse shall place the bins outside the
street door of the house.
9. The tenant shall immediately report to the Medical Officer of Health, at the Town
Hall, Kensington, any case of small-pox,chicken-pox, cholera, diphtheria, croup, erysipelas,
scarlatina (or scarlet fever), typhus fever, typhoid fever, consumption, measles, or whooping
cough, occurring in his tenement; and, if required, shall permit the patient to be removed
to a proper hospital.
10. The tenancy may be put an end to (a), by the tenant, on giving one week's previous
notice in writing, such notice to expire on a Saturday, (b) by the Council, on giving one week's
previous notice in writing, such notice to expire on a Saturday; or, in case of breach of any
of these regulations, by notice in writing that the tenancy is put an end to as from the date of
the notice.
11. The Council by their officers or agents shall be at liberty to enter the tenement at
all reasonable hours of the day to inspect its state of repair, or for any other purpose.
12. Entry into possession by the tenant shall be conclusive that he has accepted these
regulations.
13. The tenant shall be liable for any breach of these regulations by any person living
in his tenement.
Note.—The Council will pay all local rates, property tax, inhabited house tax, and water
rate.
By-laws for Houses let in Lodgings.—The negotiations with the Local Government Board
with reference to the proposed new by-laws, commenced some years ago, have not yet been
completed, the result being that no houses were placed on the register in 1904. The number now on
the register is 2,050. The existing by-laws, framed in 1885, have worked satisfactorily ; but a need
for some modification of them has arisen as the result of decisions of the High Court (King's
Bench Division), to the effect that certain by-laws made by the Stepney and the Islington
Metropolitan Borough Councils, with regard to the cleansing of houses let in lodgings, are invalid
as they do not provide for notice to be given before action is taken. In the first of the cases
referred to, Stiles v. Galinski, the appellant was a sanitary inspector of the Stepney Borough
Council, and the respondent a landlord within the meaning of the by-laws in force in Stepney as to
houses let in lodgings. At the Thames Police Court, on 23rd June, 1903, an information was
preferred by the appellant against the respondent, that he, being the landlord of a lodging-house,
did not in the first week of April, cause every part of the premises to be cleansed, as required by
the by-laws in such case made and provided. In this case the magistrate dismissed the summons.
In the second case, Noakes and Noakes v. the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors of Islington, the
appellants were the landlords within the meaning of the by-laws; the information preferred was
similar to that in the first case, and the magistrate sitting at the Clerkenwell Police Court convicted
the appellants, and fined them 10s. and costs.
The Lord Chief Justice, in delivering judgment, in both cases, stated (inter alia) that in his
opinion the by-laws were bad, because they did not provide that the persons who were made
responsible for seeing that the things were done, should receive the necessary notice. In his
opinion, the by-laws, in both cases, required remodelling, with the point of view, not of removing the
liability of the landlord, but of giving him notice before subjecting him to penalties. Mr. Justice
* Each house comprises two self-contained flats.