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APPENDIX C
A HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE ORIGINS,
DEVELOPMENT AND PRESENT ORGANISATION
OF THE SCHOOL HEALTH SERVICE
Foreword by Dr. C. J. THOMAS,
Senior Medical Officer, School Health Service
from 1902-1941
'There is cause here for pride 'said Sir Gwilym Gibbon speaking of the
school health service in his monumental survey of the Council's
activities issued to mark its Jubilee in 1939.
This will be the verdict too, of all who read the following pages. They will bring home
how earnest is the solicitude of the Council for the care and well-being of the children
and young people in the schools of the Metropolis. There are two names that stand out
in the history of the service; one is that of Dr. James Kerr, the first school medical
officer, who initiated the medical inspection of school children and who had a vision
of a great preventive service and the faculty of kindling enthusiasm in his colleagues and
helpers, and the other is that of Miss Morton, the first principal organiser of school
care committees. The establishment in every school of a care committee to which is
delegated certain powers of the central authority is the unique feature of the London
system. Representatives of the care committees attend hospitals and centres where
school children are treated and send a stream of information which enables the care
committees to aid the parents in carrying out the advice given and to secure such
modifications of social conditions as are necessary in the interests of the child concerned.
A comprehensive school dental service, preventive in outlook, is one of the pillars
of a complete national health service. The aim should be that every child leaving
school should enter industry with sound teeth and a healthy mouth. The disruption of
the school dental service was an unforeseen result of the establishment of the national
health service. It was a late example of 'the cart before the horse' and of the baffling
antithesis which so often makes itself apparent between preventive and curative
medicine. The saving to the community of a complete and flourishing school dental
service is great and no effort should be spared to ensure it.
To one whose fortune it has been to experience at first hand from the beginning all
the horror of the contact with the condition of the children in the first years of the
century, the frustration and despair engendered by the lack of means and power to
remedy matters and the dawn of expectation as the conscience of the community was
aroused and empowering legislation initiated, the steady growth of the service is the
fulfilment of hope and a dream come true.
The London School Board and the transfer of its powers to the Council
The Elementary Education Act of 1870 laid the foundation of a national system of
elementary education. The Act provided that there should be one school board for
London, which first met on 15th December, 1870. The Board found that more than
half the children of London had no school to attend, and it provided a school place for
every child needing one, created a system to enforce school attendance, and built up a
body of competent teachers. It did not, however, build up a school medical service.
In its final report, the London School Board stated:
The London
School Board
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