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1770. The main object of the measure was the constitution
of a general Commission to regulate the paving, lighting,
and cleansing of the streets, with certain specified exceptions,
in parts of the City and Liberties of Westminster,
the choice of the Commissioners, who were to be possessed
of real estate to the value of £100 a year, or personal
estate of not less than £5,000, being entrusted to the
Vestries of the several parishes. The Bill sought to
empower the Commissioners to levy a rate for their
purposes, not exceeding eighteen pence in the pound.
Parliament passed the measure early in 1771, and the
Vestry forthwith and subsequently appointed three Commissioners
to carry its provisions into effect.
Then came a debate in the Vestry upon yet another Bill
introduced, "for obtaining amendments and alterations, or
further and more extensive powers, to the paving, lighting,
and cleansing, not only the streets within the parishes of
St. Margaret and St. John the Evangelist, already included
within the present Acts of Parliament, but also to all those
which are not comprised therein." A Committee was
deputed to confer with the Commissioners with a view to
opposing certain clauses which were deemed objectionable,
and on 27th February, 1782, a Resolution was passed instructing
the Solicitor to oppose the Bill, so far as it
affected St. Margaret's parish. Opposition was, however,
unavailing, and the Bill, consisting of fifty-seven sections,
passed into law in a much more comprehensive form than
either of its predecessors. From the preamble a glimpse
at the condition of the parish may be obtained:—
"And whereas the pavement in such streets, lanes, ways, and other
places, is in general in so ruinous a state as to be extremely
dangerous for the passage of carriages and foot passengers;
and for want of proper levels and drains some of them cannot
be effectually cleansed: And whereas the said streets, lanes,
ways, and other places, are very insufficiently lighted in general,
and in many parts not at all, and are excessively annoyed by
night soil, and other offensive things being laid or cast therein,
or in the neighbourhood thereof, and by several other nuisances