Dwellings of working-people in London/Appendices

APPENDICES.

APPENDIX I.

The MEMORIAL of the Council of the CHARITY ORGANISATION SOCIETY, and a Committee composed of Members of both Houses of Parliament, of representatives of 'The Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes;' 'The Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring-Classes;' 'The London Labourers' Dwellings Society, Limited;' 'The Trustees of Mr. Peabody's Gifts to the Poor of London;' 'The Improved Industrial Dwellings Company, Limited,' and of others interested in the Improvement of the Dwellings of the Poor of London.

To the Right Honourable Richard Assheton Cross, M.P., Secretary of State for the Home Department.

Sheweth,

That the dwellings of the poorer classes in various parts of the metropolis are in such a condition, from age, defects of construction, and mis-use, as to be deeply injurious to the physical and moral welfare of the inhabitants, and to the well-being of the community at large.

That so long as unsuitable and unhealthy houses are allowed to stand near the great centres of employment, such houses, owing to their position and comparative cheapness, will always attract occupants, and all efforts to improve the condition of the London poor may thus be permanently frustrated.

That the power entrusted to local authorities to condemn houses as unfit for human habitation is insufficient to bring about the requisite improvement, inasmuch as the power of closing and removal can only in practice be put in force against tenements of the most ruinous and obviously unhealthy character, while the space occupied by such houses without the addition of adjacent areas (it may be of a different description and unobtainable by negotiation) may be, and often is, too limited in extent to be of any value as a site for dwellings constructed on sound sanitary principles.

That the other powers entrusted to the local authorities, and mainly exercised through the medical officers of health, such as the powers of enforcing cleanliness, repairs, ventilation, water supply, and the like, though of very great value in preventing buildings from falling into a bad state, are merely palliative in their application to houses the original construction of which was defective, and cannot be expected to bring about any such radical improvement in them as is required.

That private enterprise, whether in the form of building speculation or of philanthropic or semi-philanthropic effort, is unable to deal effectually with the evil, owing to the complicated and subdivided tenures under which most of the property in question is held.

That the extensive demolition of small houses which has been carried out of late years, under various railway and improvement Acts, has, no doubt, been in some respects beneficial, by removing numerous damp, ill-ventilated, and dilapidated courts, but that, as the promoters had other objects than the welfare of the poor in view, these schemes have generally been so framed and carried out as to cause much suffering to the persons displaced, and in some cases greatly to increase the overcrowding and unhealthiness of neighbouring districts.

That, in the opinion of your Memorialists, the evil can only be adequately dealt with by making it the duty of some public body possessing a wider sphere of action, and in a more independent position, than the local boards and vestries, and invested, when necessary, with powers of compulsory purchase, to initiate comprehensive improvements in the interest of the poorer classes, as has been done with good effect in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and other cities, and, in a somewhat different form, in Liverpool.

That the Corporation of the City and the Metropolitan Board of Works are at present, as it appears to your Memorialists, the only bodies on whom such a duty can be imposed, and that your Memorialists believe that if the duty of initiating and regulating improvements were imposed on those bodies, voluntary enterprise would be found ready to undertake the work of reconstruction; though to provide against contingencies it would be expedient that these bodies should themselves have the power of rebuilding in certain exceptional cases and under proper limitations.

That such a measure need not impose any heavy burden on the rates, as the ultimate expenditure from that source would only be the difference between the price paid for the property to be taken, and the price received for it when sold, so that a very moderate rate spread over London would make it possible to bring about very material improvements.

Your Memorialists, therefore, venture to express their hope that after due consideration you will honour them with an expression of the views which you entertain on a question which deeply affects the moral and material interests of their fellow citizens, and that you may feel able to hold out some prospect of Her Majesty's Government introducing a Bill into Parliament embodying provisions calculated to remedy the evils which they have submitted to your notice.

(Signed) Lichfield,
Chairman of Council.
Napier & Ettkick,
Chairman of Special Committee
on Dwellings.

15 Buckingham Street, Adelphi, W.C.
April 1874.

APPENDIX II.

'Slums' though over-crowded, a Waste of Space.

The so-called 'slums' of London, though generally over-crowded, occupy vast spaces, on which the same or a larger population might be living without crowding or discomfort. The waste of space arises partly from want of arrangement, and partly from the too small height of most of the buildings—often only two stories, sometimes but one story, high. To illustrate this, I reprint, from Dr. Whitmore's Report to the Vestry of St. Marylebone on the health of the parish during March, extracts from a 'description of a number of old dilapidated tenements known as Beaumont's Buildings, situated on the south side of Linton Place, Edgware Road. These consist of twenty cottages, placed in four parallel rows; the two inner rows, being attached at their backs, have no thorough ventilation. … None of these cottages have rooms above the ground-floor; in eighteen of them there are two rooms, and in two only one room; the front-room of each two-roomed cottage has an average cubic space of about 850 feet, and the back room about 750 feet; from the floor to the ceiling the height is only 7 feet; but inasmuch as the flooring is some 6 inches below the level of the forecourt, the height of the eaves of the roof from the ground is but little more than 6 feet. These cottages are all, without exception, damp, some of them exceedingly so. Many of them are very dirty, and throughout in a state of great dilapidation; the system of patching and repairing their roofs, walls, ceilings, floors, &c., having now been going on for upwards of half a century, it will be obvious that work of this kind can by no possibility be made any longer available to the health or comfort of their occupants. … The number of families at present occupying these cottages is 17, comprising 85 persons, of whom 30 are adults and 55 children; they are all of the poorest class, and some of them in very indigent circumstances. The sanitary state of these cottages, owing to their dampness, is far worse in winter than in summer. Then rheumatism and bronchitis are very prevalent amongst the aged occupants.'

In the Lancet of May 16, 1874, the Lancet Sanitary Commission on the Dwellings of the Poor give an account of the district of Soho, selecting it as the subject of their first inquiry because it is 'the most crowded division of the metropolis.' This description applies particularly to the Berwick Street Sub-district. The report paints a terrible but doubtless faithful picture of houses in Marlborough Row, Bentinck Street, &c., and of the miserable mode of life of the men, women, and children who inhabit these portions of a city that nevertheless we call the capital of the most civilised empire of the world.

I will only quote the table the Commissioners have compiled from the Census returns of 1871—reminding the reader that upon the same space on which these people are now living;—wretched and overcrowded—two to four hundred on every acre—three or four times as many might be excellently housed in health and comfort, with half the total area left open for air-spaces, playgrounds, and streets.

Name of Locality	Population in 1871	Number of Inhabited Houses	Area in Acres	Number of Inhabitants per Acre (roughly)	Number of Inhabitants in each House (roughly)
THE ENTIRE METROPOLIS	3,254,260	417,767	75,362	43	8
WESTMINSTER DISTRICT	51,181	4,554	216	237	11
(1) St. James' Sq. Sub-district	10,472	1,384	84	125	8
(2) Golden Sq. Sub-district	12,860	1,111	54	238	11
(3) St. Anne's, Soho Sub-district	17,562	1,337	54	325	13
(4) Berwick Street Sub-district	10,287	722	24	428	14
St. Giles', South Sub-district	19,109	1,214	64	298	15
Spitalfields Sub-district	15,818	1,431	52	304	11

APPENDIX III.

Railway Demolitions.

Mr. Simon, in his Eighth Report as Medical Officer of the Privy Council, 1865, p. 17, speaking of the uncompensated dislodgment and inconvenience which the labouring classes suffer through the destruction of their homes in parts of towns required for railways and other public purposes, suggests, that when compulsory powers of purchase are being sought for such purposes, the local authority should have a locus standi for opposing the grant of such powers, except on condition that where many habitations were destroyed, at least as many should be substituted for them. He quotes the following opinion of a high authority, with special legal experience, Mr. John Bullar:—'It has been objected that it is foreign from the objects of (for instance) a railway company to make them house-speculators, and force them to lock up part of their capital in dwellings for the labouring classes; but this objection is altogether futile. Where it suits the interests of the shareholders, a railway company may add to their railway a canal, a dock, a harbour, a toll-bridge, a toll-road, or an hotel; and railway companies not only may, but in countless cases must, expend capital in making, and income in maintaining, for the landowners whose lands they touch, roads, sewers, drains, level-crossings, bridges, cattle-creeps, watering-places, fences, and sometimes capital in providing farm buildings. The Lands and Railways Clauses Acts provide that ample compensation in money or works, or both, shall be made to landowners whose interests are interfered with, but do not make adequate provision for protecting the poor, whose means of living may be seriously lessened by the exercise of the powers of those Acts, There is nothing inconsistent with the course of legislation for public works, that their undertakers should build as many houses as they pull down, just as they make a new piece of road where they block up the old road; and there is no reason why they should not sell their houses as soon as they think fit. The Lands Clauses Act requires them to sell within ten years after the completion of their works. If they lose by the sale the amount of the loss is the amount of the compensation, unproductive to themselves, which they make to the poor whom they dispossess; but with ordinary prudence they often may so arrange their building and selling operations as, if not to give them a profit, at least to make their loss an insignificant part of their total outlay.'