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Board under Section 97 of the Public Health (London) Act, to
the effect that the Borough was a defaulter in not appointing a
sufficient number of Sanitary Inspectors. The next step was
that the Local Government Board sent down the late Dr. Sweeting,
who spent a week making a special investigation on the conditions
in Bermondsey, the result being that the Local Government Board
made an order that we were to appoint three additional Inspectors.
This brought the number up to eleven, and, of course, involved
an inevitable re-distribution of duties. Mr. Ashdown was
appointed Wharves' Inspector, Messrs. Scott and Hoskins as
Food and Drugs Inspectors, and the remaining eight Inspectors
each had a district.
The Council never could see their way to appoint a woman
Sanitary Inspector, but in 1909, our first Health Visitor, Miss
Clibbens, was appointed. In 1910 Miss Clibbens resigned, and
another Health Visitor, Miss Nuttall, was appointed in her place.
In December 1911, the Health Visitors were increased to two,
and two or three months afterwards there followed the establishment
of the first Municipal Centre in the Borough in the Shelter
at the Town Hall. This was followed shortly by another Centre
next door to the Lady Gomm Dispensary, Rotherhithe, the
Medical Officer at these Centres being myself. The next increase
in the Health Visitors was from two to four in January 1918, and
two years later four more were appointed, making a total of eight
Health Visitors, and at a later date the first woman Medical Officer
for Maternity and Child Welfare was appointed, and was given
the supervision of the Health Visitors, and subsequently a second
woman Medical Officer was appointed.
In February 1920, the Council embarked on another enterprise
and appointed two Municipal midwives as there was such a
shortage of midwives in general practice in the Borough, and
women had great difficulty in finding medical men to attend to
them at the time of confinement, as they were absorbed in attending
to their panels. This, however, did not continue very long,
for the appointment of these two ladies constituted such a good
advertisement that several private midwives came to practise
in the Borough, and in a few months the Council found that the
services of the Municipal midwives were not required.