We find the authority of Parliament exercised in the reign of Henry VII. to restrain a nuisance. In the 4th of his reign, c. 3.
“Item, it was shewed by a petition put to the king, our said sovereign lord, in the said Parliament, by his subjects and parishioners of the parish of St. Faith’s and St. Gregory’s in London, near adjoining unto the cathedral church of St. Paul’s, that whereas great concourse of people as well of his royal person as of other great lords and states with other his true subjects, oftentimes was had unto the said cathedral church, and that for the most part throughout the parishes aforesaid the which oftentimes been greatly annoyed and distempered by corrupt airs engendered in the said parishes, by occasion of blood and other foulis things by reason of the slaughter of beasts and scalding of swine, had and done in the butchery of St. Nicholas’s flesh shambles, whose corruption and foul ordure by violence of unclean, corrupt, and putrefied waters is borne down through the said parishes, &c., complaint whereof at many and divers seasons also by the space of sixteen years continually, as well by canons and petty canons of the said cathedral church, landlords there, as also by many other of the king’s subjects, of right honest behaviour, hath been made unto divers mayors and aldermen of the City of London and no remedy had ne found; that it may please our said sovereign lord of his abundant grace, to provide for the conservation as well of his most royal person, as to succour his poor subjects and suppliants in this behalf, considering that in few noble cities and towns, or none within Christendon, whereat travelling men have laboured, the common slaughter-house of beasts should be kept in any special part within the walls of the same, lest it might engender sickness unto the destruction of the people.”
Therefore it is enacted that butchers shall not slay beasts within the walls of London; and that this law be observed in every walled town “except Berwick and Carlisle.”
The courts, however, have always had regard to the convenience of trade: thus it was held,—
“Si homme fait candells deins un vill, per qui il cause un noysom sent al inhabitants, uncore ceo nest ascun nusans car le needfulness de eux dispensera ove le noisomness del smell.” (2 Roll’s Abr. 139.)
But this decision has been doubted, “Because,” says Serjeant Hawkins, Pl. Cor. 190, c. 75, “whatever necessity there may be that candles be made, it cannot be pretended to be necessary to make them in a town, and that the trade of a brewer is as necessary as that of a chandler; and yet it seems to be agreed that a brewhouse erected in such an inconvenient place where the business cannot be carried on without incommoding greatly the neighbourhood may be indicted as a common nuisance. A presentment was made to a Leet for erecting a glass-house; and Twisden, J., said he had known an information adjudged against one for erecting a brewhouse near Serjeants’ Inn; but it was insisted that a man ought not to be punished for erecting anything necessary for the exercise of his lawful trade; and it being answered that it ought to be in convenient places where it may not be a nuisance, the other justices doubted, and agreed that it was unlawful only to erect such things near the King’s palace.” Vent. 26, Pasch. 21, Car. 2. Recently, however, when some architects and medical gentlemen went to the top of Buckingham Palace to examine it preparatory to its occupation by Her Majesty, they were assailed by a cloud of smoke from the chimney of the furnace of a neighbouring brewery; and the nuisance remains to the present time in full force, notwithstanding the statutory provisions against it.
Where the defendant in his business as a printer employed a steam-engine, which produced a continued noise and vibration in the plaintiff’s apartment which adjoined the premises of the defendant, this was held to be a nuisance. The Duke of Northumberland v. Clowes, C. P., at Westminster, A.D., 1824.
The earlier sanitary regulations were frequently set forth in the provisions of the local Acts for the regulation of the streets. From the early street regulations of the city of London, we find that the purity of the river and of the contributary streams was zealously regarded; the ward inquests were specially charged to inquire:—
“If any manner of person cast or lay dung, ordure, rubbish, sea-coal dust, rushes, or any other noiant, in the river of Thames, Walbrook, Fleet, or other ditches of this city, or in the open streets, ways, or lanes within this city.
“Also, if any person in or after a great rain falleth, or at any other time, sweep any dung, ordure, rubbish, rushes, sea-coal dust, or any other thing noiant down into the channel of any street or lane, whereby the common course there is let, and the same things noiant driven down into the said water of Thames.”