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

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West Ham 1904

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for West Ham]

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18
Manufacture of Ice Cream.—The Women Inspectors
have recently done good service in making a fairly exhaustive visitation
of the premises where Ice Cream or Hokey Pokey are manufactured
or sold, with a view to improving the conditions under which these
articles are prepared for the public.

In all 269 premises were visited, distributed among the various Wards of the Borough as follows:—

New Town24West Ham30
Forest Gate24Plaistow25
High Street12Hudsons35
Broadway16Canning Town19
Park8Tidal Basin21
Upton29Custom House and Silvertown26

In the majority of the instances the Ice Cream was prepared and
sold in connection with shop premises as an addition to retail trade in
other commodities, such as confectionery, tobacco, mineral waters, &c.
In only eleven instances were private premises used for the purpose of
wholly supplying perambulating barrows for distribution in the streets,
while in two instances Ice Cream barrows were distributing within
the Borough delicacies prepared in Poplar and Stepney.
In examining the premises an attempt was made to classify them
according to the cleanliness exhibited in methods and means, and so
far as could be judged by outward conditions as regards the interior of
buildings and the utensils used, the premises resolved themselves into
three groups, (a) Clean, 205; (b) Fairly Clean, 33; (c) Dirty, 31.
Note was taken of sanitary defects anywhere upon the premises,
such as would be included in a report of a house-to-house inspection,
and dividing these into major and minor, according as the defects
found were of a graver character or numerically strong on the one
hand or comparatively slight on the other, it was found that out of
106 premises in which defects were apparent, 21 might be described