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school places per house, though high, was not sufficient, so that
many schools have, since their erection, had their limited playground
accommodation depleted for the erection of further
buildings to accommodate the extra children.
(d) General health services.—(1) Isolation hospital.—
The Romford Rural District Council was one of the constitutent
authorities of the Romford Joint Hospital Board, which at the
time that the building of the estate began maintained a hospital
of 54 beds. The number of beds remained the same until early
in 1931. This resulted in the enforced treatment of some hundreds
of cases of infectious disease in their homes. In 1929 there were 501
cases of scarlet fever notified; of these, 317 were treated entirely
at home. At the time that the beds were free, approximately
one-half the notified cases were admitted, but over a period of three
months only one case in six was sent in. This necessitated selection
of cases to be admitted, the order of selection being clinical grounds,
difficulty in nursing case at home, exclusion of the wage-earner
from work if the case remained at home, and overcrowding with
much scope for spread of infection. In 1930, out of 513 cases of
scarlet fever, 161 were admitted to the local Isolation Hospital,
and 52 to others, leaving 300 treated at home.
(2) General hospital.—The absence of a general hospital
in the neighbourhood necessitated the use of the Poor Law Hospital
as an emergency general hospital. More recently the local
Ilford Emergency Hospital has developed and has been converted
into a general hospital, but it was only in 1931 that any additional
beds were available.
(3) Nursing in the home.—In 1927, there were two nurse
midwives who formed the only general nursing service in the
district. The service has expanded and to-day the nurses of the
local association are housed in their own home with twelve or more
resident.
(e) This is a group of problems which are due chiefly to a
rapid development occurring in a rural district. For some years,
some rural characters of the district offended the susceptibilities
of an urban population—this applies more particularly to such
details as proximity of cowsheds, surfacing of roads and the like.
Shop property, being erected by private enterprise, appeared
ater than the occupation of the houses. This delay provided a
fruitful field for itinerant salesmen, the place being flooded with
vendors, very difficult to control, selling goods of doubtful quality.
Open spaces lying adjacent to populated districts provided a happy
hunting ground for fairs. In many cases the sanitary arrangements