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9
To the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the
Borough of Bromley.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
This is my twenty-sixth Annual Report and covers the year
1950. Because it is the half century it is, perhaps, opportune to
refresh our memories on some of the milestones of progress in
public health over the past hundred years.
In the eighteen forties cholera and other acute intestinal
infections were endemic, not only in Bromley, but in the country
as a whole. It was these recurrent epidemics that caused Sir
Edwin Chadwick, a pioneer in Public Health, to be instructed
by Parliament to set in motion measures for the control and
prevention of disease. Because he based his administration on
centralisation, his efforts were only partially successful, but they
did lead to the first Public Health Act of 1848 whereby Local
Boards of Health were empowered to be set up and to replace
the inadequate administration by the Parish Vestries. It was
not, however, until 1867 that the Bromley Local Board of Health
was formed. One of their first resolutions was to form a Sanitary
Committee of four of their elected members, two of whom were
general medical practitioners. Their first action was to report
upon insanitary cottages at Masons Hill and upon cesspool
pollution of the Ravensbourne and to deal with "streets which
were defiled by pools of foul water and heaps of decomposing
refuse indiscriminately scattered abroad." In the same year they
found it necessary to appoint the first Surveyor and Inspector of
Nuisances—Mr. Arthur Jacob, at a salary of £150 per year.
The next milestone of national and local importance was the
passing into Law of the Public Health Act of 1875, extending
the powers and functions of Local Boards of Health and providing
for the formation of Local Authorities. As a result of
this Act, Dr. C. O. Bayliss was appointed part-time Medical
Officer of Health and Mr. Hugh S. Gregeen as the first wholetime
Inspector of Nuisances in 1876.
Two years later, in 1878, was formed the West Kent Main
Sewerage Board, to make order out of the chaos of drainage in
the area.
It was not until 1895, twenty years after the passing of the
1875 Act, that Bromley Local Board of Health was replaced bv
the formation of the Urban District of Bromley. Three years