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5
POPLAR and STEPNEY
SICK ASYLUM DISTRICT.
IN submitting the Report and Statistics for the year
ending Lady-Day, 1897, it may not be uninteresting
to review the history of the Poplar and Stepney
Sick Asylum District from its commencement.
The circumstances connected with the treatment
and classification of the indoor poor of the Metropolis
prior to 1867 and the revelations of Mr. James Greenwood,
the story of whose experiences when in the guise of
an amateur casual, as recorded in the press caused no
small sensation at the time, the memory of which
will probably be fresh in the minds of many. It was
to these that may partly be ascribed the passing of the
Metropolitan Poor Act of 1867—known at the time as
Mr. Gathorne Hardy's Act—an Act which led to an
almost entire subversion of the system of Poor Relief,
which, since the passing of the Poor Law Amendment
Act of 1834 had been in operation in the Metropolis.
By the Metropolitan Poor Act, 1867, authority was
given for the Metropolis to be divided into Districts for
the provision of Asylums for the "reception and relief
of the Sick, Insane, Infirm, or other class or classes of
the Poor chargeable in Unions and Parishes of the
Metropolis," and thus remove from the Workhouses and
place under separate management such of the inmates