[Report 1910] / Medical Officer of Health, Hartismere R.D.C.

  • Hartismere (England). Rural District Council.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1910] / Medical Officer of Health, Hartismere R.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in winter when some agricultural operations are at a standstill ; but taken as a whole the number of unem- ployed contrasts favourably with town districts. House Accommodation.—The house accommoda- tion of the district is probably sufficient, numerically— there being an average of persons to each house—but there is a distinct lack of houses fitted for large families— and this fault is one difficult to remedy, inasmuch as the cost of building such houses is greater than can be justified from a commercial point of view, the rental which the poor can possibly pay not yielding an adequate return for the capital invested. The majority of cottages have but two bedrooms, and these in many cases without fire places, which is a serious fault in case of sickness ; and whilst the size of the rooms is such that overcrowding as measured by cubic feet is not frequent, yet what I may characterise as moral overcrowding undoubtedly and frequently occurs. The physical overcrowding, which alone is dealt with in the Public Health Acl, has been from time to time reported by your officers and remedied by suitable action on the part of your Council to the extent of about 5 cases yearly ; but the process of remedying this evil is neces- sarily difficult and slow, on account of the scarcity already mentioned of houses adapted to the needs of large families* As a rule the houses are provided with gardens, so that there is sufficient air and sufficient space for the disposal of refuse; but there are numerous exceptions, notably in the larger villages where the houses are more or less adjacent to each other, forming streets; and in some instances where houses have been built on what was originally a piece of waste land by the roadside. These