Printed and Published at the Dover Express Works. 1916.

TO BE FORMATTED

ANNALS OF DOVER.
SECTION FIVE.
THE HISTORY OF THE CORPORATION.

VIII. PARLIAMENTARY AND MUNICIPAL REFORM.

In the tranquil period which followed the death of
George III., domestic affairs occupied public attention, and
the people of Dover earnestly joined in the agitation for
Parhamentary and Municipal Reform. Parhamentar>'
Reform came first. In 1832 the Corporation was deprived
of the privilege which had existed since the Thirteenth
Century of sending Burgesses to represent the town and
port in the House of Commons. The wisdom of that change
was not questioned at the time, for it was the will of
Parliament that the door should be so wide that every
British subject, with money enough to pay the election
expenses, might seek to represent the Borough in Parlia-
ment; and from thenceforth it was not necessary for
Parliamentary candidates to be Freemen.

Next came the Municipal Reform Act, which displaced
the old Corporations which had governed by prescription
and charter since the Saxon times. A sentimental sigh on
the passing of a venerable institution is natural, but, other-
wise, there was no room for regret, for the change was
desirable in the public interest. The Municipal Corpora-
tions Art, however, in its effects at Dover, was more a
political than a social reform — a change in names more than
things. For fifteen years after that Act came into force
the Paving Commissioners had to deal with most of the
business affecting sanitary affairs, and the great work in
front of the new Town Council could not be touched until
the Public Health Act came into force. The control
maintenance and improvement of the .streets, as well as the
drainage and scavenging, were still in the hands of the
Paving Commissioners ; but the lighting of the town was
transferred to the Town Council, who had power to extend
gas-light to the whole of the Parliamentary Borough. The
watching was also taken over by the Town Coimcil. The
old watchmen were thenceforth called constables, and the
watch-house was called a police station. The style of the
Corporation, which had been " Mayor, Jurats, and
Commonalty." was changed to "Mayor, Aldermen, and
Burgesses." The basis of the Corporation was enlarged
by making every rated and registered occupier a burgess of



258 ANNALS OF DOVER

the Corporation; and the boundary of the Borough was
extended to include all those parts of the parishes of
Charlton, Hougham and Buckland that had, by the Act of
1832, been included in the ParUamentary Borough. The
name of the new governing body had been changed from
the Common Council to the Town Council, and its
constituent parts changed from Mayor, Jurats and Common
Council-men to Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors; and the
number of the Council was reduced from thirty-six to
twenty-four members. Such was the new Municipal machine
set up in 1836, but the new Town Council was not fully
empowered to undertake the sanitary reform required until
the Public Health Act was carried in 1848; yet, even then,
the Town Council, being mainly composed of owners of
property, were loth to put that Permissive Act in force,
because it would increase the town rates and the expenditure
that would fall on the landlords. The slackness of the
Town Council aroused agitation in 1850, v. liich compelled
them to adopt the Act and enforce it. Public opinion on
this subject was demonstrated at a Common Hall in 1849,
with the Mayor in the chair, when the vote was three to
two in favour of the Act being adopted. Then a local
Inquiry was held by Mr. Rawlinson, a Board of Health
Inspector, before whom some of the principal townsmen
made shocking disclosures as to the reeking cesspools and
polluted wells in Dover. Even the evidence of property
owners and lodging-house keepers, intended to convince
the Inspector that the Public Health Act was not needed
in Dover, showed that the new lodging-houses on the Sea
Front, some of them letting at ;£i6o a year, were depending
entirely on cesspools, excepting a few of the best liouses
in Waterloo Crescent, which were " drained into the Pent " !
As to the greater part of the dwellings of the poor, it was
proved that they had neither cesspools, closets nor drains,
and were dependent on " tubs," which the scavengers
charged twopence each for emptying! The result of the
Inquiry was that the Public Health Act, by means of a
Provisional Order, was appUed to Dover, and that Order
embodied such of the provisions of the four Local Paving
Acts as were not inconsistent therewith, and further provided
that the Paving Commissioners should he abolished and their
powers conferred on the Town Cour.cil. The confirminn;
Act of Parliament by which that change was accomplished
was passed in May, 1850.



THE HISTORY OF THE CORPORATION 259

The Town Council first met as a Local Board of Health
in October, 1850, and their first act was to order a town
map, which it was estimated would cost ;;^i,5oo. The
estimate was subsequently reduced to ;£8oo, and that sum,
borrowed to pay for it, was the first loan raised by the
Local Board of Health.

The greater work of providing a complete arterial
system of drainage, with branches to all parts of the town,
together with a public water supply, was undertaken after
various plans and proposals had been deliberately considered.
In 1853 a contract for works of sewerage and water supply
was made. The plans for the drainage provided for one
sewer artery, commencing with a moderately sized pipe, on
Grabble Hill, and extending through the main thoroughfares
down the valley to Oxenden Street, in the Pier. That
main artery was gradually enlarged to accommodate the
sewage from branches extending right and left to all
parts of the town. At the Pier an engine house was
built, containing two 35-horse power engines, to pump the
sewage up to a level that would allow it to flow into an
outfall extending into the tideway outside Shakespeare Bay.
As the latteral sewers were rather flat, the engineers provided
forty flushing wells, to hold from t,ooo to 2,000 gallons
each, to be filled daily from the Waterworks to flush the
side sewers, but this was found, in practice, to be
unnecessary, and they have all been filled up. At the
terminus of the main sewer at the Pier, it was found that
at low water the sewage would flow into the outfall by
natural gravitation, and as the well was sufficient to hold
the sewage at high water, the pumping engines for some
years were not needed, but when the volume of sewage
increased the pumps were used as originally designed. The
cost of the original sewage system was ;^65.ooo. The
Waterworks, on the side of the Castle Hill, which were
commenced at the same time, including wells, reservoirs,
and pumping power, cost, ;^25,ooo, making a total of
_;^QO,ooo borrowed at that time to place the town in a fair
sanitary condition. Added to that was the debt of ;;^24.ooo
left owing by the Paving Commissioners, and with that
debt of ;;^T 14,000 on their shoulders, the Corporation could
not enter upon any other great undertaking in the way of
local improvement for nearly a quarter of a century.



26o ANNALS OF DOVEP