| AdminHistory | Prior to 1855 the parish vestry had met to discharge the business of both ecclesiastical and secular local government. Parish vestries were committees of prominent householders and church officials. The name came from the way meetings took place in the church vestry or sacristy; this is the room where the priest prepares for a service and where vestments and articles of worship are stored. This early form of local government was thus a fusion of ecclesiastical and civil functions that had evolved to meet the needs of the inhabitants as they arose. A generalised system of local government, separate to ecclesiastical concerns, slowly took shape during the course of the nineteenth century. The first concerted attempt to rationalise administration in London came in the form of the 1855 Metropolis Management Act. This created 22 vestries (and 12 district boards) in inner London endowed with municipal powers. Under the terms of the Act, the Hamlet of Mile End Old Town - by now a hamlet in name only - was designated as a 'Schedule A' vestry (on account of its dense population), and provision made for elections thereto.
Under the terms of the 1855 Act, Mile End Vestry was divided into five wards, each electing a certain number of vestrymen, of which there were initially 84 in total (this was increased to 90 in 1871), as follows:
- North: 15
- East: 12
- Centre: 21
- South: 18
- West: 18
The qualification for a vestryman was a rental of £25, upon which he was rated as to the poor rate.
Until the 1894 Local Government Act, vestry elections were haphazard affairs: election notifications were often not circulated; voting procedures were unsatisfactory; and the qualifications for candidates - based on a minimum financial rating of £40 p/a for the relief of the poor - limited the number of candidates. Under the 1894 Act all resident citizens - men and women - were made eligible for election, the voting list was to include all names on the parliamentary and LCC registers with the addition of married women householders, and elections were to be duly publicised and held in accordance with the Ballot Act and the Corrupt Practices Acts. The 1894 Local Government Act (and a number of other so-called 'Adoptive Acts', i.e. the Baths and Wash-Houses Acts (1846 and 1847), Burial Acts and Public Libraries Acts (1850)) also enabled vestries to apply to the Local Government Board to take over the appointment, duties and liabilities of the overseers, and the powers of the Baths and Wash-houses Commissioners, Public Library Commissioners, Burial Boards and other local bodies. Mile End Old Town Vestry opted to acquire some, but not all, of these powers.
The three standing committees in operation from the beginnings of the Vestry were:
a) Finance and General Purposes
b) Highways, Paving, Lighting and Watering
c) Drainage, Sewerage and Nuisances
A fourth committee - the Dusting and Cleansing Committee - had been added by the early 1880s.
Initially, the officers of the Vestry were:
- Clerk - salary £200
- Vestry Clerk - salary £50
- Treasurer
- Surveyor - salary £200
- Medical Officer and Gas Examiner - salary £150
- Clerk of Works - salary 30s per week
- Inspector of Nuisances - salary 25s per week
- Collectors of rates (7)
- Beadle
Activities
The Mile End Old Town Vestry was a sanitary authority, charged with keeping its defined area as healthy as possible. The Vestry had control and management of streets, roads and footpaths, and had to ensure that they were paved, cleansed, watered and lighted; the emptying of dustbins, removal of all refuse and the prevention of 'nuisances' caused by noxious trades also fell within the Vestry's remit.
Over time, other responsibilities included dealing with 'unhealthy' dwellings and monitoring food standards (which included food analysis). By the time of its abolition in 1900, the duties,powers and functions of the Vestry were:
- Buildings - powers under the London Building Acts were almost entirely under the control of the London County Council (LCC) (created in 1888). However, the Vestry could initiate proceedings where buildings had been erected beyond the general line of frontage without the LCC's consent
- Drainage - the Vestry had virtually complete power with regard to the construction and maintenance of local sewers and drains
- Housing - Part II of the 1890 Housing of the Working Classes Act conferred upon the Vestry the right of building inspection and the power to take proceedings before a magistrate
seeking the closure and demolition of houses deemed unfit for human habitation; the 1890 Act also enabled the Board to purchase and demolish
buildings which were an obstruction to the improvement of adjacent premises
- Public health - the Vestry possessed almost all powers under the 1891 Public Health (London) Act, including:
- The appointment of medical officers of health and sanitary inspectors
- The monitoring and enforcement of bye-laws relating to nuisances (defined as including 'offensive' ditches, cesspools, overflowing drains, the inappropriate keeping of animals,
ill-maintained factories, workshops and slaughterhouses and polluting chimneys)
- The building of hospitals and provision of related medical services
- The cleansing and maintenance of factories and premises of employment so as to ensure the health of employees
- Inspection of slaughterhouses, shops and premises found selling unsound or adulterated food, milk, drugs and other substances
- Proceedings in cases of buildings and premises deemed 'unfit for human habitation'
- Removal of refuse, cleansing of dustbins and streets, and the appointment of 'scavengers' (waste pickers) for the purpose
- Provision of mortuaries for the reception of dead bodies before interment
- Streets - the Vestry possessed all powers with regard to making, maintaining, lighting, watering, cleansing and regulating the streets. However, the
Board required the sanction of the
LCC for the temporary closing of streets for repairs, and for their naming. The LCC renamed and ordered the numbering of streets, the Board then carrying out their instructions
- Rates and borrowing - until 1894, the expenses of the Mile End Old Town Vestry were met entirely by levying local rates on residents. The 1894
Equalisation of Rates Act was
passed with the intention of standardising the rates for sanitary and other purposes throughout London; the rate was limited to 6d in the £, with the
result of extreme inequalities between rich and poor districts
The successor body to Mile End Old Town Vestry was the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney, created in 1900 under the terms of the 1899 London Government Act. Across London, 28 new borough councils were created. The new Metropolitan Borough of Stepney replaced Mile End Old Town Vestry, along with the St George-in-the-East Vestry and the Limehouse District Board of Works and Whitechapel District Board of Works.
Key developments and dates
1859: the Workhouse Infirmary is established
1861: opening of Mile End Old Town Vestry Hall in Bancroft Road
1 November 1866: Middlesex and Essex Turnpike Trustees' right to levy tolls on Mile End Road expires
1882: first report and accounts of the Vestry's activities published
Addresses
From its beginnings the premises in which the Vestry carried out is functions had proved to be inadequate, and so in 1860 the Vestry purchased from the Guardians of the Poor a piece of land in Bancroft Road. Mile End Old Town Vestry Hall was built in 1860-61 to the designs of the Vestry surveyor James Knight and at a cost of £4758. Following the creation of the Metropolitan Borough in 1900, the building was quickly converted to a library and formally opened as such on 9 January 1902; the Borough's first head librarian was the pioneering Albert Cawthorne. Extensions to the building were added in 1905-06 and 1936-37, the latter under the direction of the Borough architect Bernard James Belsher. The building is now home to the Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives.
Sources
- Steven Friar, The Local History Companion (Stroud: Sutton Publishing Ltd, 2001)
- David Hey (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Family and Local History (Oxford: OUP, 2010)
- Albert Bassett Hopkins, The Boroughs of the Metropolis (London: Bemrose and Sons Ltd, 1900)
- Sir Hubert Llewellyn Smith, The History of East London (London: Macmillan, 1939)
- Daniel Lysons, The Environs of London, Vol. 3 (London, 1795)
- Frederick Whelen, London Government (London: Grant Richards, 1898) |