View report page

3
crowding in some of the rooms in which, according to the statements made by the tenants, the limits
indicated in the by-laws are not exceeded.
Bethnal-green.— Regulations were adopted under the Sanitary Act of 1866, but little use was
made of them. By-laws under the Public Health (London) Act were confirmed in 1895. No houses
have been registered under these by-laws. The medical officer of health, Dr. Bate, in his last annual
report writes, "So far not a single house has been placed upon the register, and therefore we have not
had a chance to ascertain whether these by-laws are workable or not; personally, I think they are, but
the sanitary committee thinks otherwise."
Camberwell.— In 1866 regulations under the Sanitary Act of that year were adopted by the
vestry, and some use was made of them. The question of amending the regulations was under
consideration in 1883, and draft regulations were submitted to the Local Government Board. The late
medical officer of health of Camberwell, however, in reporting on the subject of houses let in lodgings
to the vestry some years later, stated that he had "not yet found the opportunity for beginning the
register again," and that the main reason of the non-enforcement of regulations had been "that the
duties of the inspectors have from year to year grown so enormous and absorbing."
By-laws under the Public Health (London), Act, 1891, were confirmed in 1895, and up to the
present time 154 houses have been placed upon the register. The parish of Camberwell is divided into
12 inspectors' districts, and hitherto the by-laws have only been made use of in one of these districts.
The advantage derived from their employment in this district is already sufficiently apparent, and it is
clear that there is need for the extension of their use to houses outside the district to which their
operation has, up to the present, been limited.
It is, moreover, clear that the limits of rental specified in the exemption clause of the Camberwell
by-laws have been fixed too low, inasmuch as in the course of my inquiry I visited several
houses which could not apparently be brought within the operations of the by-laws, but in which the
need of registration and control was obvious.
The district in which the by-laws have already been applied contains several streets almost
every house in which can be dealt with, and a large amount of improvement had been effected in these
streets. The work of cleansing the rooms had been completed in some of the houses, and was in
progress in others. Some of the rooms in which it had not been commenced presented extreme
conditions of filth and neglect.
At the time of my visit to these streets considerable alterations as regards the amount of
accommodation provided for the tenants were being effected. A house to house inspection of the houses
in three of the streets had shown that out of a total of 466 families (1,928 persons) occupying upwards
of 900 rooms, 172 families, occupying 259 rooms, were living under conditions of overcrowding.
At the time of my inspection, the overcrowding had been abated in the case of rather more than
one-third of these families. It was noticed that in a large number of instances the persons previously
living under conditions of overcrowding were still being accommodated in the immediate neighbourhood;
in some cases the difficulty had been met by the removal of one family from a house, and the
dividing up of the rooms, formerly occupied by that family, among the other families remaining in
the house. The requirements of the by-laws were being carried into effect with singularly little
disturbance of the people living in the houses, having regard to the magnitude and importance of the
change in progress. One of the most remarkable features in connection with overcrowdiug is the extent
to which it affects particular neighbourhoods and particular houses. This grouping of overcrowded
tenements was strikingly seen in the case of the streets in Camberwell, now being referred to. A
plan of the situation of the overcrowded rooms in these streets has been prepared by Mr. Kerslake,
one of the vestry's inspectors, and it will be seen from this plan, which is appended to this report, how
marked is the tendency for the overcrowding when it affects a house at all to affect several rooms in that
house. Thus in no fewer than seven instances, as shown on the plan, every room in a house was
found overcrowded. This peculiarity fortunately renders the abatement of the condition an easier
matter than would otherwise be the case, for many houses are not affected at all, and in those
which are specially affected, the removal of a single family, and the readjustment of the rooms
occupied by that family among the remaining families, may affect all that is necessary.
In some instances, the extent of overcrowding which had been detected in these Camberwell
houses was exceptional. For instance, a night inspection had been made in the course of last year,
which revealed the fact that a ground floor room, 880 cubic feet in capacity, was occupied by fourteen
persons and a baby. Two married couples and the baby occupied the bed in this room, four children
were accommodated upon one mattrass, five children upon a second mattrass laid upon the floor of the
room, and a young girl slept in an orange box at the foot of the bed. It may be added that eight
cases of smallpox were removed during the summer of last year from the house in which this overcrowding
was found, the members of the families occupying the overcrowded room being those attacked.
The overcrowding described was found on an inspection made at midnight under a magistrate's
warrant; there is reason to suppose, however, from information subsequently received, that the abatement
of the overcrowding of this particular room was effected by the removal of one of the families
occupying it to another occupied room upstairs which thus for a time accommodated two families. The
number of persons sleeping in the upstairs room after the arrival of the family from downstairs is said
to have been fourteen. The overcrowding was therefore only transferred from one room to another.
The hopelessness of attempting to deal with overcrowding of this kind by mere inspection at
ordinary hours is apparent, and the Camberwell experience clearly shows how necessary it is that
occasional visits at unusual hours should be made with a view to checking the tendency to overcrowd
which affects certain localities.
Chelsea.—Regulations under the Sanitary Act of 1866 came into force in 1868 and large use was
made of them during succeeding years. Evidence was given by the late vestry clerk before the Royal
Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes in 1884 as to the valuable results obtained by the