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Board of Health, 1831-1832

Fears of a cholera epidemic led to the creation of another consultative Board of Health in June 1831. Its minutes are in PC 1/101 and HO 31/17. A sub-committee of the Board prepared regulations to prevent the spread of the disease which were issued as Orders in Council and published in the London Gazette of 25 October 1831 (ZJ 1/189). The following month a new Central Board of Health replaced the consultative one. It sat at the Privy Council Office with an advisory committee of the Royal College of Physicians. Nearly 1200 local boards of health were created, constituted by Orders in Council, in addition to those formed on local initiative. Minutes of the Central Board are in PCI/105, with registers of correspondence and letter books in PC 1/93-100 and other miscellaneous papers and correspondence in PC 1/102-4, PC 1/106-14, PC 1/2260-2262, PC 1/4395 and MH 98/1. The Board was dissolved in December 1832 and the local boards disappeared as the epidemic receded. For a further eighteen months the Privy Council Office continued to deal with correspondence about cholera. Surviving records of the local boards should be sought in the appropriate local record office.