Report to the General Board of Health on the state of the burial grounds in the borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme / by William Lee, Superintending Inspector.

  • Lee, William, 1774 or 1775-1853.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report to the General Board of Health on the state of the burial grounds in the borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme / by William Lee, Superintending Inspector. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    5/13 (page 4)
    ■i Report to the General Board of Health, Public Health Act, 1848, 11 and 12 Viet., cap. 63. Notice. AViiereas in pursuance of the Public Health Act. J 848, upon the representation of the Local Board of Health for the Borough of New- castle-under-Lyme in the county of Stafford, that the burial-grounds within the said borough are in such a state as to be dangerous to the health of persons living in the neighbourhood thereof, the General Board of Health have directed me, William Lee, one of the Superintending In- spectors appointed for the purposes of the said Act, to visit the said borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme, and there to make public inquiry, and examine witnesses with respect to the state of the said buriah grounds: Now, therefore, I, the said William Lee, do hereby give notice, that on the tvventy-thirdjday of May now next, at 10 o’clock in the forenoon, at the Town Hall, I will proceed upon the said inquiry, and that I shall then and there be prepared to hear all persons desirous of being heard before me upon the subject of the said inquiry. Dated this thirtieth day of April, 1851. William Lee. The inquiry was opened at the time and place above men- tioned. John Smith, the town crier, proved that copies of the above notice had been duly affixed as required by the Act, and the newspapers usually circulated in the district, contain- ing a similar notice, were put in. Edward Wilson, Esq., M.D., mayor of the borough, and ; senior physician to the North Staffordshire Infirmary; George ' John Wood, Esq., M.D., officer of health; the Rev. Samu(d , Broad, Incumbent of St. George’s chapelry district; Mr. Robert Chapman, surveyor to the Local Board, and one of the parish churchwardens; Thomas Fenton, Esq., solicitor, clerk to the Local Board; and Mr. John Thomas Blood, inspector of nui- sances, were in attendance ; as well as those of the inhabitants who felt an interest in the inquiry. I briefly explained that the Public Health Act w'ould not authorise any scheme for the formation and management of a new parochial cemetery under the jurisdiction of the Local ' Board, and that the more extensive pow'ers of the Nuisances Removal and Diseases Prevention Amendment Act w'ere not applicable to any district in wdiich the Public Health Act is in operation. The present condition of three out of the four burial-grounds j in the borough, and certain recent events, to which I shall have to allude hereafter, have strongly impressed the local autho- rities with the importance of a more comprehensive measure for the extramural interment of the dead, and 1 was requested to urge as strongly as j)ossiblc upon your honourable Board, the necessity for an Act of Parliament to prohibit future in-