Chapter VIII Towards the Centenary of the Borough
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Chapter Eight TOWARDS THE CENTENARY OF THE BOROUGH : 1906-1956 CLERK AND CORPORATION . HE history of the Town Clerk's Department is, in epitome, a history of the Corporation itself, for "the essential duty of a Town Clerk is that of ` Clerk ' to the Council and each of its T committees, and he is, therefore, responsible for calling, preparing the agenda for, and minuting the proceedings of the Council and its committees, and conducting the correspondence arising from such meet- ings." In 1906 there were 44 members of the Council and II standing committees, namely : Watch ; Paving, Sewering, Scavenging and Building ; Baths, Parks and Cemetery ; Waterworks ; Gas and Electricity ; Health ; Public Library, Art Gallery and Museum ; Finance ; Tramways ; Edu- cation, and, lastly, the General Purposes Committee, which, amongst its other varied functions, acts as the Town Clerk's consultative committee in all cases of emergency, and transacts such business of the Council as cannot be conveniently postponed until the next Council Meeting. During 1933, with the inclusion of Norden and Bamford, the Borough was extended to an area of 9,533 acres, compared with 6,665 in 1906, and the number of Councillors was increased to 48 . For purposes of comparison, the population of the Borough in 1953-4 was 86,350, compared with 87,189 in 1906-7 . The rateable value of the Borough increased from £393,000 to £572,483 within the same period (and under the 1956 re-valuation now stands at £942,442) . TOWARDS THE CENTENARY OF THE BOROUGH : 1906-1956 . 143 Such developments as the nationalisation of the gas and elec- tricity industries and the introduction of new social services have led to changes amongst the committees of the Council, of which there are now 17 standing committees, named as follows : Watch ; Markets ; Passenger Transport ; Waterworks ; Highways and Buildings ; Housing ; Cleansing ; Health ; Welfare Services ; Baths, Parks and Cemetery ; Public Libraries, Art Gallery and Museum ; Education ; Children's ; Finance ; Establishment ; Entertainments : General Purposes . Today, there is scarcely an aspect of the town which has not been affected by one or other of the Corporation Departments during the past fifty years ; for example, the Borough Surveyor's Department has literally changed the face of the town by providing new buildings, public schools and housing estates, by surfacing and widening roads, laying out parks and gardens, etc . ; the Health Department keeps a watchful eye on almost every phase of physical and mental human activity, and, together with the Surveyor's Department, is interested in the condition of every house within the Borough, including cinemas, factories and shops . It may not he generally known that the Corporation now owns over one-fifth of the area of the Borough . It is obvious that the development of the various departments has resulted in greater work in the Town Clerk's office, which acts as a co-ordinating centre for all committees and departments . As Secretary to the Council, the Town Clerk, or one of his staff, must attend the meetings of some 75 committees or sub-committees (not to mention sub-sub-committees), amounting to 70 meetings each month ; he is at hand to advise the Mayor and the Chairmen of Committees ; he interprets the Standing Orders of the Council and advises the Council on its powers and duties, particularly as regards new legislation . The num- ber and complexity of statutes affecting local government functions have, over the past fifty years, been very great . Taking housing and town plan- ning as one example, the Town Clerk deals with such Orders as those which concern compulsory purchase (re the acquisition of land ; demo- lition or closing (re unfit houses) ; clearance (re slums or derelict houses) ; also with public enquiries which may arise from such Orders. During the last half century, the Corporation itself has promoted eight Acts (some of which have as many as one or two hundred sections) in order to deal with various and often numerous problems for which no adequate remedy exists under the public general statutes . The eight local Acts are as follows : six Rochdale Corporation Acts of 1908, '25, '30, '32, '37 and '48 ; two Water Acts of 1923 and '30 (the first of which was obtained jointly with the Oldham Corporation) . Naturally enough (although it is not legally essential), it has been the practice in Rochdale, as in most large towns, to appoint a qualified solicitor as Town Clerk, with other solicitors amongst his staff, thus avoiding the need to employ outside solicitors to attend to the complicated work of litigations, prosecutions and the considerable amount of convey- ancing, which, as in the case of recent enquiries into Falinge Hill property, Aerial view Af Rochdale. Photo : Manchester Evening News . 146 ROCHDALE RETROSPECT K may involve deeds going back into the 18th century : this small amount of land at ° The Mount " (less than 5 acres), contained 12 plots in which, altogether, no less than 43 interests were concerned . Other main duties of the Town Clerk include responsibility for the Electoral Registers and for Municipal and Parliamentary Elections ; the supervision of municipal entertainments (such as concerts, bands in the Parks, etc.) ; the supervision of Civil Defence. The maintenance of an Information and Advice Bureau comes within his duties and he is also, in effect, a Public Relations Officer who ensures fair representation by the Press . Since the 1930 transference to the Corporation of the Poor Law duties, the Town Clerk has had a general overall responsibility for the Registration of Births, Deaths and Marriages . The Superintendent Regist- rar still carries out his work at the Townhead offices of the old Board of Guardians, where are kept records dating from 1837 onwards . , The Town Clerk's staff now numbers 20, compared with 7 in 1908 ; apart from the Clerk and his Deputy, the present staff includes two soli- citors-and also a certain percentage of the duties of the Town Hall Keeper, who acts as attendant to the Mayor, of whom the Town Clerk is the secular adviser . This department, one of the smallest within the Corporation, is at the same time the most important . To quote Lord Snell (for many years Chairman of the London County Council) : " The position of the chief municipal officer-the Town Clerk-is one of first-class importance . It is not too much to say that the local administrative machine takes from him much of its tone and quality ." Rochdale has been fortunate in its choice of Town Clerks. W. H . Hickson, O.B.E., an outstanding official, remained at Rochdale for 31 years, from 1904, being succeeded in 1935 by Mr . Harry Bann. G. F. Simmonds, M .A., LL.B. (Cantab .) was appointed in 1945 and was succeeded by the present Town Clerk, K . B. Moore, LL .M ., in 1949 . Amongst the unpaid and voluntarily undertaken duties of Roch- dale's chief officials, is that of visiting large or small organisations in order to discuss or answer problems of Corporation administration . One of these informal discussions recently led to an exposition of the advan- tages of local government : properly administered, it can be an effective check to totalitarianism (for which a completely centralised government might be an easy tool) . It has the advantage of accessibility : councillors may freely be approached by any ratepayer . Local knowledge is also a great asset : councillors and officials know intimately the problems of their own district . Flexibility and economy are aided by the interworking of almost all departments : police and surveyor together study the effect of street lighting upon crime ; the Cleansing Department lends lorries to other departments : the staff of the Parks Department tend the grass verges of the housing estates and the playing fields of the schools . The ratepayer himself, vaguely conscious of satisfactory service, only takes an interest in municipal affairs when something goes slightly TOWARDS THE CENTENARY OF THE BOROUGH : 1906-1956 . 147 wrong : in spite of one of the best water supplies in the country, a tinge of moorland peat will bring a storm of protest to the Waterworks Department and to the local press . At such times it is obvious that some, at least, of the County Borough's inhabitants, do realise that the Town Clerk and the 2,500 full-time employees of the Corporation are their servants ; that the ratepayers of Rochdale own the Corporation, and, through their elected Councillors rule the town . The work of their devoted servants is briefly outlined in the following pages, which have been based upon information and upon annual reports received from the Chief Officials of the Corporation . From such material emerges a detailed picture of almost every activity within the town . One hundred years after the Incorporation of the Borough, Rochdalians no longer die of cholera and typhoid ; the death-rate has shrunk from 23 .4 per thousand in 1856 to 13 .8 in 1954 . Sweet water is now piped from mountain reservoirs, instead of being carried in buckets from pumps or streams polluted by manure . Wide, well-lit and well- paved streets are cleansed at least weekly, sometimes two or three times a day . Children no longer walk over 20 miles a day within dark and dusty factories-no child leaves school before the age of 15 years . All over the Borough new housing estates have been built and the debris of the In- dustrial Revolution is being cleared . As for the centre of the town, Roch- dale's new son-in-law, the Right Honourable Herbert Morrison, C.H ., M .P., was only re-phrasing the words of many prominent visitors when in January, 1955, he said " the people of Rochdale should feel very proud of their Town Centre," an " excellent piece of town layout ." And again, • Rochdale .