Folios 77-78. To: The General Board of Health. From: C B Mansfield, Town Clerk,...

Folios 77-78.

To: The General Board of Health.

From: C B Mansfield, Town Clerk, Swansea [Glamorganshire].

Subject Matter: Letter advising that, at a special meeting, the Council of the Borough of Swansea formed themselves as a Local Board under the Public Health Act 1848 and received the books, papers, money, and accounts of the Paving and Lighting Commissioners. He states that the Local Board appointed the Clerk to the former Commissioners as their Clerk pro tem until a meeting on 2 October 1850 at which officers will be appointed.

He submits that, from his reading of Section 12 of the Act, as well as Section 69 of the Municipal Corporations (England) Act 1835, no one but the Town Clerk has the power to summon a Corporation to sit as a Local Board. He notes that the Council at Carmarthen [Carmarthenshire] got into difficulty when appointing a Clerk other than their Town Clerk. He encloses a copy of the legal opinion of John Wilson, barrister, in this case [folio 78]. Wilson considers that in Corporate Districts appointments should be made under the corporate seal and actions done in the name of the Corporation. Mansfield asks whether the General Board concurs with this opinion.