Introduction

Victorian Bournemouth (62) outlines the chronology of a controversy that ran through the resort’s early years. Early complaints about the unhygienic condition of the drains had stimulated Bournemouth’s Improvement Act (1856). Nevertheless, medical concern about the drains continued. A group of doctors waged a bitter, public, and personal war against the Improvement Commissioners. They chose battlegrounds of open, local meetings as well as national media.  The incident highlights issues of social class and control as well as affluent power activated through personal networks.

Victorian Bournemouth (62): opening salvo

Early anger amongst residents

An angry letter appeared in the local press during 1853. It complained about the apparent indiscriminate building that had occurred on the Tregonwell estate. In particular, it condemned the indifferent drainage associated with patches of tenements occupied by working people. John Tregonwell responded next week, fending off the problem as caused by illegal infilling. The problem lay beyond his control. Properties he did control, however, had the appropriate drainage. The following year one of the resident doctors wrote a series of letters about Bournemouth. In one he addressed the drainage problem: ‘sewerage, offensive and loathsome if allowed to increase, the drains will do more harm to this resort than the most bitter winter’. This letter offered more detail and explicit examples of the problem. Within two years, the town had secured its Improvement Act, the Commissioners charged with addressing the drainage issues as one their priorities.

Dr Granville’s fatal prescription

The society physician, expert in spas, Dr Granville had, in response to invitations, visited Bournemouth in 1840. He outlined the direction that its future built-environment should follow. Avoid tight-packed terraces and crescents in favour of separate villas placed in a free-form neighbourhood. Their siting would take best advantage of the resort’s sea breezes. Dr Pinkerton, some fifteen years later, praised the results of developers’ having followed this recommendation. For Christopher Creeke, the architect appointed as town surveyor by the Improvement Commission, this policy raised acute and expensive drainage problems. According to his calculations, by the mid 1860s Bournemouth had acquired almost three miles of drainage pipes, but they served no more than 250 houses. At least another hundred remained unconnected, while building showed no sign of reducing the rate at which new properties entered the space. Granville’s healthy concerns had led to an unhealthy drainage system.

Victorian Bournemouth (62): main battle

‘Sanitary Committee’

In November 1864, at their regular monthly meeting, the Improvement Commissioners listened whilst their chairman read out a letter or ‘memorial’ received from Mr David A Cannan. The writer urged the Commissioners to employ an outside sanitary engineer, recommending one by name. He referred to defective drainage in parts of the town. The Chairman gave this short shrift, noting that similar procedures elsewhere had cost thousands of pounds. Creeke, the surveyor, took a defensive stance. He referred to the current system’s large size, his original specification, and that, once a regular supply of water began, matters would improve. To some this response and others that the Commissioners would give appeared cavalier. Their attitude spurred Mr Cannan, a retired merchant, and several medical associates to attack, describing themselves in the press as the (self-appointed) ‘Sanitary Committee’. A media blizzard followed, subjecting the Commissioners to a severe onslaught and unwanted national publicity.

Showdown

After media sparring and the Commissioners’ attempts to ignore the ‘Sanitary Committee’, a public meeting occurred in February 1865. Press reports carried much of it verbatim. The issue turned on the rogue committee’s insistence that resort to an outside specialist occur at once. The Commissioners had now accepted the need for such a person to keep the public quiet but wanted to postpone it. Creeke already had water on supply through the new pipeline. He felt it appropriate to get the old system running with the benefit of this before employing an outsider. Tempers ran high. Cannan went through much posturing. The Chairman, a doctor but former Commissioner, had a loose hand on the tiller, so that, at one point, the Reverend A. M. Bennett attempted to seize control. In the end, a resolution passed that the Commissioners hire an outside specialist in no later than three months’ time.

Victorian Bournemouth (62): aftermath

The expert’s report

The Commissioners had, in effect, faced a challenge that came from an embryonic political party, albeit wrapped in healthy packaging. Despite repeated reminders to refer to his earlier report and planned drainage structure, the medics chose to ignore much if not most of what Creeke said. Also, they had wanted to prevent the flushing of sewage into the sea, preferring an alternative disposal method that took it inland. Despite the autonomous committee’s fielding three royal doctors and stentorian letters from titled medical experts, they did not achieve much in the way of victory. The chosen expert, although perhaps unwilling to become involved in such a public issue, at last attended. After an inspection conducted in autumn 1865, his report appeared to confirm Creeke’s design and plan. Furthermore, he argued in favour of sea flushing and against the opponents’ alternative demand. The Commission, therefore, carried the day.

Backwash

The Sanitary Committee members behaved as politicians rather than professional medics practising a vocation. They claimed to represent all ratepayers, but several of the latter denied this. Even some of the local doctors went into press disclaiming any sympathy with the group. They made public written attacks on the Commissioners as well as the secretary and the surveyor. John Tregonwell took them to task in a published letter. He decried their use of ‘a tone of dictation and threat’ as well as their attempt to usurp the Commissioners’ role. Their authority depended on an Act of Parliament. Such tough Commissioners as Robert Kerley and James McWilliam, men who had developed and built a good part of the town, stood their ground, but none more so than the surveyor, Christopher Creeke. When he spoke, he did not hold back, while also ensuring that Commissioners gave him public support.

Takeaway

The Commissioners weathered a media storm and personal attack to hold their own against a group of medics and well-wishers who, on occasion, seemed bent on causing disruption for its own sake. In December 1865, the press carried a call for tenders to lay a drain serving the new part of town that ran up the Old Christchurch Road to Holdenhurst Road.

References

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