Health Officer

Unique IDAG-0095DescriptionThe Health Officer was a part-time appointee from the medical profession responsible for the public health of the City.

The Health Officer was supposed to work closely with the Inspector of Nuisances in investigating poor housing and outbreaks of disease in the City. However overlapping responsibilities and suspicion of medical science by outsiders meant that there was in practice considerable friction between the Health Officer and Inspector, and also with the elected Aldermen.

The Health Officer submitted regular reports to Council showing the number of births and deaths in the City, and outbreaks of disease. The Health Officer visited premises where infectious diseases had been reported and provided advice on proper sanitary conditions etc. He also made recommendations to Council on improving the public health of the City through changes to the sewerage system and construction of buildings. During the 1880s the Health Officer was one of the officials most closely involved with the slum tours conducted under mayoral auspices to draw attention to "rookeries" and condemn dwellings unfit for habitation.

In 1890 he published a leaflet entitled "Advice for the Care and Nurture of Children of Tender Years".

On 20 April 1900 the Town Clerk (in a report on the Reorganisation of Corporation Service) recommended that following serious recent shortcomings in the operation of the Sanitary Branch [Inspector of Nuisances?], it should be replaced by an entirely new City Health Department headed by a full-time City Health Officer. The CHO should be selected by the Board of Health but based at the Town Hall. (PC 1900 pp129-134).

The post of Health Officer was held by:
Isaac Aaron (1857-1859)
Henry Graham (1859-1870)
George Frederick Dansey (1870-1888)
William Rudolph Clay (1888-1890)
D Gwynne-Hughes (1890-1900)
Cyril Ernest Corlette (1900)

The role of the Health Officer is discussed in AJC Mayne: Fever Squalor and Vice: Sanitation and Social Policy in Victorian Sydney (St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 1982), especially chapter 3. The mayoral slum tours of the 1880s are discussed and newspaper coverage reproduced, in AJC Mayne: Representing the Slum: Popular journalism in a late nineteenth-century city (Melbourne, University of Melbourne History Dept monograph 13, 1990).CreationSydney Corporation Restoration Act 1857.
Resolution of Council 20 April 1857AbolitionReport of the Town Clerk, 20 April 1900.

Description

Start date20th April 1857End date3rd May 1900Relationship legacy dataRELATED TO: Sydney City Council OR-0001 (01/01/1857 to 01/01/1900)
RELATED TO: Public health FN-0012 (01/01/1857 to 03/05/1900)
Source System ID95

Relationships

OrganisationSydney City CouncilRelated functionsPublic health

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Health Officer