BASINGSTOKE TOWN, SANITARY CONDITIONS AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE IN 1866

These pages were missing from the Minute Books of the Basingstoke Poor Law Union in 1866, where the reports for the outlying parishes were transcribed in full (see separate item on VCH Explore), but turned up in The National Archives inserted into the correspondence for September 1871, along with William Ranger's Report to the General Board of Health on the Borough of Basingstoke of 1853 and Dr Ballard's Report upon the Sanitary Condition of Basingstoke of 1871.

These three items were undoubtedly grouped together because in 1871 sanitary conditions in Basingstoke - as in many Victorian towns and cities - were particularly bad. With the new Local Government Board, the new Urban Sanitary Authority (the Town Council) and the Rural Sanitary Authority (Basingstoke Poor Law Union) were established, and they became involved in trying to deal with this; consequently these items co-exist along with copious amounts of correspondence relating to the problem, which inevitably involved bad conditions in the Basingstoke Canal.

This, on its own, is a subject for further study.

1. TNA, MH 12/10683,  Correspondence between the Local Government Board and Basingstoke Union, 1871 to 1872