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(1) The registered, being premises in use since the Towns Improvement
Clauses Act, 1847.
(2) Those licensed without limit of time, being slaughterhouses
established between 1847 and 1890, the date of the passing of the Public
Health Act (Amendment) Act.
(3) Those licensed for specific periods, usually for one year.
Licences and registrations in force before the coming into operation
of the 1938 Food and Drugs Act expired four months after this date,
namely 1st October, 1939.
There had in fact been no registered slaughterhouses in the district,
but there were in 1934 nine licensed premises. Owing to changes there
just before the war eight licensed slaughterhouses, namely those at
9, Northolt Road, South Harrow; 46, High Street, Wealdstone; 94, High
Street, Wealdstone; High Street, Pinner; Green Man, Honeypot Lane,
Stanmore; Stanmore Hill; Stanmore Hall Farm and 63, High Street,
Edgware. These slaughterhouses were not very busy as only a limited
amount of killing took place there. For instance in 1938 the killings
were of 146 cattle excluding cows, 59 cows, 314 calves, 1,601 sheep and
lambs and 1,561 pigs. 732 visits were paid to the slaughterhouses during
that year by the Sanitary Inspectors to examine these 3,681 carcasses.
The other type of premises used for killing was the public abattoir.
This where provided was usually owned by the local authority who
granted facilities to the local butchers. Although local authorities have
for many years had powers to provide abattoirs and in such cases to
close private slaughterhouses little use has been made of these powers.
When the Harrow Council considered the position in 1935 they decided
that the limited amount of killing performed in this district did not
warrant the establishment of a municipal abattoir.
Shortly after the outbreak of the war most of the killing at private
slaughterhouses ceased. The Livestock (Restriction on Slaughtering)
Order of the Ministry of Food came into operation early in 1940. This
resulted in the work previously carried out in about 11,500 premises being
concentrated at some 500 slaughterhouses. The continuance up to the
outbreak of the war of the use of a large number of private slaughterhouses
throughout the country was a reflection on the Public
Health Services as so many of the premises were anything but
satisfactory, while too, their very numbers made it impossible to arrange
for the examination of all the animals killed there. Because many of
the premises selected by the Ministry of Food were accepted more from
the point of view of convenience of distribution of the meat than from
their suitability for use as slaughter houses, the effect of the operation of
the Order, although bringing about great improvements, still left the
situation in some areas not satisfactory.
Only very little use was made of any of the local slaughterhouses
during most of the war years. The occasional pig or sheep which was
killed belonged to an institution or private pig club, though for a short
time more use was made of one of the slaughterhouses to provide meat
for troops stationed just outside the district. From the end of the war
until last year the same arrangements have continued, and the use of private