| Description | Some minute volumes indexed. The minutes are handwritten and signed by the committee Chairman. Minute numbers 1 - 401, dated prior to May 1856, are currently missing (see BCC/1/AR/1/1/1). The titles on the minute book covers or spines do not always reflect the exact contents. The minutes contain copies of the quarterly returns to the Council Committee and several plans of destructor sites or housing developments. There are reports detailing specific public health nuisances located by the Health Inspectors in individual streets (i.e. ash pits, insanitary latrines), details of staff appointments and the dismissal of municipal officials deemed unfit for office, departmental accounts, statements of income and expenditure and assets and liabilities, and related correspondence and papers. There are also analyses and reports relating to the inspection of contaminated or adulterated foodstuffs, the inspection of slaughterhouses, vaccination and other preventative measures taken against the spread of infectious diseases, and offences committed in accordance with the Hackney Carriage Driver's Offence Book, the registration of canal boats and the situation of public water wells. There are also detailed reports about cases of disease being treated in hospitals in the borough and city, such as the Birmingham Infirmary. Additionally there are details about the minimum standards being applied to houses, street width and other measures implemented to improve the sanitation of some of Birmingham's most dilapidated inner-city areas during the late nineteenth century under the Public Health Act, 1875, and successor legislation. The minutes of the meeting of 27 November 1872 include a description of the duties of a new Medical Officer of Health, to be appointed under the provisions of the Public Health Act, 1872, and in accordance with Council resolution 8513 passed at a meeting of 26 November 1872 (see minute 3605 in BCC/1/AR/1/1/6). The minutes dating from around 1880 also include printed reports of the Ladies' Association for Useful Work, who presented lectures and other educational activities for working class women in housekeeping and sanitary practices to be implemented by them in their homes. |