Series 5 > Government and social conditions in Scotland, 1845-1919

INTRODUCTION
when the board of supervision for the Relief of the Poor was
created in 1845 it represented an important departure in the
ordinary administration of Scotland. Never before had Scotland
seen central control of its welfare system, nor, since the Jacobite
Rebellion, had the British government allowed a principal public
department north of the Border. Although the Board, apart from
its chairman. Sir John McNeill, was part-time, it heralded the
beginning of modern Scottish Government/from 1845 onwards
there was always a Scottish institution able, and indeed with a
statutory responsibility, to monitor the condition of the poor and
ensure their needs were meU'This responsibility was added to by
the 1867 Public Health Act; the Board also supervised ‘nuisance’
removal, the regulation of common lodging houses and the
control of epidemic disease. It was a wide remit which meant that
after 1867 the Board had a duty to monitor sanitary conditions
and ensure some modicum of public healths
The Board was never a political creature. In fact, constitu¬
tionally it had been created a sub-department of the Home Office,
a sub-department status that remained when the newly estab¬
lished Scottish Office assumed the Home Office’s powers in
1885. Before 1885 there is little evidence that the Home Office, or
Parliament for that matter, took much interest in its work. For its
first twenty-five years, the Board was mentioned just four times
in the Commons and on two of these, the m.p. concerned seemed
confused as to what it did. This lack of Government and
Parliamentary interest meant the Board was left much to itself.
Although the Board invariably looked to see what the English
Local Government Board was suggesting before it issued any
new public health circular, Scottish health and welfare admin¬
istration remained remarkably free from the hum-drum of British
politics.1
1 Evidence of Walker, to Royal Commission on Housing. C.4409-1. (P.P. Vol. XXXI 1884-5)