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67
This was an appeal from a judgment delivered by Mr. Alderman Strong on
the 3rd June, 1902, when John Benjamin Kyffin, a Surveyor and Agent, of
Tacsowa House, Dulwich Common, was fined £5 and £2 2s. expenses for
permitting overcrowding on the first floor of No. 13, Shaftesbury Place, and
a further fine of £2 and 5s. per day for permitting the overcrowding to
continue at the said premises for sixteen days.
The case was heard in the King's Bench Division of the High Court on
the 27th March, 1903, before Lord Chief Justice Alverstone and Justices
Wills and Channell, when the following important principle was established:—
It is a question of fact to be decided by the Magistrate as to whether
or not a building let in separate tenements is a house "which is let in
lodgings or occupied by members of more than one family "within the
meaning of Section 94 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891.
Mr. Alderman Strong had found that the building was a house let in
lodgings within the meaning of Section 94 of the Public Health (London)
Act, 1891, and convicted.
It was contended on behalf of the appellant that the families were tenants
and not lodgers, and the case of Weatheritt v. Cantlay (1901), 2 K. B. 285,
was relied upon.
In the result the Court dismissed the appeal with costs. The Court
delivered judgment in the following terms:—
"Lord Alverstone: If this house, under the circumstances stated
"in the case, does not fall within the Section, I fail to see what house
"would fall within the Section. The Magistrate has found as a fact that
KYFFIN v. SIMMONS.
Closed or Demolished during 1903.
west district.
No. 6, Sugar Loaf Court. No. 4, Bartholomew Place.
No. 87, Long Lane. No. 8, Little New Street.
No. 88, Do. No. 2, New Street Square.
No. 33, Bartholomew Close. No. 22, Middle Street.
No. 35, Do. No. 8, East Passage.
No. 35½, Do. No. 19, Cloth Fair.
No. 3, Bartholomew Place. No. 17, King's Head Court, Fetter Lane.
A full list of Tenement Houses still on the Register is given in
Appendix C, page 149.