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London County Council.
SANITARY CONDITION OF ST. PANCRAS.
Report by the Medical Officer presenting a report by Dr. Hamer on the sanitary
condition and administration of the Parish of St. Pancras.
(Printed by order of the Public Health Committee.)
Public Health Department,
Spring Gardens,
13th October, 1898.
In presenting Dr. Hamer's report on the sanitary condition and administration of St. Pancras,
I would beg to remind the Public Health Committee that at the beginning of this year the Vestry of
St. Pancras received from Dr. Sykes, the medical officer of health of that district, a report in which he
showed that in respect of the number of sanitary inspectors employed, St. Pancras compared
unfavourably with other large districts in London. The Health Committee of the vestry thereupon
recommended that two additional sanitary inspectors and an additional clerk be appointed for a period
of twelve months, but the vestry declined to adopt the recommendation of the Committee. The
sufficiency of inspection of houses in the district occupied by poor persons had already been under the
consideration of the Council's Public Health Committee in connection with a report by Dr. Hamer on
the subject of the regulation of tenement houses, which contained the following paragraph relating to
St. Pancras—
By-laws were confirmed in 1893, and a few houses have been placed on the register.
The number registered at the present time is, however, only 166. There must be a large
number of houses in this district to which by-laws might with great advantage be applied. I
found, in the course of three days' inspection, numerous instances of houses urgently requiring
to be kept under proper supervision, and the experience gained rendered it quite clear that
adequate supervision cannot be exercised over tenement houses in this parish unless the
existing staff is strengthened for the purpose. I have noted numerous instances of dirty and
dilapidated conditions of rooms, of overcrowding, and of other conditions requiring remedy.
In some of the streets I visited I found many cases of overcrowding; in some houses the
overcrowding was not limited to one room, but many of the rooms were admittedly accommodating
a number of persons in excess of the limits laid down in the by-laws. Many of
the houses I visited were in an exceedingly dirty and vermin-infested condition. There is
obviously much need for an increased amount of inspection in this parish, and some of the
conditions commonly met with, and which call for remedy with special urgency, are precisely
those which could be satisfactorily dealt with by the enforcement of the existing by-laws
relating to houses let in lodgings.
This report had already been communicated to the Vestry before they resolved not to adopt
their own Committee's recommendation, and the Council's Public Health Committee therefore decided
that Dr. Hamer should make inquiry in the district with a view to determining what its requirements
were.
Dr. Hamer's present report shows that St. Pancras contains a larger number of persons living
in tenements of one and two rooms than any other London sanitary district. He compares the results of
his inspection of the district with those obtained by similar inspection in Mile-end Old-town, Whitechapel
and Lambeth, and points to the unfavourable position of St. Pancras in respect to the number
of dirty, dilapidated, and overcrowded houses. Dr. Hamer lays stress upon the need of maintaining a
proper standard of house accommodation, and as a means towards that end, of the regulation of the
poorer houses let in lodgings. He found in St. Pancras as he has found elsewhere that houses, in which
dirty and dilapidated conditions and overcrowding especially existed, occurred in groups, and were
evidently associated with particular ownerships. Such houses need supervision much in the same way
as common lodging-houses, and with the existing staff of sanitary inspectors it has been found impossible
to undertake this duty.
For the purpose of maintaining the district in proper sanitary condition he recommends the
appointment of seven additional sanitary inspectors with the necessary clerical staff. This recommendation
I beg to endorse.
Shirley F. Murphy,
Medical Officer of Health.
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