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(3) The London and South Western and other Railway Companies
in connection with their widening and extension schemes,
necessitating the demolition of many old, dilapidated and wornout
houses (in streets and courts and alleys and cul-de-sacs),
with the compulsory provision of housing accommodation in the
immediate neighbourhood (due to clauses inserted in the Railways
Acts at the instigation of the late Vestry), e.g., Campbell
Buildings (Maudslay's site), Stangate Buildings and Russell
Gardens (Felix and Boniface Streets site), and Coronation
Buildings (South Lambeth Road and Miles Street site) —blocks
of tenemented dwellings properly constructed and fitted up
to modern ideas of sanitation. These large blocks of tenemented
dwellings (with the exception of Coronation Buildings)
were also built upon sites which previously contained old, wornout,
dilapidated and insanitary houses (in streets and courts and
alleys and cul-de-sacs).
To the above may be added (a) the London County Council, as
the Education Authority, in connection with the building of New
Schools (Exton Street and Johanna Street, etc.), and (b) several
Private Firms, in connection with the building of new or the extension
of old business and other places (Messrs. Rayne, Royal Waterloo
Hospital, Union Jack Club, etc.) within this same district (Marsh
Ward).
The transformation that has taken place during the past 20
years in the Marsh Ward has been very great, though little noticed
year by year at the time that it was being actually effected. Going
through the transformed district to-day, it can hardly be realised
what the changes have been. Streets upon streets, courts upon
courts, alleys upon alleys, and cul-de-sacs upon cul-de-sacs of old,
worn-out and insanitary houses have gone, and their places been
taken chiefly by palatial business premises and the rebuilt Waterloo
Railway Terminus, but also, in part, by modern up-to-date tenemented
blocks, tenemented houses (newly erected or converted old
houses) and cottages. The beneficial results arising to the public
health from these changes are shown by the lowered mortality
amongst the persons still dwelling in that particular district (Marsh
Ward), even allowing for the decreased population ; and to these
mortality rates are added, for comparison, those for the Inner and
Outer Wards as a whole, viz.:—