View report page

110
Provided, however, that if your Committee were to devise some
method of keeping the Lee water out of the pool, except such as has
been purified by sub-soil percolation, or lay on a pure supply, the
Sanitary Committee would withdraw all opposition to the use of the
pool for bathing purposes.
I am, Dear Sir,
Yours faithfully,
(Signed) J. KING WARRY, M.D.,
Medical Officer of Health.
The Chief Officer,
Parks Department,
London County Council.
On receipt of this letter the London County Council abandoned
their proposal to give an official sanction and encouragement to
bathing in the impure waters of the River Lee. Such is the account
of the earlier attempt to establish a bathing pool on the Hackney
Marsh to be supplied with its impure waters.
The present proposal owes its origin, I am informed, to the
desire to provide work for the unemployed during the winter
months. The proposal seems to have been first made in the month
of October, 1906, in the following resolution passed by the Distress
Committee, viz.:—
"That, with a view to providing work for the unemployed,
this Committee suggests that an open-air bathing place be
constructed near the River Lee, and that the Borough Council
be asked to approach the Central (Unemployed) Body for
London on the subject."
This resolution has been under consideration up till October,
1907, when a reference was received by the Public Health
Committee from the Works and General Purposes Committee,
asking if the water in the Lee Navigation Stream surrounding the
Hackney Marshes, or at Horse Shoe Point, was in a fit condition
for bathing purposes.
Before coming to any decision on the subject, I was instructed
to visit the places mentioned and report as to whether the water