Page 29 - Smallwood Hospital

Smallwood Hospital Redditch Heritage

owners and inhabitants of Alcester Street threatening proceedings if something were not done
‘to relieve their wants’. The Sanitary Committee report stated that the committee found it
impossible to deal with numerous cases of nuisances from the want of sewers. The Public
Works Committee recommended that Messrs. Gotto and Beesley be asked to give a plan and
67
estimate for the work.
The British Medical Journal gave a detailed account of Mr. Page’s Second annual report on
the sanitary condition of ... Redditch, for the year ... 1875 and the severity of the problem.
The Journal concluded that the description given of Redditch indicated it was one of the most
unsanitary towns in England.

68
REDDITCH .-Mr. Herbert Page's report contains a detailed account of the sanitary condition
of the Redditch urban district, and a more unsatisfactory statement it has scarcely ever been our
duty to consider. Mr. Page commences his report by pointing out the powers conferred on local
authorities by the Public Health Act, and the necessity for their energetic enforcement in
Redditch, although the local board was constituted as long ago as 1859. He especially mentions
as being urgently required efficient sewage, adequate and wholesome water supply, properly
constructed and clean habitations, and a general supervision over the sanitary state of the town.
The number of houses in the town district is 1,540, many of them being very old and in a very
bad sanitary condition. The majority were built for the working classes, many of them back to
back, and some have been so constructed since the formation of the Board. The general
unsanitary conditions are enumerated at length, viz., water in the cellars, damp walls, leaky
roofs, floors covered with broken stones or bricks, filthy condition of the houses, very
imperfect or total want of drainage, saturation of sub-soil, bad water-supply, inadequate closet-
accommodation, windows which will not open, and overcrowding in many of these wretched
dwellings. He also advises that a rough sketch of proposed dwellings should always be laid
before the sanitary committee, so as to prevent the erection of any more houses back to back.
He also advises that all works executed under the orders of the sanitary committee should be
carried out under the immediate superintendence of the inspector, and the work not passed
unless his requirements were strictly fulfilled. A house-to-house inspection has recently been
made of all the houses in the town, to ascertain the state of their drainage, closet-
accommodation, and water-supply. It appears that there are 700 middens in the town, most of
which are built of brickwork, uncemented, and larger than the regulation size. Many adjoin the
dwelling-houses, are open, undrained, and contain the refuse of the house as well as the
ordinary contents of a midden-cesspool, and give off most offensive effluvia. No fewer than
458 are uncovered, against 242 which are covered; and in one part of the town there are only
“72 closets amongst 3,000 inhabitants, or 41.6 persons to each closet”, and there are “332
persons without any closet-accommodation whatever”. All kinds of sulliage are thrown into
the cesspools, because no provision for house-drainage has even been attempted. Mr. Page
observes on this that the disposal of the sewage is an engineering question into which he will
not enter, but strongly advises, until proper sewers are provided, that the dry earth or charcoal
system should be adopted.

Bad as the midden system is, the sewerage is worse, as it appears that there are only about one-
seventh of all the streets in the old-town district that are properly sewered. The return is as
follows. “Total length of streets sewered sufficiently deep, 3,421 feet; insufficiently deep,
5,374 feet; not sewered at all, 16,818 feet.” It appears that the Board, “several years ago”, had

67
Worcester Journal, 6 November 1875.
68
The British Medical Journal, 1 July 1876.

Page: 28