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Alfred Mault, 1829-1902.Health map: location of diseases, 1898 [detail]Map published in Central Board of Health annual report for 1898. Hobart: Government Printer, 1899. Tasmaniana Library The sewering of Launceston commenced in 1860, shortly after the commencement of work on London’s sewer system. A sewerage system for Hobart was also discussed in the 1860s, but was judged to be too expensive. The appointment of Dr ES Hall as Health Officer for Hobart in 1875 marked the beginning of serious official attempts to address the city’s public health problems. In 1886 detailed proposals for a sanitation system, drafted by Alfred Mault, engineering inspector for the Central Board of Health, were tabled in Parliament. Property owners objected to the proposed funding levy, and the plans were shelved. A typhoid epidemic (which might have been contained by improved domestic hygiene) led in 1891 to the establishment of the Metropolitan Drainage Board, which was charged with preparing plans and costings for a sewerage system for Hobart. Another dozen years of political bickering passed before these plans were completed and a scheme finally approved. Meanwhile, the Central Board of Health produced annual reports on outbreaks of communicable diseases. 1898, the year of the map displayed here, saw the passage of a second Metropolitan Drainage Act, re-constituting the Metropolitan Drainage Board and empowering it to complete its sewerage plans and submit them to a poll of rate-payers for approval. The detailed plans drawn by the Metropolitan Drainage Board between 1905 and 1910 are now an invaluable source of information about Hobart streetscapes in the early twentieth century. |
