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

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Whitechapel 1878

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel]

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15
6
Slaughter-houses.
7
Hackney Carriages.
8
Public Bathing.
9
Public Baths and Wash-houses and open Bathing Places.
Duties of the Officers and Servants.
The other important Act was passed to consolidate and amend
the law relating to factories and workshops. This Act (41 Vic.,
cap. 16,) is intituled the Factory and Workshop Act, 1878, and will
come into operation on the first day of January, 1879; by the provisions
of which Act either the whole or parts of the 19 Acts relating to
workshops or factories, which has been in force since the year 1802 to 1876,
will be repealed. Among the Acts to be repealed, is the 26 and 27 Vic.,
c.' 40, intituled the "Bakehouse Regulation Act, 1863." The principal
sections of this Act are embodied in the Consolidated Act; and the bakehouses
will, in future, be supervised by the factory inspectors, instead of, as
at present, by the Sanitary Officers of the local Boards.
It appears, however, by the fourth section, that " where it appears to
an Inspector under this Act that, any act, neglect, or default in relation to
any drain, water-closet, earth-closet, privy, ash-pit, water supply, nuisance,
or other matter in a factory or workshop, is punishable or remediable under
the law relating to public health, but not under this Act, that Inspector
shall give notice in writing of such act, neglect, or default, to the sanitary
authority in whose district the factory is situate; and it shall be the duty
of the sanitary authority to make such inquiry into the subject of the
notice, and take such action thereon as to that authority may seem proper,
for the purpose of enforcing the law."
In a note appended to this section by Mr. ALEXANDER REDGRAVE,
Her Majesty's Inspector of Factories, it is stated that " where the insanitary
condition is caused by faults of, or neglects in structural arrangements,
it becomes the duty of the Inspector to give notice thereof to the sanitary
authority, and it is the duty of the sauitary authority to act upon such
notice. The Inspector may take a sanitary officer with him into a factory
or workshop."
"The local authority has also power to enforce proper and sufficient
privy accommodation for both sexes." Under the provisions of this section
power is given to the local authorities to prevent the use of such