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

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St Saviour's (Southwark) 1890

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Saviour's]

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therefrom, the local authority may summon the dairyman to
appear before them to show cause why an order should not
be made requiring him not to supply any milk therefrom
within the district until such order had been withdrawn ; and
if he fails to show cause, the local authority may make a prohibitory
order to that effect. The Act, however is wholly
repealed, so far as it relates to the London district, by the
Public Health (London) Act, 1891, which comes into operation
on the 1st January next, and most of its provisions are reenacted
in and form part of that Act.
Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890.
This Act received the Royal Assent on the 18th August,
Working 1890, and has the effect of consolidating and amending the
Artizans' Dwellings Acts and Lodging House Acts.
Part 1 is a re-enactment, with modifications, of what were
known as Cross's Acts, the authoritv to administer the same
being the London County Council. Part 2 is in lieu of
Torrens's Acts, and the administration thereof rests with the
Vestries and District Boards of the Metropolis. The Act
is thus described in a Summary issued by the London
County Council:—" It repeals the provisions in Torrens's
Acts which enabled Vestries, or, failing them, the County
Council, to enforce works under specifications from owners of
insanitary dwellings, and substitutes the closing ordor from a
magistrate, as provided by the Sanitary Acts, followed, if need
be, by an order for demolition, incorporating such of the provisions
of those Acts as are required for the purpose; at the
same time the clauses of Torrens's Acts dealing with obstructive
buildings are maintained, but enlarged in such a
manner as to remove those difficulties which have hitherto
impeded their successful execution, and to which the attention
o: Mr. Ritchie was recently specially called by the Council."
"The complicated machinery of the old Act of 1868, which
provided for preliminary specifications of Surveyors and
appeal thereon to Quarter Sessions anterior to the closing
or demolition of insanitary dwellings, is all done away with ;
and, to put it concisely, the law now makes it the absolute
duty of the Medical Officer of every district to report to his
local authority any premises unfit for human habitation. It
also, by incorporating a section similar to one of the clauses of
the Sanitary Act, 1866, makes it the duty of all local
authorities to cause periodical inspection of their districts for
the purpose of seeing whether any houses are so dangerous or
injurious to health as to be unfit for human habitation. Where
such is the case, the local authority is bound to serve a notice
on the owner, who has then to find out for himself what
works should be done, and if not done by a stated time, the
local authority is bound to apply to a magistrate for a closing
order, within seven days of which the premises must be