Edmonton Local Board of Health Southgate Local Board of Health

For most of the 19th century local government in Edmonton was divided among several bodies, although membership often overlapped. At the time of the cholera outbreak in 1853, the vestry appointed a committee to consider the sanitary state of the parish. There was a watching and lighting committee, presumably set up after the Act of 1833, and the overseers collected a lighting rate. A board of the surveyors of the highway was responsible for the roads in the parish by 1841. In 1837 Edmonton parish became a medical district within the poor law union and in 1842 it was divided into three, each with its own medical officer.

Edmonton local board of health was set up in 1850 under the Public Health Act of 1848. It immediately replaced the highway board and took over responsibility for street lighting under the Local Government Act of 1858. It consisted of 12 members who met twice a month at the watch-house in Church Street. Its salaried officials were a clerk, a combined inspector of nuisances and surveyor, and a collector of rates, who later received a percentage of the collected rates in place of a salary. The board was financed by a general district rate, although sometimes there was a separate highway-rate. Expenditure on highways was nearly always considerably greater than on sanitary improvements.

There were many complaints about sewerage, especially from Southgate, where in 1879 a petition for separation from Edmonton was drawn up by the leading landholders and signed by more than 500 people. In 1881 Southgate was granted its own local board (under the Edmonton Local Board (Division of District) Act 1881) and Edmonton local board was reduced to 9 members. Although the loss of the large houses in Southgate deprived it of valuable rates, the Edmonton board seems to have been more active after the separation. Jerry-builders were vigorously prosecuted during the 1880s. During the 1880s and 1890s there were committees for the town hall, cemetery, works, finance, farms, engines, sanitation, and the library. A town hall 'in municipal Perpendicular' was built facing Fore Street in 1884 and enlarged in 1903.

Southgate local board had 9 members, whose first chairman was John Walker of Arnos Grove. The board met twice a month in Ash Lodge and in the village hall until 1893, when council offices were erected to a design by A. Rowland Barker, a Southgate resident; they were enlarged in 1914. Salaried officials were a clerk, treasurer, rate collector, sanitary inspector, medical officer of health, and a combined surveyor and engineer.

Under the Act of 1894 the two local boards became urban districts (U.D.). Edmonton local board of health had used the traditional wards of Bury Street, Church Street, and Fore Street. There had been proposals to add two new wards, Angel Road and Silver Street, and the new U.D. was organized accordingly, with three councillors for each of the five wards. After an inquiry in 1903 the district again consisted of three wards, with nine councillors each. In 1933 the area was divided into Bury Street, Church Street, Angel Road, and Silver Street wards, with seven councillors for each. Southgate U.D. had nine councillors in 1894 and twelve from 1900. In 1906 it was divided into four wards: Middle, South, North-east, and Northwest. Swimming baths and a refuse destructor were erected but the most important achievement was control over the development of the area. Although the number of houses increased eightfold between 1881 and 1931, Southgate remained one of the 'most agreeable of the northern suburbs', largely because of the council's regulations and its acquisition of 287 acres of park-land.

Southgate was incorporated in 1933, retaining its four wards. The council, consisting of a mayor, 7 aldermen, and 21 councillors, was enlarged. Edmonton was incorporated in 1937, after which it had four wards, a mayor, 8 aldermen and 24 councillors. Southgate Borough Council was consistently dominated by opponents of the Labour party, while Edmonton, at least after the Second World War, was controlled by Labour councillors.

In 1965 Edmonton and Southgate were united in Enfield London Borough, created under the London Government Act of 1963. The names of three Edmonton wards, Angel Road, Church Street, and Silver Street, survived among the 30 wards of the new authority. Edmonton and Southgate town halls were retained to house the borough treasurer, architect, engineer and surveyor, area housing and town planning offices. The education department was housed in Church Street, Edmonton.

From: A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 5: Hendon, Kingsbury, Great Stanmore, Little Stanmore, Edmonton Enfield, Monken Hadley, South Mimms, Tottenham (1976), pp. 175-179.