[Report 1923] / Medical Officer of Health, Norham & Islandshires R.D.C.

  • Norham and Islandshires (England). Rural District Council.
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1923] / Medical Officer of Health, Norham & Islandshires R.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    upwards of twenty years, and immediately before the new use made of it, it had served as a hen house. In my monthly report for May the following allusion was made to the matter^— It would appear that Richard Dixon, a workman previously housed at Shoreswood Hall, had been unable to secure a dwelling before the term day, and that when confronted with the alternative of taking to the roads with his family, he had decided to occupy the ruinous cottage. The walls drip with dampness. There is no chimney, and nothing of the win¬ dow remains save the frame. Across this has been drawn a sheet, which gives an imperfect protection from the weather, but effectually excludes all sunlight. Anything more squalid it would be impossible to imagine.” It is satisfactory to be able to add that during the month of August, Dixon and his family left the District. Towards the close of the year the Sanitary Inspector and I received instructions to draw up a report on housing conditions in the Screm- erston area. These were dealt with in a series of reports submitted to the District Council during the winter of 1919-20. Since that time,” runs my last report, “the cottages at Saltpan How have been roughcast, and three of the one-apartment dwellings have been con¬ verted into two. There are still three one-roomed houses. The first of these is occupied by a married couple and two young children, the second by a childless couple, and the third by a married couple and an infant. The capacity of the individual rooms is 1890 cubic feet, and two windows are fixtures. At Sandbanks, what were originally twelve one-apartmient houses have been converted into houses of two rooms by means of wooden partitions. There has been no structural alteration at this row since the issue of the series of reports already alluded to. Two dwelling houses allotted to one family accommodate 8 occupants in all. Of the others. No. 1 shelters a married couple and four children whose ages range from 2 to 11 ; No. 2 is occupied by a married couple, a male relative aged 34, and three children whose ages range from 4 to 13; No. 3 has as its inmates a married couple and six children whose ages range from 4 to 14—it will be noted that this is a bad case of overcrowding; No. 4 has three adult inmates; No. 5 boasts a married couple, an aged female relative, and five children from 5 to 15 ; No. 6 supplies an instance of gross overcrowding, as it shelters a married couple and seven children whose ages range from 2 to 18 —in the kitchen window of this house a layer of brown paper supplies the place of a broken pane ; No. 7 is occupied by a married couple and three children who are all under school age; No. 8 repeats the story of No. 6, as it is also tenanted by a married couple and seven children—to complete the resemblance, the free current of air estab¬ lished by a broken window pane has been effectually barred in the same primitive fashion—fortunatebq in this household the children, whose ages range from 3 to 13, are all females ; No. 9 furnishes a home for a married couple, an elderly female relative, and five children whose ages range from 1 to 18; No. 10 is occupied by three adults and a child of 5. The kitchens of these dwellings have a capacity of