London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Southwark 1903

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Southwark, Borough of]

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115
Report read at a meeting of the Council on 16th September, 1903—
FLOODING OF BASEMENTS.
Gentlemen,
I have to report that in accordance with the request of the Public
Health Committee I have had a house to house inspection made throughout
the Borough in order to find out to what extent actual flooding of basements
during during the recent storms has taken place.
Broadly speaking, we have 20.000 houses in the Borough, and of these
1.683 were flooded with sewage and storm water to depths ranging from 3
inches to 3 feet. In addition to this definite flooding many hundreds of
houses have had their basements made damp from the same cause.
The total number of persons contained in these flooded houses is
13,464. Beyond the special flooding of houses there is to be taken into
consideration the general flooding of the subsoil arising from defective
drains and other causes.
I am,
Your obedient servant.
(Signed), G. MILLSON,
16th September, 1903. Medical Officer of Health.
PONSONBY BUILDINGS APPEAL CASE.
KING'S BENCH DIVISION.
(Before the Lord Chief Justice of England, Mr. Justice Lawrance,
and Mr. Justice Kennedy.)
Metropolitan Industrial Dwellings Company v. Long.
This was a case stated on the application of the defendant company by
Mr. Chapman, Metropolitan Police Magistrate, sitting at the Southwark
Police Court, in the matter of 33 summonses taken out on behalf of the
Southwark Borough Council against the appellants, the owners of
Ponsonby-buildings. The essential facts of the case were contained in the
judgment of the magistrate, which was as follows :—The magistrate said
the question in this case was one of considerable practical importance, and
and had been deliberately raised by the defendants as a matter of principle.
They were ths owners of certain industrial dwellings, known as Ponsonbybuildings,
erected before the confirmation of the drainage by-laws of 1901,
made under section 202 of the Metropolis Management Act, 1855; and in