The Sanitary Evolution of London

by Henry Jephson

After four years Parliament took the duty away from their incapable hands and transferred it to the Factory Department of the Home Office.

One other Act of importance Parliament also passed about this time, “The Artizans’ and Labourers’ Dwellings Act, 1868.”

Sanitary legislation has as yet done little more for old property, and the whole of Central London was old property, than to improve the drainage, and occasionally to cleanse or whitewash some small fraction of it; and there remained the fact that numerous districts or conglomerations of houses were unreformable, and when the most was done to them that could be done under the law were still unfit for human habitation.

In the previous year a Bill had been introduced into Parliament by Mr. Torrens:—

“The objects of which were, first, to provide means for taking down or improving dwellings occupied by working men which were unfit for human habitation; and secondly, for the building and maintenance of better dwellings instead. But the Act of 1868 retained the former only; the latter having been struck out of the Bill during its progress through Parliament.

“The intention of Parliament was to provide the means whereby local authorities might secure the effectual repair of dilapidated dwellings, or, when necessary, their gradual reconstruction.”[114]

The Act conferred powers far exceeding any heretofore possessed by the local authority for effectually dealing with houses unfit for human habitation.

“On the report of the Medical Officer of Health that any inhabited building was in a condition dangerous to health, so as to be unfit for human habitation, the Vestry, after certain inquiries, &c., was to have power to order the owner to remove the premises, and, in default, themselves to remove them; or they might order the owner to execute the necessary structural alterations, and in default, might either shut up or pull down the premises, or themselves execute the necessary work at the owner’s expense.”[115]

The Act proceeded upon the principle that the responsibility of maintaining his houses in proper condition falls upon the owner, and that if he failed in his duty the law is justified in stepping in and compelling him to perform it. It further assumed that houses unfit for human habitation ought not to be used as dwellings, but ought, in the interests of the public, to be closed, and demolished, and to be subsequently rebuilt.