Mr. Spear's report to the Local Government Board on sanitary administration in the Bridgend registration district, Glamorganshire, with special reference to the arrangements existing in the district for the discharge of the duties of Medical Officer of Health / [John Spear].

  • Spear, John.
Date:
[1889]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mr. Spear's report to the Local Government Board on sanitary administration in the Bridgend registration district, Glamorganshire, with special reference to the arrangements existing in the district for the discharge of the duties of Medical Officer of Health / [John Spear]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1/20
    Mr. Spear’s Report to the Local Government Board on Sanitary Administration in the Bridgend Registration 1 District, Glamorganshire, with special reference to the arrangements existing in the District for the discharge of the Duties of Medical Officer of Health. George Buchanan, Medical Department, February 22nd, 1889. The registration district of Bridgend covers an area of 107,957 acres or about one-fifth of the whole county of Glamorgan. Roughly speaking, it forms an irregular parallelogram, some 17 miles in length/from north to south, and 14 m breadth from east to west. It is situated at the south of the county; its northern boundaries abutting upon the registration district of -Neath on the west, and that of Pontypridd on the east. On the south-east it is bounded by the registration district of Cardiff, and on the south and south- west by the Bristol Channel. c i1?16 rn!lrL,ie™raost tlurcl of tllis area Stands upon the South Wales coal held. 1 he surface is composed of the Penant sandstone rock, cut from north to south into deep and narrow valleys. Of these there are three principal ones giving passage respectively to the Lyfni, Garw, and Ogwr streams, ihe two latter meet at Blackmill, some five miles above the town of Brido-end and lower down the combined stream joins the Lyfni to form the river on which Bridgend stands. Immediately to the north of this town the millstone grit, a narrow belt of which surrounds the South Wales coal basin, crops out • and from this point southwards the district consists geologically of the lias formation chiefly, and of some tracts of mountain limestone. The northernmost third of the district contains some six-tenths of the population, which, engaged almost exclusively in the coal and iron industries is aggregated m small towns and villages situated chiefly along the narrow valleys. The mam roads follow the line of the valleys; and in the three principal ones named above there are lines of railway. The roads are often m bad condition even for a rough mountainous district, and the railwav communication is somewhat infrequent. J To the south the district is almost entirely agricultural, the inhabitants being collected m numerous villages and hamlets, some of them remote from railway communication. The country here is more level and the roads on the whole m better condition. The Great Western main line traverses the northern part of this division of the district from east to west, a -junction for the valley railways and for a branch line to Porthcawl being at Brido-end Bridgend and Cowbndge are the two market towns; Porfchcawl a small sea- side resort, and Southerndown and Llantwit coming to have pretensions in that direction. Of the market towns, Bridgend, from its situation near the debouchure of populous valleys, and from its railway communication is bv tar the most important. J . P0PQ^^°U of, .the registration district, according to the census of ool, was 38,920, and is now estimated at 44,130 ; or, excluding the inmates ot the county lunatic asylum not belonging to the district, 43,230.* It is nt0 re&lstratl0.n sub-districts: Maesteg, estimated population 20,778; Cowbndge, population 7,045 ; and Bridgend, estimated population exclusive of strangers m the asylum, 15,407. Maesteg, the northern sub- lstrict, is situated entirely upon the coal measures, and contains a mining population. It is here that over 80 per cent, of the estimated increase of * The fr™ngemeiits given here are those that subsisted until May 1888; then a part of the in,, r, “Hy VrZ of Bri-ta-d registration district, th/said effec is to increase the population of the registration district by the number uamed abo-e the population of the sanitary districts remaining the same. uameu aoove, tne ▲ 57123. 250.—2/89. Wt. 19278. E. & S. ^