Kensington, Lambeth, and Limehouse, had appointed three Inspectors each. St. Pancras headed the list with four, but its population was close upon 200,000 living in close upon 22,000 houses.
How could it be expected that one Inspector could within a year possibly inspect even one tithe of the places which it was his duty to inspect apart altogether from other duties he ought to perform? The Vestries and District Boards had the facts constantly before their eyes (in the returns of work made to them by the Medical Officer of Health)—the numerous insanitary houses unfit for human habitation, the overcrowding, the terrible amount of sickness and misery, and they could calculate from the one man’s work, the number of houses in the parish which were in a condition dangerous to the health of their inmates, and to the public health generally. The salary of an Inspector was so paltry that they had no excuse on the ground of economy; and the conclusion is inevitable that either they did not care what the sanitary condition of the people was, or that “vested interests in filth and dirt” were so powerful on those bodies that filth and dirt must not be interfered with at the expense of “owners” upon whom the cost of improvement must fall.
And a grimmer light is thrown upon these figures by the following statement of the Medical Officer of Health for Lambeth made in 1889, but referring to 1869.
“The Sanitary Inspector of twenty years ago (that is to say of 1869) was an unskilled workman, holding that which might almost be regarded as a sinecure office; an official recruited into the services of the Vestry from the rank of ex-sailors, ex-policemen, or army pensioners. A knowledge upon sanitary matters acquired from a course of technical training was not expected from him.”
The treatment meted out to some of the Medical Officers of Health also showed the hostility of the Vestries to action. Numerous are the passages in their reports complaining of their recommendations being ignored. These officers were miserably paid, allowing even for their being able to take private practice. The Medical Officer of Health for Lambeth was stated to have been the worst paid—receiving only £200 a year for the performance of duties attaching to an area of 4,000 acres with 23,000 inhabited houses upon it, inhabited by 162,000 persons.
Dr. W. Farr (of the Registrar General’s Office) said:—
“I believe that in certain districts in London the Medical Officer of Health is under all sorts of restraints. If he is active, they look upon him with disfavour, and he is in great danger of dismissal.”[104]
The Vestry of St. James’, Westminster (1866), checked the zeal of their Medical Officer, Dr. Lankester, whose salary was £200 a year, by reducing it to £150 after a year or two when they found he was very earnest in his work.
Dr. Rendell, the Medical Officer of Health for St. George-the-Martyr, Southwark, resigned “in disgust that he was not allowed to carry out the duties of his office.”