Have you ever wondered what the living conditions were like for your Halifax ancestors in the 19th and 20th Centuries? Well, we can recommend you look at the Medical Officer of Health Annual Reports for Calderdale from 1875 to 1969.
The reports start in 1875 and give an overview of the health and sanitary condition of the Borough of Halifax and give statistics on births and deaths by township and ward. Statistics given also cover deaths from the principle contagious and pulmonary diseases. The statistics show Halifax in a wider national context, pitting our births and deaths against other towns. The reports record inspections of houses and the conditions they were in, and details efforts to trace the path of communicable diseases, giving a fascinating insight into life in Halifax.
There were repeated calls to isolate cases of communicable diseases early on to avoid infection of the whole family and beyond. In a fascinating example from 1881 of the lengths they had to go to trace outbreaks of infectious diseases; Mr Ainley (the Medical Officer) discovered that an outbreak of scarlatina was linked to the distribution of milk from a farm outside the borough, by a milkman who had at the time scarlatina in his family at home. Through tracing the list of customers, the Medical Officer was able to track the spread of scarlatina. As you can see from the table A the milkman supplied 135 households; the medical officer was able to show how 53 households were infected!
Medical Officer of Health Annual Report 1881
The Annual Reports also include the Sanitary Inspector Reports. These give us a valuable insight into how waste was handled around Halifax, how many streets were swept, ashpits and Goux Closets emptied. In Calderdale, we adopted the use of the Goux System, which was patented in 1868 by Pierre Nicholas Goux in Paris. If you want to learn more about this read our Blog Post from 28th January 2023: https://calderdalelocalstudies.wordpress.com/2023/01/28/all-about-the-goux-joseph-rideal-smith-artist-and-sanitation-inspector/
By 1881, the reports also included the reports of the Nuisance Inspector. These included overcrowded housing, offensive privies, drains, smells, piggeries, mill chimneys and poultry kept inside housing. Smoke from chimneys and mills was also closely observed, food was analysed for adulteration and contamination, slaughterhouses inspected, dairies and milk shops too. A list of legal proceedings are also given where, for example they started legal proceedings for 13 cases of filthy privies, 1 case of selling diseased meat and a case of selling an Unwholesome Calf!
For a fascinating glimpse into the lives of Nuisance Inspectors why not listen to our Podcast episode from 27th January 2023 https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/calderdale-libraries/episodes/The-Life-and-Times-of-a-Nuisance-Inspector-e1u355a
By 1882 the Halifax Corporation Act made law the compulsory notification of infectious diseases. Where possible the Inspector would visit and would likely remove the patient to hospital and order the surroundings to be disinfected. We can look at a good example of this from January 1889, when a child with its parents from Bradford who had smallpox was found in a common lodging house. The family were sent to the Small Pox Hospital and the lodging house was locked down, cutting off all communication with the outside world; police being on patrol night and day for 16 days, the 35 occupants being fed by the authorities. The quarantine was effective “for no other case appeared in the motley company whose fortune or misfortune it was to be in this particular lodging-house at the time”.
The early reports give a valuable insight into how the type of housing in Halifax was seen as vital to the health of the occupants. Where overcrowded families were living in back-to-back housing, this was seen as a breeding ground for disease. There were calls for more modern housing and separate washing facilities. With the Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1890, the Sanitary Committee lost no time in beginning slum clearances. In the first year (1891) 4 unhealthy areas were inspected at the bottom of the town and one was cleared. By 1892 “the worst of the dwellings on the second of the condemned areas are practically swept way”. 85 houses had been demolished and 469 people de-tenanted.
Later reports, such as the one from 1895 show the Borough had 74 wheatbread bakers, 13 oatbread, 9 muffin bakers and 2 pie bakers. In the same year, 350lbs of nettles were destroyed as unfit for human food. Details are also given of municipal tips throughout the borough, how many loads of ashes and rubbish were tipped during the year. In 1895 250 loads of horse droppings were removed from the streets of the borough!
If you are researching your local family, it is well worth taking a look at this valuable resource. For example, you could be researching a family member living in Ovenden in 1900. 174 babies were born that year, 4 illegitimate, and 97 deaths. There were 40 notified cases of Scarlet Fever and 4 of Enteric Fever and 1 of Diptheria. The report shows 384 houses had ashpits and 30 with dry ashpits. 29 streets were regularly cleaned that year (10 miles worth every time!) So your ancestor had clean streets, would probably encounter Scarlet Fever and likely had an ashpit toilet system. However, there were also 48 defects noted after visits to Offensive Privies, middens, sewage and filth Accumulations!
The later Medical Officer of Health Reports from the 20th Century can give us a picture of how Local Authority priorities changed over time.
Looking at the Medical Officer for Health Report book for 1931-1938, we can see that there was now a focus on Heart Disease, cancer, venereal disease, and a hint of eugenics (not surprising for 1930s Europe) (also check out the list of health education and propaganda lectures from 1931 which include a lecture on Racial Degeneration, a 1932 a lecture on the sterilisation of mental defectives, pros and cons, and a 1937 lecture on Eugenics (illustrated), all given by the Medical Officer of Health himself Mr GCF Roe).
The smoke abatement information is fascinating and details chimneys observed, and graphs showing atmospheric pollution records. Also given are meteorological records of temperatures taken at Belle Vue Public Library by the Head Librarian.
Food and drink were still regularly inspected for adulteration (watered down milk or alcohol, sausages with excess preservatives etc) and prosecutions carried out when necessary.
By 1957 (the last year GCF Roe was the Medical Officer of Health) he stated that in the last couple of decades, almost 20 times as many people died of cardio-vascular diseases as of infectious diseases. Halifax also began participation in a nation-wide environmental survey of leukaemia in childhood.
At Halifax Central Library and Archives we have Medical Officer of Health Annual Reports for Calderdale from 1875 to 1969, these reports are kept in the Horsfall Turner Room in the Local Studies Department. (614HAL) Just pop down and ask staff if you’d like to view them.
Calderdale Local Studies Library 