In the period before 1895 both the poor law authorities and the police authority had important health functions (see Glasgow Parish Council and Glasgow Corporation Police Department). In 1895 all the activities of the police authorities, including those relating to public health, were transferred to Glasgow Corporation under the Glasgow Corporation and Police Act 1895. The poor law authorities remained independent. The Health Department was now responsible for the fever hospitals, sanitary inspection, including the controversial inspection of ticketed houses, meat and milk inspection, and a wide range of other functions relating to public health. In 1903, after an outbreak of plague in the city, the Corporation was constituted a port local authority for the purposes of the Public Health (Scotland) Act 1897 with powers of inspection of ships over the whole of the Clyde.
The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1929, more than doubled the work of the department. The parish councils and district boards of control were abolished and their functions transferred to the Corporation. The health and welfare functions were split into separate Public Assistance and Public Health committees and departments. In the case of health these included the hospitals, the medical work of the poorhouses, and the outdoor medical services for the sick poor formerly administered by the local Parish Councils.
The department, which already administered the infectious diseases hospitals, now inherited both the poorhouses and the poor law general hospitals, including Stobhill and the Southern General Hospital (the Southern General was at first treated as a poor law institution and not transferred from the Public Welfare Department until 1936). Institutions such as Barnhill and the Southern General, which were partly hospitals and partly poorhouses, were in practice shared between Health and Public Assistance, but the Health Department alone was now responsible for 17 hospitals, with about 10,000 beds. The District Boards of Control also transferred to the Corporation. There had been six of these within the municipal area, responsible for the provision of accommodation for mental defectives, as well as for the insane under the Mental Deficiency and Lunacy (Scotland) Act 1913. The Corporation now inherited, along with the hospitals and the asylums, the lands of Lennox Castle in Stirlingshire, and Caldwell House, near Neilston, purchased respectively by the Glasgow and Govan Boards, for the provision of accommodation for the mentally handicapped. The building work was now carried out by the department, and Lennox Castle Certified Institution opened in 1936.
The other substantial addition to its work under the 1929 Act was the medical inspection and treatment of school children, previously the function of the education authority. This ended the anomaly whereby the health of children became the responsibility of a different authority once they reached school age. The health services for children were now co-ordinated, and the former Chief School Medical Officer was appointed a Deputy Medical Officer of Health.
The department acquired additional functions in wartime, including the provision of casualty hospitals, first aid posts and ambulance depots. With the advent of the National Health Service in July 1948, however, it was drastically reorganised. In particular the new Hospital Boards took over both the voluntary and municipal hospitals.
However, local authorities retained important functions under Part III of the Act. Apart from his Public Health Act functions, the responsibilities of the Medical Officer of Health included maternity and child welfare, the health of school children, health visiting, and the previously voluntary District Nursing Service, among others. In 1949 the Corporation amalgamated Public Health and Welfare to form the Health and Welfare Department.
The re-formed department continued without radical change for almost twenty years, but then, as in 1947-8, the health and welfare aspects of its work were drastically altered by two separate statutes. The Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968 redistributed the various welfare services, mainly for children, the elderly and the handicapped, to form a new Social Work Department. The Health Department now resumed its former name. It continued to be responsible for maternity and child welfare, the School Health Service, the Health Visiting Service, the District Nursing Service, immunisation and vaccination, and the control and notification of infectious diseases. It also continued to act as the Port Health Authority and was still responsible for food inspection.
Reform of the public health function came in 1972, with the National Health Service (Scotland) Act. When the Act came into effect in 1974, newly created Health Boards took over responsibility for the local authority personal health services, as well as for hospitals and general practitioners. The post of Medical Officer of Health was abolished and the medical profession entirely removed from local government. Accordingly the medical functions of the department and most of its staff now transferred to the Greater Glasgow Health Board. The remaining functions were entrusted to a new Environmental Health Department, now responsible for miscellaneous General Services, including slum clearance; food and drugs; noise abatement; the control of pests; the Port Health Authority; food inspection, including the registration and supervision of dairies, creameries and similar premises; and air purification under the Clean Air Acts. It transferred to Glasgow District Council on local government reorganisation in 1975.
The Medical Officers of Health from 1863 until the abolition of the post in 1974 were:
W T Gairdner, 1863-1873; James Burn Russell, 1873-1892; Archibald K Chalmers, 1892-1925; Sir Alexander S MacGregor, 1925-1946; Stuart Laidlaw, 1946-1955; William Horne, 1955-1967; Archibald R Miller, 1967-1971; and Thomas Scott Wilson, 1971-1974.
[Source: administrative history from the Scottish Archive Network (www.scan.org.uk)]
