The Sanitary Evolution of London

by Henry Jephson

The first and greater portion of this work was done by the Corporation of the City of London. Its Committee, the Port Sanitary Authority, was able to prevent large quantities of bad meat which arrived by sea being put upon the markets; and the Corporation, which administered the principal markets of London—the cattle-markets at Deptford and Islington, the fish-market at Billingsgate, and the others at Smithfield and Leadenhall and Spitalfields—by a system of inspection, prevented large quantities of bad or diseased food being sold to the public.

In 1905, 415,000 tons of meat reached the Central Smithfield Market, of which 2,128 tons were seized as being diseased and unsound. At Billingsgate, 211,600 tons of fish were delivered, of which 674 tons were condemned. And there were 28 wharves and warehouses in the City where tinned food and tinned meat and vegetables were received. 173 tons were seized. All these places were daily inspected.

This, however, was only a portion of the food which reached London. The responsibility for inspecting food in other parts of the metropolis rested (under the Public Health (London) Act of 1891) with the various Sanitary Authorities, and the reports of the Medical Officers of Health contain accounts of inspections by them, and of the seizure of meat, fish, poultry, rabbits, tinned food, vegetables, eggs, and sweetmeats, and of prosecutions, and of a few convictions. And many other articles of food were, under the Food and Drugs Act of 1875–99, also liable to inspection so as to secure that they should not be adulterated; so that theoretically, and in a very great measure actually, provision exists for protecting the people of London from adulterated articles of food, and from food unfit for human consumption.

All this is an immense advance upon the time when there were no laws against the sale of unsound or adulterated food.

But there is great room for improvement, for the inspection and means of prevention are far from adequate to secure the protection of the public from this danger; indeed, the existing system of government for dealing successfully with this most important element in the well-being of the people is very defective.

The experiences of the past sixty years or so in London have abundantly shown how great is the extent to which the public health is dependent upon the system of local government in existence at the time, and upon the administration of the laws relating to the public health by those authorities.

The considerable changes which have taken place in the fifty years since the creation of a Central Authority, the Metropolitan Board of Works, have been described.

So far as regarded the local authorities over the separate areas into which London was divided, the “City” remains practically as it was, with the exception of the addition to its sphere of action of the important duties of Port Sanitary Authority, and such further powers as the exigencies of the times required, and certain changes consequent upon the creation of the London County Council.

In the metropolis the other local sanitary authorities instead of being Vestries and District Boards—43 in number—are now Municipal Borough Councils—28 in number—with some larger powers, including wide powers of rating.