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With the extension of London to Barking and miles beyond, the question of
the disposal of the dead has become a very serious matter. Cremation is, of course,
the most hygienic method. I hesitate to advocate cremation so insistently as
some people do, because I value highly the sentimental attachments of so many
people to our national method of burial.
It cannot, however, be too widely known that cremation can be undertaken
at the Garden of Rest, the crematorium maintained by the City of London at Little
Ilford.
The question of office accommodation for your staff is at the moment one of
your pressing problems.
In May, 1931, the staff of the Public Health Department moved from offices
over Barclay's Bank at 41, East Street, to a suite of offices in the Central Hall, but,
such has been the development of the work, that these new offices are already
inadequate for the present staff.
I know that you have under your consideration the whole question of accommodation
for the Council and its staff, and I would like to say, with reference to the
staff of the Public Health Department, that it would be desirable not only to have
accommodation at the centre of the town but also on the Becontree Estate.
The Council will immediately see that there would be an economy in sanitary
inspectors, health visitors, school nurses, etc., having a centre on the Becontree
Estate. Working from such a centre would be more economical of time than working
from the main offices.
In the same way the Council have already decided that a dental officer shall
operate on the Becontree Estate. This, of course, will entail some accommodation
for the dental officer, for the dental nurse, for the records necessary in this work,
and for the necessary clerical assistance.
It will not be so immediately obvious, but it will, I think, be found by those
who enquire closely into it, that similarly a saving of time will accrue from medical
records and statistics of the children on the Becontree Estate being housed in that
part of the town.