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48
tically re-constituted the Department, a brief notice of it may
not be unacceptable at the present time. On the passing of the
Metropolis Local Management Act, which called your Vestry into
existence in 1855, two inspectors, Mr. Giles Lovett and Mr. G H.
Wood, were appointed, Inspector Lovett taking cognizance of indoor
nuisances and sanitary defects in all parts of the parish (the
area of it being 2,190 acres, and its configuration—great length
and little breadth—inconvenient) while Inspector Wood was chiefly
if not wholly concerned with street obstructions and such like matters.
At this time the estimated population of Kensington was
55,000, and the number of inhabited dwellings 7000.
In 1866, the population having increased to 96,000, and the
number of occupied dwellings to 12,000, your Vestry resolved to
appoint an additional Inspector, and to divide the parish into three
districts—a "north" district including all that part of the parish
north of the centre of the Uxbridge Road, a "south" district embracing
all that part of the parish south of the centre of Kensington
Road, and a "central" district comprising the remainder of
the parish, viz., that portion of it between the north and the south
districts respectively. It was also settled that each officer should
perform all the duties appertaining to the office of Sanitary Inspector,
and Inspector of Nuisances, in his own district.
The new arrangement, Mr. Langman having been appointed to
the North, Mr. Wood to the Central, and Mr. Lovett to the South
District, worked satisfactorily, and was reported on favourably by
my predecessor after a year's experience of it. Not long afterwards,
however, Inspector Lovett having resigned his appointment
on account of ill-health, the Vestry resolved to combine the central
and southern districts under Inspector Wood, thus reducing the
staff to the original number. I am not prepared to say that the
division of the parish thus effected was an unequal one—though
the constant and almost portentous growth of the north district,
tended more and more to make it so—-but it soon became apparent
that the work of either district was hopelessly beyond the capacity
of any one man.
In 1871 I had the honour to be appointed the Medical Officer
of Health, and soon afterwards the Vestry, at my request, resolved
to relieve the Inspectors of some of their work, by appointing
a Sanitary Clerk, who should be an Inspector also, but
without district, and competent to undertake any special work at
the discretion of the Medical Officer. Mr. Richard C. Rudman
was the successful candidate for the new appointment. The next
step towards placing the sanitary staff on a proper footing arose
out of the frequency with which complaints were made by
parishioners of the non-removal of dust and other refuse from
their premises, and the necessary attention to which occupied
much of the Inspectors' time to the great hindrance of them in