London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Ilford 1962

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Ilford]

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37
Inspectors; Newcastle under Lyme appointed one in 1834, Liverpool
had a Nuisance Inspector and assistants under the Liverpool Sanitary
Act 1846, and many other towns followed suit. But the appointment
of an Inspector and allowing him to discharge his sanitary
duties were not co-terminous. Indeed it paid the officer to eschew
sanitary enforcement rather than risk the loss of what became known
as a sinecure office. Thereby sanitary law was more honoured in the
breach than in the execution.
So parlous became the sanitary condition of the country that
Parliament, despite the vociferous opposition of those vested
interests in slum property, made sanitary law compulsory and not
permissive, by the Public Health Act of 1872, later repealed with
the codifying Act of 1875 which laid the foundation for effective
modem sanitary administration. Thereby the appointment of Sanitary
Officers became obligatory and sanitary law enforcement made a
specific object of local government administration and not its avoidance.
Nuisance Inspectors, later known as Sanitary Inspectors and
still later as Public Health Inspectors were then clothed with clearly
defined sanitary duties prescribed by Orders and Regulations of the
central government. Furthermore, to prevent avoidance of the rules,
each inspector was not to be dismissed except by or with the consent
of the general Board of Health, later the Local Government
Board and now the Ministry of Health and the officer was to be paid
a salary approved by the central department whilst the mode of
appointment and qualifications to be held were to be approved likewise.
Despite all this the history of the office of Public Health
Inspector is strewn with the opposition of those whose proprietary
interests would be injured by systematic and strict sanitary enforcement.
Officers, not in Ilford, have been dismissed on trivial grounds
and obstructions have been placed in the officers path whilst endeavouring
to discharge his duties according to law. Others elsewhere
have resigned their office rather than subject themselves to the
personal demands of interested authority members and their friends.
The Smoke Control programme has steadily increased and the
estimates of cost of appliances and works have fallen short of
expectation, indicating either the readiness of those affected by the
Orders to accept clean air at their own expense or that the contribution
from public funds is not worth the trouble of collection.
Many people are taking the opportunity of completely rearranging
the domestic heating system and receiving a grant of about £4 towards
the cost. There has not been an offence against the Act since Orders
were first made in 1960.
Food and Drugs and Food Hygiene administration have formed