Remembering Glasgow's 'nuisance inspectors' who cleaned up city

Very soon after that, however, its image changed completely,

The smoke, the inadequate water supply, the polluted burns and rivers, the broken-down and overcrowded houses, the filthy streets and closes are all well documented. They were the result of industrialisation and a rapidly growing population.

This assault on the city’s environment was unpleasant; it was also unhealthy and dangerous. The danger came from the epidemic diseases which were common until the 1860s and it was because of this very frightening public health problem that the city authorities began to analyse the environment of its citizens.

At the beginning of the 19th century local councils had little power to force citizens to behave in a particular way in their own house or workplace.

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If you had an overflowing dung heap beside your house or the house itself was dangerous and falling down, or you killed pigs and put the waste in the burn, or installed a steam engine which belched out smoke, it was all fine if your neighbours did not object.

Gradually, however the council applied to parliament to get the legal power to change people’s behaviour.

For example, it campaigned for the Nuisance Removal (Scotland) Act in 1857. This allowed it to set up the Nuisances Committee, to inspect dung heaps and factories for pollution and to fine people who refused to clean things up.

In 1862, the city had its own Act, the Glasgow Police Act, which empowered the council to establish the Sanitary Committee, which had further powers. It could prevent overcrowding of houses, and order houses and closes to be cleaned.

It was not until 1870 that the sanitary department emerged. Until then there was no sanitary staff, and any necessary duty was performed by three lay officers selected from what was the police force.

From 1864 they acted under the instructions of one “inspector of nuisance” and Professor WT  Gairdner, who at that time was the Medical Officer of Health for the city.

Rotary washing machines (Image: Glasgow City Archives)

The chief sanitary inspector was appointed in 1870. His staff’s principal work was to inspect for nuisances of every description and notified the courts to have them instantly stopped.

The inspector arranged the city into five main divisions, under the supervision of five superintending inspectors. They had under their control five lodging house inspectors, seven epidemic inspectors and 18 assistant inspectors.

The department was then housed in an ordinary shop in College Street and the disinfecting and washing required in connection with epidemic disease was conducted in another shop at 66 High Street.

Sanitary Chambers (Image: Glasgow City Archives)

With typhus fever prevalent in the city and rising every now and again to epidemic proportions, it became obvious to the then chairman of the committee on health Mr John Ure that steps were needed to combat overcrowding and the consequent filth.

It was only when these two committees started working together that the real scale of the problem became clear. For the first time, officials could insist on inspecting premises and they would produce reports and collect statistics about what they found.

Shortly after it had got to work, the department began to make an impact. Smaller houses were carefully inspected and ticketed for the purpose of night inspection.

Those which were overcrowded were quickly dealt with in police court. Filthy conditions were dealt with in ways never previously undertaken.

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Before the founding of the department there were 1100 and 1200 deaths annually from typhus fever. As a result of its work, cases of the disease rarely occurred.

 In 1885 Peter Fyfe was appointed Chief Sanitary Inspector. He became an authority on the link between Glasgow's squalid housing conditions and public health.

The ever-increasing number of new sanitary statutes to observe, and the large growth in the city’s population, empowered the city to raise money for more staff to support Glasgow’s environmental health improvements.

By 1914, the sanitary department employed 245, while the Medical Officer of Health had a separate staff of 915.