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6
putting the Act locally into force.
The first thing for Tottenham to do, therefore, was to prepare a
petition. It is, however, one of the few flaws in the astonishingly well
documented history of the place that we do not know precisely howorwhen
its petitioning was done; we simply know in this connection that Tottenham
and a number of other places acted with a swiftness that was embarrassing
from the point of view of the General Board. The Act was passed and the
General Board came into existence in August, but it was not until November
that it got down to keeping minutes and it was sometime during that nonminuted
period that petitions from about two dozen places, including Tottenham
were formally lodged at the Board's office in Gwydyr House, Whitehall.
When a complete, up-to-date and chronological list of petitions was published
in December, 1848, Tottenham stood seventh in a list of seventy
places. There is some rather flimsy evidence suggesting that it was
actually in the previous September that a public meeting had been held in
Tottenham, at which the petition was drawn up complete with signatures to
the number of 157: a figure which was almost exactly one tenth of the
ratepayers, no attempt having been made to do more in this direction than
satisfy the minimum requirements.
At this stage Tottenham's enthusiasm suffered a series of mild rebuffs.
The Metropolitan Commissioners of Sewers had just been established and
Tottenham's petition was shelved for three months until it was officially
announced that the new Commissioners were not going to spread their net
to include Tottenham. While this difficulty was being disposed of a
threat of cholera descended on the country and the General Board became
so preoccupied with cholera prevention that its inspectors could only
manage a trickle of inquiries, Tottenham seemed even to be losing its place
in the slow queue and in January, 184-9, the Vestry set up a Sanitary committee
of eight members, (including both Mr. Dean and Dr. Hall) with instructions
to press the General Board for a firm date for the enquiry
andmeantime to collect detailed information about conditions in the parish
Early in April the enquiry was at last held and the inspector's report,
favourable to the formation of a local board, was quickly available in
print. But there, owing to the overloaded state of the General Board's
business, the matter again hung fire for months. Just at this time
Tottenham for a few weeks knew its second experience of epidemic cholera,
but with only twelve deaths it once more escaped lightly in comparison
with some of its neighbours. At last in January, 1850, the long awaited
Order in Council appeared in the official gazette. And so on the next
quarter day, 25th March, 1850, the rated inhabitants, casting their votes
for the first time in an election for membership of Tottenham Local Board
of Health, saw their parish launched as a responsible local authority.
Tne printed report of the inspector referred to in the last paragraph
is an interesting document and a useful guide to the nature of the
tasks which faced the new Board. It was the work of Mr. William Ranger,
C. E.; one of the most experienced of the six superintendent inspectors