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96
For a period of over 20 years previous to the appointment of 2
special Housing Inspectors on February 12th, 1920, except during the
War period (1914-20). systematic house-to-house inspections under the
Public Health (London) Act, 1891, and the Housing of the Working
Classes Act, 1890, and the Housing, Town Planning,&c., Act, 1909, were
carried out year by year by the District Sanitary Inspectors and
notices served as required under the Public Health (London) Act,
1891. These house-to-house inspections were made under the Housing
(Inspection of District) Regulations (1910). Details of these systematic
house-to-house inspections are to be found set out in the Medical
Officer of Health's Annual Reports, amounting in numbers to thousands
of inspections and leading to unfit houses being put into proper
order and condition, or rearranged and rebuilt, or reconstructed or
converted into flats.
In this connection, courts and alleys and cul-de-sacs and streets
have been demolished in connection with local improvements schemes,
carried out by large private owners and several private firms, such as
the Duchy of Cornwall, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, the London
and South Western Railway, and other Railway Companies, and the
London County Council, and Messrs. Rayne, Greig, Boots, etc.
Hundreds of dirty, damp, dilapidated and generally worn-out houses
have been, in that way, voluntarily closed and demolished, and new
model three-storey tenement houses, and two-storey cottages, or new or
extended business premises erected in their place. It will be seen
therefore, that, prior to the War, a large amount of housing work was
carried out (voluntarily or as the result of notices served) on the
principle ot reconditioning existing houses by individual owners, and
this work, together with the aforementioned improvement schemes of
private owners and firms, kept the Borough and the late Parish in a
fair condition as regards the houses, and the total improvements
effected have been pointed out from time to time in the Annual
Reports or Special Reports issued by the Medical Officer of
Health.
Since the War, action has been restricted to Section 28 of the 1919
Housing Act, which also gives powers for reconditioning of unfit
houses as opposed to slum clearances by demolition.
House-to-house inspections are now carried out under the Housing
Consolidation Regulations, 1925, made in pursuance of the New
Housing Act, 1925.