Urban noise nuisances and related matters between 1856 and 1939, as described in Medical Office of Health reports compiled by the Wellcome Library for their London's Pulse project.
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1850s | 1860s | 1870s | 1880s | 1890s | 1900s | 1910s | 1920s | 1930s |
NOISE. In last year’s report I mentioned 8 sources of preventable noise, which is becoming generally recognised as a factor in ill health. I am glad to note that the Council has made a bye-law to deal with one of these causes — unduly loud public radio instruments.
NOISE. I regret to report no progress in dealing with preventable noise, now generally recognised as conducive to ill health. Complaints are frequently made by residents of loud and persistent noises at all hours of the day and sometimes at night, with consequent loss of sleep and injury to nerves. In the absence of definite legislation extending the public health expression “nuisance” to cover such evils it is difficult to take any useful action.
NOISE. I regret to report no progress in dealing with preventable noise, now generally recognised as conducive to ill health. During the year, complaint was made on two occasions by the residents in a street in the Borough of excessive noise from a factory, particularly at night. Representations made led to some improvement. It is obvious that there is need for further legislation extending the public health expression “nuisance” to cover loud and persistent noises in proximity to dwelling houses.
NOISE. I regret to report no progress in dealing with preventable noise, now generally recognised as conducive to ill health. Complaints continue to be received about this evil. Apart from unnecessarily loud street noises, industrial processes are frequently carried on regardless of the hearing and nerves of the workpeople and residents in the vicinity. When, as sometimes happens, work is carried on at rush periods late into the night, children and adults, who have to rise early, and who are compelled by the housing shortage to five in the neighbourhood, are deprived of proper sleep. They naturally apply to the Public Health Department for assistance, and quite rightly, cannot understand our apparent helplessness or how the law can be so stupid as not to recognise as a “nuisance” something which is at least as bad as a bad smell in its effect upon health.
NOISE. I again draw attention to the urgent need for legislation to deal with the growing evil of noise. In the streets, we have more and more mechanical vehicles of greater size and power and carrying heavier loads, to say nothing of street repairing machines and building operations. There are factories containing powerful machinery often worked until late in the evening. The housing shortage frequently compels families to live in close proximity to industrial buildings; and where loud processes are carried on at all hours of the night as well as during the day, life almost becomes intolerable. It is useless for the doctors and health visitors at the welfare centres to advise good habits of sleep, when the means of practising such habits is denied the parents. This barrage on our complex nervous system is not conducive to good health and temper and ought to be brought under stringent public restriction. The people who have become accustomed to turn to the Public Health Department for assistance in dealing with their health problems cannot understand our helplessness in the face of an obvious menace to health, and it is to be hoped that some definite action will be taken very soon to deal with the matter.
NOISE. I welcome the intention of the London County Council to promote legislation to deal in some small measure with the serious nuisance of noise. The close proximity of much of the housing accommodation in the Borough to factories and other noise producing agencies makes it urgently necessary that there should be some public control of a nuisance liable to cause injury to health.