Report on the public health of 1902.

  • Finsbury (London, England). Metropolitan Borough.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Report on the public health of 1902. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    188/266 (page 172)
    172 section (7-i,) requiring that sufficient ventilation shall be maintained would appear to throw some onus upon workers themselves. We have frequently found that even where ample means of ventilation is provided workers themselves prevent ventilation by not maintaining in operation the means provided. (d) Drainage of Floors where wet processes are carried on.— The only wet processes carried on in Finsbury, speaking generally, are small laundries, of which there are a considerable number. In two instances it has been necessary to order more adequate drainage. (e) Provision of Suitable and Sufficient Sanitary Conveniences.— In respect to this matter we have found it necessary to take considerable action. Speaking of small workshops it must be said in the first place that these sanitary conveniences are situated in the back yards near the workshops as a rule, and do not gain in suitability on that account; in the second place, they were constructed for the use of the residents in the house, at one time a single family, and latterly several families living in the tenement system, and now have to serve also as the sanitary convenience for the workshop. Consequently we have one sanitary convenience, not infrequently ill-situated, acting for the house and workshop. This is not desirable but it is impracticable in many cases to arrange otherwise. It is obvious how this state of things has come to be. One family in former days occupied the whole house and possessed a workshop, say, on the ground floor or in the back yard. Prosperity of trade necessitated the engagement of one or two additional workers not belonging to the family. Sometimes such workers lived in the house, in other cases they lived elsewhere. Eventually, perhaps, the owner himself moved out and sub-let his house in tenements, retaining the ground floor and the workshop. Thus we have the present position :—a tenement house containing 3 or 4 families, a workshop in the back yard, the employees of which come in from other districts. The sanitary convenience acts for both parties, the residents and