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 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 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.