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2
HARROW HALF A CENTURY AGO (1854).
The hamlets of Harrow and Roxeth were Inspected
in January, 1854, by Walter Lewis, Esq., M.B., Cantab.,
the Superintending Medical Inspector to the General
Board of Health (the predecessor of the Local Government
Board), and his report is both interesting and instructive.
These hamlets formed a village containing 2,313
inhabitants, and 452 houses, with only one magistrate
(Mr. Rotch), who was an invalid, so that all police cases
were heard either at Edgware or at Hammersmith.
The Public Health Act had been applied in 1850. A
drainage system had been carried out, and a public
water supply provided. There were cesspools all over the
place, and many were uncovered. One cesspool at the
Head Master's house was so large that a wagon could easily
be hidden within it. The rich, who had hitherto drawn
their supply of water from private wells, now benefitted
by the public supply. The poor had access to the town
pump, the lower way, or King Charles's Well, and a pump
close to the Harrow pond. As the Inspector points out,
this occasioning much loss of time—a poor man's only
property." "The charge for water," he says, "was
extremely high, viz., £6 per cent, on the rateable value
of the houses, with an addition for each pupil living in
the boarding houses." A great many of the water closets
were unsupplied with water, which accounted for the small
quantity of sewage that had to be disposed of at the
oullet in Clayton's field, and also explained the reason
why "the whole of the closets of the working class people
were in a bad and unwholesome condition." There were
no ashpits or dustbins, and the footpaths were unpaved in
the poorer districts. "House refuse of all kinds was
thrown into the street, or back premises directly under
the windows of the houses, and the atmosphere rendered
impure."
He also points out the very insanitary state of the
"highly ornamental National Schools," and says that" the
atmosphere in and around them was highly charged with
deleterious gases." He gives examples of the poisonous
effects of cesspools, and the extremely unhealthy condition
of the cottages, especially at London Hill and Roxeth.