ABSTRACT
THE St. Helens Improvement Commission came into being under remarkably inauspicious circumstances. The exclusion of that part of Sutton immediately to the south of the town prevented the new sanitary authority from exercising control over the whole of the natural drainage area and robbed it of income from the rich industrial property in the rapidly-developing Ravenhead district. Moreover, membership of and electoral votes for the Commission were subject to strict property qualifications. Only those local residents who were assessed for the poor rate at more than £20, or received an income from rent exceeding £50, or possessed personal estate worth more than £1,000, could stand as Commissioners ; and only those rated under the Act at more than £4 were given the power of election. 1 This placed responsibility for the working of the new sanitary authority squarely upon the shoulders of the leading property owners, the very men who had opposed the Bill with such vehemence and were quite out of sympathy with the spirit of the measure. Clearly, all the ingenuity and influence of the chief architect of the new local authority was needed to secure its success. But Peter Greenall died less than a month after the Commissioners held their first meeting.
