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affairs. For they were industrious folk and, as the author of "Our Suburban
Residence" tells us, even the business man left for the City before
9 a.m. and was not seen again in Tottenham until "about 8.30 in the evening."
It was a change of the greatest significance to the parish when,
at a later date, the commercial tempo eased and a new fund of publicspiritedness
from among more leisured city men was released in its service.
For all this new life and activity in the parish the local builders
were warmly praised. "Great are the improvements" wrote one correspondent
of the Advertiser, "being effected through the building mania"., "Everyone
must rejoice to see the working classes availing themselves of the
enterprise of our builders and coming out to the country to reside", wrote
another. But with an honesty that characterised the paper's reporting,
(in contrast to its more partisan rival, the Herald) it spoke, too, of an
unpleasant side to the picture. As early as 1860 it referred to "the
rapid replacement of well built houses by rows of Jerry built dwellings".
By 1865 it was deeply regretting "that some of our speculative builders
have avariciously succeeded in disfiguring some portions of our district
with a new type of hovel, - not only unsightly but unsafe." The dangerously
low quality of some of the building had not gone unremarked by the
Board. But it had been advised both by the clerk and the surveyor that
its bye-laws were virtually powerless against faulty construction. A
certain thickness of wall and height of room it could enforce but in regard
to the actual building materials used it could take no action. Under
these circumstances Mr Kirby, the leading house agent in the parish
and himself a member of the Board, felt bound to warn the public in 1863,
by a letter to the Herald, that "we have houses erected and now erecting
where the mortar is nothing but the earth just as it is dug. And since
the pulling down of so many buildings in the City and Westminster for
railway and street improvements these wretched materials are what is used
for building in our suburb. Yet these places are finished in a very
showy style".
The whole face of the parish was altering: and so was its character.
The old stability and mellowness of its society were being replaced by a
flashy vigourousness. Superficially the town was flourishing as it had
never done before, but there were underlying weaknesses in the developments
which a few of the inhabitants had already observed to be potentially
serious.
LOCAL BOARD OF HEALTH 1864 TO 1872.
The Board's halcyon years lasted until 1864, when "owing to the extreme
pressure. of business" it was found necessary to revert to weekly
meetings. Each subsequent year the pressure on the members increased;
in 1869, for example, sixty-nine ordinary and eleven special meetings
were held in a desperate endeavour to cope with a situation which, by then,
had got out of control. Before considering the actual events which precipitated
all this unwonted activity on the Board's part and culminated
in a final debacle one or two very general observations on the