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193
A SHORT HISTORY OF PUBLIC HEALTH
IN GREENWICH
1901—1965
No comparison of today's conditions with those of yesteryear
is possible without a brief outline of the social and
environmental circumstances prevailing at the beginning of the
century when the re-organisation of London Government was
established under the London Government Act of 1899.
Conditions in 1900
The Metropolitan Borough Councils were inaugurated
during the South African war at the very end of Queen Victoria's
reign and, in Greenwich at this time, poverty and overcrowding
were common and of long standing in the St. Nicholas area and
those regions in the vicinity of Deptford Creek and the environs
of St. Alfege's, St. Peter's and Christchurch. This is perhaps
not surprising when it is realised that the population in these
areas had risen by almost 50% during the previous 20 years
without a corresponding increase in housing accommodation.
However, a newer kind of poverty was growing in the Marsh
area of the Borough where poor quality housing, then recently
erected, was being overcrowded with many people displaced
from Poplar who, with the opening of the Blackwall Tunnel in
1897, were now able to make their way south of the river without
impediment. Generally, the more affluent people who had moved
away from the river side and were occupying bigger and better
accommodation on the higher ground to the south were being
replaced by a poorer element who, wishing to remain close to
their places of employment, tended to overcrowd the now ageing
property adjacent to the river. According to the census of 1901,
there were on an average, 6.73 persons per inhabited dwelling
throughout the Borough.
As one would expect, rents were varied and many families
lived in "rooms", the rents of which ranged from 3s. to 3s. 6d.
per room, whilst the "better-off" craftsmen could rent two-storied
houses of four rooms from 5s. to 7s. 6d., and newer houses from
10s. to 12s. 6d. per week. For the richer classes who could
afford a servant or two, new houses in the Charlton area south
of the main Woolwich Road were being sold for £380 (99 years
Greenwich Church Street before the Foot Tunnel.