Municipal hygiene and demography.

  • International Congress of Hygiene and Demography.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Municipal hygiene and demography. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    also been given towards the purchase of other requisities for the same institution. Upon land appropriated by the Corporation and adjoining the gallery of art, a building has been erected for a school of science and art by means of funds raised by voluntary subscriptions aided by a grant from the Science and Art Department. By the generosity of a deceased townsman a scholarship has been founded in connexion with this institution. The Municipal Free Library comprises libraries, lecture hall, museum, science class-rooms, and a reading room. There are about 32,000 volumes in the library, including a reference library of 5,633 volumes and a lending library. In connexion with this Institution chemical and metallurgical laboratories have been established. The rate authorised to be levied under the Public Libraries Act, 1855, being insufficient to defray the expenses necessary for the proper carrying on and maintenance of the Free Library and the Gallery of Art and School of Science and Art, the Corporation obtained powers in the Wolverhampton Corporation Act, 1887, to levy an additional rate of one penny in the pound. A public park, covering an area of 50 acres, forms one of the most pleasing features of the town, and has been laid out at a cost of 16,000/. The property is held upon lease from the Duke of Cleveland for a period of 63 years from the 25th March 1879, with right of pre-emption at the expiration of that term. In 1869 the Corporation obtained an Act for defining and extending their powers in relation to the management of streets and to sewerage and to police, and other matters of local government, as well as to water supply and for other purposes. This Act was amended by ProGsional Order (confirmed by Act of Parliament in 1888), whereby additional powers were conferred upon the Corporation in relation to the public park, new buildings, hackney carriages, and financial matters. In 1882 the Corporation were empowered by Act of Parliament to exercise their statutory borrowing powers for the time being by means of the creation and issue of Corporation Stock. Under the authority of the Act of 1869 an important sewage scheme was formulated and carried into effect. The Sewage Farm, consisting of 330 acres and th outfall works are situate outside the borough. The total cost of the whole scheme is estimated at upwards of 182,000/. Great difficulties have been occasioned in regard to the utilisation of the sewage of the borough by reason chiefly of the geographical situation and the physical altitude of the district, the large volume of the effluent to be carried off and the small capacity of the stream into which it is discharged; special relief was, therefore, extended to the Corporation by the Wolverhampton Corporation Act, 1891. In 1867 the Corporation acquired the control of the water supply of the borough and of certain adjoining districts by transfer from a water- works company. The water delivered for consumption is, according to analysis, of unusually good quality, superior, in fact, in organic purity to generality of town supplies, not even excepting that obtained by