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11
works." It was a formidable attack on a body which had scarcely found
its feet, but the General Board fortunately knew precisely how to handle
a situation of this kind with promptness and firmness. Superintendent
Inspector Sanger was again dispatched to Tottenham; this time to hold an
inquiry into the petitioners' allegations. His report represented a
complete victory for the Local Board. The leaders of the revolt movement
were shown to be unsuccessful candidates for membership of the Board
or applicants for posts on the Board's staff. "In the course of a most
minute investigation" he wrote, "I saw nothing to justify any censure upon
the Local Board; on the contrary I have found they have discharged their
duties in a most zealous and praiseworthy fashion. They should be strongly
supported against the determined opposition which has been manifested
by a portion of the ratepayers." In the statament submitted at this enquiry
by the Local Board in its own defence there is a passage which shows
how early in its history local government encountered one of its fundamental
difficulties. "This Local Board feel it important to call the attention
of the General Board to the extreme difficulty, amounting almost to a
moral impossibility of obtaining in this (in common with all suburban
districts around the metropolis and other large towns) any fair expression
of public opinion on matters of a local or parochial nature. More than
nine tenths probably of the more influential and wealthy inhabitants of this
district are engaged during the day in commercial or mercantile pursuits
and, on returning at the close of their day to the retirement of their
country houses, manifest extreme reluctance to quit their homes again for
the purpose of entering the arena of parish disputes, a circumstance which
throws a preponderating power into the hands of the smaller rate-payers
of the district."
An immediate effect of Mr. Ranger's visit was to encourage the Board
to push on vigorously with its programme. The results in three years
were astonishing. Mr. Heath, the Clerk to the Board at the end of the
year 1853 in a letter to "The Times" proudly and neatly summarised the
changes:- "a complete system of drainage and water supply has been provided
for all that portion of Tottenham which is continuously built upon.
About fourteen miles of sewers and water mains have been laid down, all
cesspools emptied and filled in and suitable water closets provided for
even the poorest inhabitants who have also a constant supply of pure water
obtained from an artesian well and preserved in a covered reservoir laid
on to the houses at high pressure. The Board have also recently appointed
William Hall, who has been many years the medical officer for the poor
of the parish to be its medical officer of health. He reports the health
of the inhabitants to be in a very satisfactory state and the happiest
results are anticipated from the exertions of the Local Board."
For appointing a medical officer of health at this early date-when
nott a dozen similar appointments had been made in the whole country-the
Board deserves every credit: but Mr. Heath's remarks on the point are a
little misleading, for Mr. Hall was to act only for six months (at a
salary of £30.) for the specific purpose of reporting on sanitary