EDITORIAL – Redcar Local Board and of Health Elections

Accreditation The Redcar and Saltburn-by-the-Sea Gazette 29/03/1877.

REDCAR LOCAL BOARD OF HEALTH ELECTIONS
(EDITORIAL)

            The impending election of three members of the Redcar Local Board of Health will give the ratepayers an opportunity of exercising their judgement by choosing men to represent their interests. The three retiring members, Messrs. Harrison, Mallaby, and Fairbridge, have all been nominated, but Mr. Mallaby has withdrawn his name, which does not, therefore, appear on the voting papers. The other candidates are Messrs. T. Blatherwick, W. Previll, H. Hudson, J. Fleck, G. Wren, Watson Dixon, and R. Garbutt. Two other candidates were proposed. On the strength of their property qualification, Messrs. Picknett and Wynn, but the returning officer has been compelled to reject their nomination on the ground that the Order in Council, which constituted the Redcar Local Board provides only for a rating qualification of £15 per annum, and the subsequent Acts do not interfere with the number and qualification of members of Boards constituted under the Act of 1848. This is an anomalous state of things, and in the event of the incorporation of the portion of Redcar, which lies in the parish of Upleatham, and the other adjacent portions of the parish of Marske with the Redcar Local Board district, the omission should be remedied. It is quite obvious that men possessed of considerable property in a town, whatever their rating to the poor may be, have more at stake, and are consequently more bound up with its interests, than men who merely occupy houses rated at £15 and upwards, who may be here to-day and gone to-morrow- an incident not infrequent in the annals of Redcar. The Acts of Parliament all give the alternative of a rating or property qualification, and why the latter should have been omitted in the constitution of the Redcar Local Board, which is expressly a rating qualification and a rating qualification only, is a mystery yet unsolved. It has been thought by some that the Act of 1875, because it reiterates the property and rating qualifications, provides for this, or mission, but exactly the reverse is the case, as may be seen on reference to Clause 72 of Schedule II, which distinctly accepts the provisions relating to number and qualification of members of Boards established under the Act of 1848. There is every reason why this or mission should be remedied in any future application to Parliament, because there is confessedly a difficulty in pertaining practical and experienced men to sit as members of the Local Board in Redcar, and at the present moment there is a conspicuous absence of builders on the Board. Messrs. Picknett and Wynn are practical men, either of whom would have been an acquisition to the Board, and we regret the circumstance which hinders their candidature at present. We hope before another annual election that the area of the Board will be extended, and that advantage will be taken of the dual order to give the requisite property qualification clause, so that any owner willing to sit as such may be duly qualified to take his seat at the Board. In the meantime the ratepayers have the choice of nine persons to fill the three vacant seats

FacebookTwitterDiggMore...

Lol Hansom October 30, 2014 Editorial, Letters and other.