View report page

APPENDIX I
LONDON PORT HEALTH AUTHORITY CENTENARY
THE WORK OF DR. H. LEACH THE FIRST M.O.H. OF THE PORT
Paper by Dr. W.G. Swann, M.D., B.Sc.,
Medical Officer of Health, Port and City of London.
This being the Centennial Anniversary of the Port of London Health Authority, I thought it
would be salutary to look into the history of the beginnings of Port Health Administration in
London and in particular see the high example set by the first M.O.H. of the Port of London, Dr.
Harry Leach.
Sir John Simon realised that the Government of his time could not entirely measure and
certainly could not control the operation of its sanitary policies as it was out of touch with the
local working of the sanitary system. This knowledge and agitation from pressure groups led to
the formation of the Royal Sanitary Commission in 1868. Simon, who retired from the post of M.O.H.
of the City in 1855to become Medical Adviser to the Local Government Board, in his Board Annual
Reports for 1868 and 1869 expatiated on the deficiences of sanitary law and administration and
proposed various schemes to remedy these defects, including consolidation of the existing chaotic
legislation. The Sanitary Commission reported in full in 1871 and produced a detailed draft of a
comprehensive consolidating statute which formed the basis of the monumental' Public Health Act
of 1875, though the element of The Royal Commission Programme enabling Port Sanitary Authorities
to be created was incorporated in a Public Health Act of 1872.
A Section of this Act gave power to the Local Government Board by provisional order to
constitute any riparian authority the port sanitary authority of the whole or part of a port. This
section extended to the Port of London and The Mayor, Aldermen and Common Councilmen of the
City of London were deemed to be the sanitary authority of the Port of London. This port is a
port as established for the purposes of the law relating to the customs of the United Kingdom.
The central government in this instance constituted the Corporation of London, one riparian
authority out of over forty authorities abutting on the port, when it could have constituted a joint
board consisting of two or more of these riparian authorities to be the port health authority. One
may ask why? An answer as good as any is that given by R.R. Sharpe in his book London and the
Kingdom —
"As conservators of the river Thames, the Corporation did much to improve its navigation,
but in 1857 the conservancy was taken away from the City and became vested in a board.
In 1872, however, the Corporation became the sanitary authority of the Port of London
under somewhat remarkable circumstances. When the Public Health Bill of that year was
framed, the Local Government Board long hesitated as to whom the duty of acting as the
sanitary authority of the Port of London should be committed. At the last moment the
Corporation stept in and volunteered to undertake the duty free of expense. The government
readily accepted the offer, and to this patriotic act on the part of the municipality
as well as to the energy of its executive officers, it is largely due that this vast metropolis
enjoys comparative immunity from cholera and zymotic diseases and that the city itself,
besides being the best paved and best lighted, is also the most healthy city in the
civilised world."
The Corporation of London on 29th July, 1872, appointed a Port of London Sanitary Committee
to carry the requirements of the Public Health Act, 1872, into effect when it shall have received
the Royal Assent. This Act received the Royal Assent on 10th August, 1872.
The first order of the Local Government Board dated 7th September, 1872, assgned various
Nuisance Acts to the Port Sanitary Authority as well as the duty of appointing a Medical Officer
of Health and an Inspector of Nuisances for the Port. On receipt of this order the Sanitary Committee
considered it necessary that they should have clearly defined the limits of jurisdiction of
the Corporation as Port Sanitary Authority. The opinion of the Law Officers of the Corporation
was that "The extent of the jurisdiction of the Corporation of London under the Public Health
Act, 1872, is limited to that Port as established for the purposes of the laws relating to the
Customs".
The Committee applied to the Commissioners of H.M. Customs for information as to the
extent of this jurisdiction and received the reply that "The Limits of the Port of London are set
out by Treasury Warrant dated 15th January, 1856". These limits were subsequently amended by
Treasury Minute dated 1st August, 1883, as follows:-
"They commence at high water mark in the River Thames at Teddington Lock, in the
County of Surrey, and extend down both sides of the said River Thames to an imaginary
straight line drawn from the Pilot mark at the entrance of Havengore Creek in the County
i i