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London County Council.
Public Health Department,
Spring-gardens, S.W.,
12th July, 1897.
SLAUGHTERHOUSES.
Report by the Medical Officer of Health as to the provision of Public Slaughterhouses
in the Administrative County of London.
(Printed by order of the Public Health and Housing Committee.)
The Public Health Committee will recollect that the question of the substitution of public for
private slaughterhouses has long been before them, and I have for some time been under instruction
to present to the Committee a report on this subject.
The delay has been due to the circumstance that much inquiry was necessary before I felt
justified in making any recommendations concerning so important a matter as the meat supply to the
London population, and that I found it was desirable with a view to gaining the necessary information
that I should visit a number of continental cities as well as of the large towns of this country.
Utilising such opportunities as holidays gave for this purpose, I have visited, among other cities
on the continent, Berlin, Leipsic, Halle, Hamburg, Brussels, Copenhagen, in all of which I have
had the cordial assistance of the authorities in making myself acquainted with the system they have
adopted for ensuring a wholesome meat supply to the inhabitants. I have also with the same object
visited Edinburgh, Glasgow, Carlisle, Bradford, Leeds, Huddersfield, Manchester, Liverpool and
Birkenhead, where similar opportunity was given me by the medical officers of health of these cities.
I am therefore now able to submit for the consideration of the Committee a statement which
will I trust suffice to indicate the course which should be adopted in dealing with this subject.
The continued existence of private slaughterhouses since 1874.
It will be convenient in the first instance to state briefly the circumstances which have led to
the continued existence of private slaughterhouses in London to the present time, and for this purpose
to refer to the report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Noxious Businesses
published in 1873. This Committee was constituted to consider the effects of the Building
Act of 1844. This Act prohibited (a) the erection of any dwelling house within 50 feet from a
slaughterhouse except that a dwelling house already within that distance might be re-erected; (b) any
person from beginning to carry on the business of a slaughterer of cattle within 40 feet from any public
highway and of 50 feet from any dwelling house, and if already carried on within such distance
prohibited it from being continued after 30 years, except that power was given to the justices in petty
sessions, or on appeal, or on trial by jury, to suspend their order in the event of the person convicted
of disobedience of this requirement having adopted all the means known for preventing nuisance or
undertaking to adopt such means.
These provisions, which would have gone far to terminate the existence of private slaughterhouses
in London, were repealed on the recommendation of the Committee, whose report contained inter alia
the following conclusions—
17. They (the Committee) are, however, of opinion that it would be desirable, so far as
possible, without interfering with the trade, or subjecting those who carry it on to expense
or inconvenience, to diminish or rather to accelerate the diminution of the number of these
private slaughterhouses.
18. With this object the Committee recommend that additional slaughterhouses at the
Islington markets should be constructed and other conveniences given so as to induce
butchers to slaughter them (cattle) on the spot and not drive them through the streets to
their own premises.
19. The Committee draw a clear distinction, and consider it important, between private
slaughterhouses attached to the public market and public slaughterhouses.
20. The Committee also recommend that no additional private slaughterhouse should be
established in the central part of the metropolis except under very special circumstances, and
not then without the consent of some general authority, such as the Metropolitan Board of
Works, the Court of Quarter Sessions, or the Privy Council.
21. They further recommend that powers should be given to the Metropolitan Board of
Works to construct public slaughterhouses when it appeal's that by so doing they would
diminish the number of private slaughterhouses in any densely inhabited district.
Interest of course centres in the reasons which were given by the witnesses before this Committee
for the continuance of the private slaughterhouse system.
They may be briefly stated as follows—
1. In hot weather and without private slaughterhouses there would be practically no
meat in London.