The Sanitary Evolution of London

by Henry Jephson

But most important of all was the power given to the County Council (by Section 100), which enacted, on it being proved to the satisfaction of the Council, that any Sanitary Authority (except the Commissioners of Sewers of the City) had made default in doing their duty under this Act with respect to the removal of any nuisance, the institution of any proceedings, or the enforcement of any bye-laws, the Council might institute any proceedings and do any act which the Authority might have instituted and done, such Authority being made liable to pay the Council’s expenses in so doing.

And, furthermore, Section 101 provided that “when complaint is made by the Council to the Local Government Board that a Sanitary Authority have made default in executing and enforcing any provision which it is their duty to execute or enforce under the Act, or of any bye-law made in pursuance thereof, the Local Government Board, if satisfied after due inquiry that the Sanitary Authority have been guilty of the alleged default, and that the complaint cannot be remedied under the other provisions of this Act, shall make an order limiting the time for the performance of the duty of such authority in the matter of such complaint. If such duty is not performed by the time limited in the order, the order may be enforced by writ of mandamus, or the Local Government Board may appoint the Council to perform such duty,” and the expenses were to be paid by the Sanitary Authority in default.

“It seems to me right and proper,” said Mr. Ritchie in introducing the Bill, “that in regard to the great question of public health in London the County Council ought to be charged with the performance of duty, which in the opinion of the Local Government Board after inquiry, has not been adequately and properly performed by the local authority.”

These sections were strongly opposed by some of the prominent Vestries, being held to be “degrading and destructive of local self-government by completely subordinating the local to the central authority.”

The self-government which many people like is the being able to do exactly as they themselves like, regardless of everybody else’s likes and rights. And it is the same with many local government authorities. Their idea of self-government too often is to govern for their own objects, and their own interests, regardless of the infinitely greater interests and rights of the great community around them; and when it is brought home to them that they are only a small integral part of a great community, that their sphere of self-government can only be a very limited one, and that they cannot be allowed either by action or neglect to injure the community, they resent it with no little outcry.

The principle of self-government, however, was not one to which appeal could be made, for it had been dragged through the mire by too many of the local authorities. Once the unity of London assumed definite shapes, as it did in the new Central Authority representing the whole of London, Vestry self-government, except upon certain lines and within certain limitations, was doomed; for it would have to make way for a far larger system of self-government—the self-government of London by Londoners.

Moreover, prolonged experience had proved that the Vestries could not be relied on to enforce the laws, and it was manifest that some effective provision must be devised for preventing them perpetually thwarting the intentions and defeating the imperative enactments of Parliament designed for the welfare of the community at large.

It was unfortunate, however, for the sanitary welfare of great masses of the people of London that the principle thus recognised and adopted by Parliament was not given fuller effect to than it was, for it is the only principle upon which any really sound system of public health administration for London can be based.

A few years later the principle was reaffirmed by Parliament.

During the summer of 1892 the appearance of cholera on the west coast of Europe—particularly Hamburg—exposed London to the importation of cases of this disease. The unsatisfactory position of the Council with regard to London administration for the prevention of epidemic disease was at once made evident.