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VIOLET MELCHETT INFANT WELFARE CENTRE
It is appropriate in this final report on the Health Services
of this Metropolitan Borough to review the development of Child
Welfare in Chelsea in which the Violet Melchett Centre has played
such an important part.
To put it in perspective, let us look at the position when
the public health services started in 1856.
In those days the population was nearly one and a half times as
great as it is today. It was not, however, so evenly distributed.
The big houses now in multiple occupation were then occupied by single
families. Many of them have been replaced by blocks of flats. The
great bulk of the poorer population were crowded into slum areas which
existed, for example, on the sites now occupied by Sutton Dwellings, by
Wray House, and the area to the west of Lower Sloane Street now occupied
by Sloane Court East and West, and Burton Court. This last area was a
rabbit warren of courts, alleys and mews, where 2,700 people lived at a
density of about per acre as opposed to the Chelsea average of 62
per acre. The Medical Officer of Health of the time wrote:
"....there were found in one house of four rooms in George-place - the
average capacity of each room being only about 350 cubic feet - so
large a number as 21 persons; each house contained on an average 10
individuals; in most instances each room was the dwelling of a separate
family".
153 of every 1,000 babies died in the first year of life - i.e.
22.2% of the total deaths, and in the poorer areas these figures were
substantially greater. Of children under one, 20 died from scarlet
fever, measles or whooping cough, and 40 from diarrhoea, dysentery or
cholera.
By the beginning of this century little improvement was manifest.
148 of every 1,000 babies died under 1 year, the total infantile deaths
numbering 333 out of a total population more than double what it is
today. The deaths were due in the main to the diarrhoeal diseases
which accounted for 90 deaths (excluding typhoid, which, incidentally,
caused 20 deaths among the population), respiratory diseases 48,
tubercular diseases 19, scarlet fever, measles and whooping cough
accounting for 18.
Compare these with the figures in this present annual report
which records only 16 infant deaths under the age of one year. Of
these 16, 10 virtually due to incurable causes, occurred under the age
of 1 week and none was attributable to diarrhoea or other infectious
diseases.
Why this tremendous improvement, which you will note has only
occurred during this century? This has only been achieved by hard
and prolonged work. Work often humdrum and discouraging, with no
early obvious results. Work which indeed had only long term benefits;
which could only have been commenced and carried through by those with
abundant and far-seeing vision and self sacrifice.