Letter from the Borough of Hampstead Public Health Department to the Chief Medical Officer of Health at the Ministry of Health, 16 February 1939 (MH 55/709)
Borough of Hampstead
Public Health Department
Town Hall, Haverstock Hill
Hampstead, N.W.3
H. Leslie Oldershaw, M.D. (Lon) D.P.H.
Medical Officer of Health
Telephone No
Primrose 4421
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All communication to be addressed
to the Medical Officer of Health O/H/A 16th February 1939
Dear Sir,
I have been considerably concerned during the last few weeks in respect of the large numbers of Refugees, particularly children, who have arrived in my Borough. You will appreciate that I have received no information as to number, nor the addresses to which they have gone. However, I have discovered that certain houses are being used as hostels (e.g. one house is now used as a hostel for 17 German-Jewish boys) and other private boarding schools are taking in numbers of these children, functioning thereby, as clearing houses.
Is it your wish that I should exercise any special control or supervision over their Refugees in so far as they might possibly occasion the importation and spread of infectious disease, etc. It appears to me that unless some measure of registration is effected, a medical officer of health will remain ignorant of the existence of such premises to which I have referred.
Yours faithfully,
H. Leslie Oldershaw
Medical Officer of Health
The Chief Medical Officer,
Ministry of Health,
Whitehall, S.W.1.