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conditions in the lower parts of the town. The brief appointment duly
terminated and it was twenty years before a medical officer of health
again appeared on the Board's payroll.
But by and large Mr. Heath's was a fair statement of the position and
there was probably not another town — no matter of what size — in the
country at the time with such a record of sanitary progress as Tottenham.
Shortly before his letter was written a singular mark of official favour
had been shown to the parish when the members of the General Board, Lord
Shaftesbury, Mr. Edwin Chadwick and Dr. Southwood Smith and two of its
superintendent inspectors spent a day there inspecting and praising the
various sanitary works. Another unusual expression of appreciation of
the Local Board's work and of the part Dr. Hall had played in helping to
get the Board established was mentioned in amemorandum which he prepared
during his brief tenure of the medical officership: "Last summer" he
wrote "an old woman in Scotland Green cried out as I passed, ' God bless
you doctor for getting us the 'local', you have saved me three halfpence
a week in fly-papers: for when we had all the filth about us and no water
to wash it away with we were swarmed with them, but I never see a fly now'."
The achievements were the more remarkable in the light of exceptional
difficulties which had had to be overcome. Nothing had gone according
to plan. The contractors for building both the sewage and the water
works had gone out of business before their jobs were half completed
The engine maker, while building the engine and pumps for the wells, had
become a bankrupt. Fresh contracts had been difficult to obtain and in the
end the Board had had to do most of the work by direct labour under
its own surveyor. As a consequence there was an unhappy and unhealthy
financial side to these developments. Estimates had all been exceeded,
The specific loan accounts, authorised by the General Board, and the three
special improvement rate accounts which varied between one part of the
parish and another, had become hopelessly intermingled and confused. The
rates, which it had been confidently stated in the early days of the Board
should never exceed a shilling in the pound, had risen to over three shillings
for some of the inhabitants. To meet the situation the Board had
been lured to the slippery slopes of loose accountancy. The weakness on
this score may well have sprung from an excusable weariness on the part
of the members for the Board had worked extremely hard, and it is significant
that in 1854 the Chairman who had been indefatigable in his duties
was ordered away on medical grounds for three months rest. Superficially
the various services were working as well as could be expected and it must
have seemed a safe moment to relax. It was wishful thinking, however,
for there was a trickling undercurrent of minor troubles which, while the
Board relaxed, steadily massed themselves into a major crisis.
By the persistent exercise of powers under its by-laws the Board had
been making enemies right and left. Owners of lodging houses had been
thoroughly harried, butchers had had to look to their slaughter-houses,
builders had found it thoroughly inconvenient to have to submit building
projects to the Board for approval. A first class wrangle had arisen