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3
PUBLIC HEALTH DEPARTMENT.
TOWN HALL, HACKNEY, E, 8
August, 1953
To His Worship the Mayor and to the Aldermen and
Councillors of the Metropolitan Borough of Hackney.
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to present the annual report of the Medical Officer of
Health for the year 1952. This, I am informed, is the 97th Report in a series
submitted by Medical Officers of Health to the Hackney Board of Works and the
Hackney Borough Council, but it is the first report which I am privileged to
write.
The first Medical Officer of Health was Dr J. W Tripe, who was appointed
under the Metropolis Management Act of 1855 and who held the office from 1856
to 1892. Dr„ Tripe was succeeded by Dr King-Warry, who remained in office
until 1919. Dr. W. W. E. Fletcher was appointed Acting Medical Officer of
Health for the period 1919-1920, when Dr. G. H. Dart, who resigned on December
31st last year, was appointed.
You will be aware that I only took up duty as Medical Officer of Health
to this Borough on January 1st of the current year. As I was not in office
during the year to which this report relates I naturally find myself in some
difficulty in presenting a clear picture of the work of the department throughout
1952, and I would therefore claim your indulgence. The impressions I
give are based primarily on the statistics for the year which have been placed
before me, but no doubt the picture I present may well be coloured to some
extent by the impressions I have gained during the seven or eight months I
have been in charge of the Public Health Department.'
May I, in the first place, thank everybody for the kindly and generous
welcome I have received. The Chairman and members of the Public Health
Committee in office when I came, and of the new Committee appointed in May,
have been most helpful and encouraging, and that also applies equally to the
Chairmen and members of other Committees and, indeed, to the members of the
Council as a whole. I have received the most wholehearted and friendly cooperation
from my fellow Chief Officers, a fact of no mean importance, and one
which has been most helpful to me and made my task of getting to grips with
the problems of a Metropolitan Borough Public Health Department very much
easier than might otherwise have been.
I would like at this stage to pay tribute to the work of my predecessor,
Dr. G. H. Dart, whose record of excellent service in so many spheres of public
health and preventive medicine in this Borough over the long period of thirtytwo
years is well known to everybody. Dr. Dart also, from the moment I was
appointed, most generously gave me every possible assistance in connection
with the work of the Department, and as a result the burden of taking up my
new office was considerably lightened - I would like him to be assured of my
profound gratitude.
Hackney in regard to acreage and population occupies sixth place in
London's twenty-eight metropolitan boroughs. In area it isthe largest
borough north of the Thames although our neighbouring borough of Islington has
a larger population. It is most obvious to even a newcomer to the Borough
that many changes have taken place over the last quarter century, and although
most of these changes can be considered to be improvements and in the interests
of the inhabitants generally, it is equally clear that much remains to be done
in many spheres.
The results of the 1951 census show that over the twenty-one year period
since the 1931 census the population of the Borough decreased by roughly
twenty per cent. Some reduction in population in our London boroughs and big