Folios 44-45. To: The Home Secretary. From: William Quekett, Rector of Warrington,...

Folios 44-45.

To: The Home Secretary.

From: William Quekett, Rector of Warrington, The Rectory, Warrington [Lancashire].

Subject Matter: Letter enclosing a memorial [petition] signed by 'a numerous and most respectable body of Parishioners' praying for intervention in the matter of smoke and other noxious vapours.

The petitioners claim that the Local Board have neglected to enforce the provisions of the Nuisance Removal Acts. They describe the various trades carried out among the densely packed population of Warrington, including chemical, glass, and soap manufacture, the stench from which is intolerable and injurious to property and health in the town. They add that only very few of the mills and factories in the town take any measures to consume smoke 'and in consequence your memorialists are grievous sufferers from the nuisance occasioned by the vast quantity of black smoke which is constantly being discharged from the chimnies'.

They submit that the Corporation of the Borough is largely composed of people engaged in the trades referred to, and they have shown an unwillingness to put into force the powers vested in them to tackle the nuisance. They ask that the powers of the Sanitary Act 1866 are put into force to ensure that the remedies provided by the Nuisance Removal Acts are enacted.

The petition is signed by Thomas Parr, James Marson, Quekett, and 1001 others.