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55
Report under the Housing of the Working Classes Act.
The following Report has been submitted to the
Council:—
To the Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors of the Metropolitan
Borough of St. Marylebone.
Gentlemen,
In my Annual Report for 1883 (p. 124) will be found
the following remarks :—
" Devonshire Place, Lisson Grove, contributes to raise
the death-rate of the Christ Church district. It is a sort of
court with a paved yard ; its shape is that of a rectangle,
one entrance being in Salisbury Street, the other in Devonshire
Street. It consists of 26 houses, containing 273
inhabitants, thus averaging a little over 19 a house. The
inhabitants are composed of general labourers, bricklayers'
labourers, ostlers, hawkers, and others, with their wives and
families, each family as a rule occupying one room. I have
never found the sanitary state of the one side even reason
ably good; sixteen of the houses have damp foundations;
most of the drains are constructed of brick and are in a bad
condition. The death rate is high, seven years of deaths
yield an average rate of a little over 39 per thousand.
Consumption in its various forms, maladies of the chest,
and zymotic diseases are in excess."
In January, 1884, I reported Nos. 2 to 17 under the
Act then in force (Torrens' Act) as unfit for habitation.
The Surveyor (Mr. Tomkins) was called upon under that
Act to make a report. The Surveyor's Report, dated
February 7th, 1884, enumerates the various structural
defects, and concludes as follows :—" I am of opinion that
the thorough repair of the roofs and gutters, the proper
repair of the defective ceilings and floors, the repaving of
those yards that need it, the substitution of 6-in. glazed
stoneware drain pipes, properly laid, for the existing brick
drains, the excavation of the ground under the floors in the
ground floors, inserting air bricks back and front, the repair