Report to the General Board of Health on a preliminary inquiry into the sewerage, drainage, and supply of water, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants of the parishes of Nuneaton and Chilvers Coton / by George Thomas Clark, Superintending Inspector.

  • Clark, George Thomas, 1809-1898.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report to the General Board of Health on a preliminary inquiry into the sewerage, drainage, and supply of water, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants of the parishes of Nuneaton and Chilvers Coton / by George Thomas Clark, Superintending Inspector. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Nuneaton parish may he taken at about 7,000, and that of Coton at 2,700. 16. Mortality.—It appears from the petition, which is sup- ported by the Registrar’s return, that the deaths for the seven years ending 29th September, 1848, in Nuneaton, have been 1,508, or, at an annual average, 215f-, being at the rate of 30 7 in the 1,000 upon the population of 1841, or upon the popula- tion, as now computed, about 26-7 in the 1,000. That of the whole district, including Foleshill, Nuneaton, and Atherstone, is 2T7 in the 1,000. 17. In Chilvers Coton, the annual average of deaths for the above period have been 78f, being 31 *2 in the 1,000, or upon the estimated existing population 28‘99 in the 1,000. I find upon looking into the condition of Nuneaton and Chilvers Coton and the hamlet of Attleborough, ample cause for this unusually high rate of mortality. 18. Inspection.—My attention, on my arrival, was directed by the relieving officer and one of the principal medical men to certain localities, chiefly courts, the seats of fever and small-pox, and those I found to be ill paved, damp, undrained, and in a very filthy and offensive condition. This description, indeed, applies in some considerable degree to nearly the whole of Nuneaton, to much of Chilvers Coton, and to the whole of Attleborough. In Nuneaton I found part of the Abbey-street and Bach-lane to be very sickly quarters. 19. In these places the greater part of the population are lodged in courts communicating with the street by a narrow covered entry, and open to the fields behind. They consist of from 5 to 15 houses each, with one or two privies in common, a large open tank or cesspool; a pump is generally very near the cesspool, often a pigstye. Usually towards the field is an open stagnant ditch. In many of these courts is a common soughing tile-drain, intended to take the surface water, but fitted up with a large grating and catch-pit from whence bad smells ascend. 20. The cesspool is the greatest evil and the most constantly present. It is often 10 to 12 feet square and very deep. Into it are discharged the contents of the privy, and all the rubbish and filth of every kind from the houses. It is emptied only once or twice annually, and is in consequence often heaped up far above the top of its side walls, so as to expose a greatly increased offensive surface. In some cases the 'cesspool is above the highway, and the contents percolate through the walls or flow along the gutters into the street. In one other instance its walls were those of a dwelling-house, and the soil oozed through upon the floor, rendering the house from time to time uninhabitable. In one case the cesspool was enclosed