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school children was undertaken, the duties were rearranged, and
a School Nurse was appointed instead of the second Health
Visitor.
At the beginning of 1913 an Infants Consultation was
instituted in a room at the Priory School. An account of the
year's working will be found on a subsequent page, but its institution
was felt to be necessary, as one Health Visitor could not
revisit an appreciable number of the homes where a birth had
occurred.
Although not a municipal undertaking, the initiation of the
movement for the establishment of a Day Nursery in South Acton
was due to the efforts of some members of the Council. A clause
was proposed in the Acton Improvement Act of 1904, empowering
the Council to establish and maintain one or more creches. The
Parliamentary Committee, though professing sympathy, refused
the application. Philanthropic Agencies took the matter up, and
the Day Nursery was opened in Strafford Road in January, 1908.
The first Chairman of the Committee of Management was Mr.
E. F. Hunt, who was at the time Chairman of the Health Committee,
and some of the members of the Council have continuously
kept in close touch with the work of the Day Nursery. Its
establishment has undoubtedly been of value in the reduction of
infantile mortality. One of the objections raised against creches
is their liability to encourage premature weaning, and in many
creches it must be admitted that this danger is not sufficiently
appreciated.
In Acton every safeguard is adopted to obviate this. The
creche is not too large, and is so situated as to be convenient
for the mothers to leave their work for the purpose of suckling
their children. The creche has 40 cots, and the mothers work
at laundries w ithin easy reach, and every encouragement is given
at the creche to the mothers who wish to suckle their children.
We are now in a position to examine the progress which has
been made in the reduction of the infantile mortality and the
possible relation which such reduction bears to the measures
specified.