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94
The smallpox epidemic of 1901-2 was a busy time for the Public Health Department.
There were about 400 cases in Westminster spread more or less throughout
the City, the greatest number being in the Clare Market area in the east of the City,
which was soon afterwards demolished for the Strand to Holborn improvement.
In this area were several common lodging houses in some of which isolation wards
were arranged so that suspected cases could be segregated and kept under observation.
When successful vaccination was secured of all close contacts in the early stages
a second case seldom occurred.
Great changes have taken place in the sanitary fitments of buildings. In the
large hotels years ago, baths and sanitary conveniences were used in common by
the residents, usually there being only 2 or 3 of each on a floor. In the recently
constructed hotels, a bathroom, with all conveniences, is a necessary annexe to each
bedroom. Such amenities, now provided as a matter of course in modern
residences were unknown to the old family mansions of the Victorian era. I
remember visiting a nobleman's mansion in St. James's in the early part of the
century and was astonished to find there was not a single fixed bath in the house
and such conditions also obtained very generally in Belgravia in the first decade.
Central heating throughout, a more liberal supply of hot water and a system of
mechanical ventilation in connection with all rooms, in hotels and largs blocks of
flats have added enormously to personal comfort as it has to the cost of construction,
and incidentally has greatly increased the work of a sanitary inspector.
The Inspector's work has thus become more exacting because plans are becoming
much more complicated as sanitary fittings are more varied and widely distributed in
buildings. New forms and materials in construction likewise bring fresh problems
in lay-out and arrangement.
In the early days it was not uncommon to find the drainage of houses either
inefficient or faulty and the highly satisfactory drainage of buildings both new and
old in the City to-day may, in large measure, be attributed to the early principles
and standards of sanitation applied by the inspectors some thirty or forty years
ago and maintained with equal insistence by their successors.
Nuisances arising from stables, private and commercial, formed a problem of
its own, for there were thousands of horses kept in the City in those days. One
bus company alone, with stables in Page Street, had over a thousand horses. It is
doubtful if there are, excluding the Royal Mews and military establishments, now
more than two or three hundred horses left. While changes such as these have
relieved the sanitary inspector, other duties have been added. The abatement of
nuisances has largely given place to a more constructive aspect, the creation of
more healthy living and working conditions.
The very considerable output of social legislation since the war has imposed
fresh duties on local authorities and many of these come within the province of a
sanitary inspector. Regulations, orders and bye-laws governing food and the
intricacies of Housing Law and administration, are largely post-war developments.
Most recently of all the aspects of Town Planning are more and more involving health
considerations in the lay-out and user of buildings and the sanitary inspector must
necessarily play his part in these matters.
In my early days, the City being still largely residential, the demand for inexpensive
restaurants was met by modest eating houses and taverns. Tea shops