Extract from White's Leicester and Rutland Directory 1877

A LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD was established in 1861, under the Public Health Act of 1848, and the Local Government Act of 1858. Wm. Latham, Esq., is clerk; Jas. Lawford, Esq., Leicester, treasurer;
Mr. R. W. Johnson, surveyor; Mr. W. Crofts, collector; and Mr. J. Willis, nuisance inspector. The Local Board have decided to reconstruct, at a cost of £8000 (borrowed from the Public Works Loan Commissioners), the sewers which were laid in 1862-3. The Board has borrowed £4200 of the Atlas Insurance Company, at five per cent., to be repaid by equal instalments in thirty years.
MELTON MOWBRAY UNION comprises 56 parishes, of which 85 are in Framland, Hundred; 18 in East Goscote Hundred; one (Broughton Sulney) in Nottinghamshire ; and two (Burrough and Pickwell) in Gartree Hundred. It comprises an area of 158 square miles, and had 19,926 inhabitants in 1871, as will be seen from the table given below, which also shows the number of inhabited houses. The total annual average expenditure of the 56 parishes on the poor, during the three years preceding the formation of the Union, was £9700. The expenditure of the Union in 1838 was £5793; in 1840, £4895 9s.; the total amount paid by the overtseers to the guardians during the year ended Michaelmas, 1875, was £10,654. The expenditure by the guardians for all purposes (including county and police rates, &c.) was £10,399. The expenditure for the year ended Lady Day, 1876, was £17,387. Three guardians are elected yearly for Melton, and one for each of the other 55 parishes, and they meet at the workhouse every alternate Thursday morning. The UNION WORKHOUSE was built in 1886, at the cost of about £6000, and has room for 250 inmates, but has seldom more than half that number; in 1871 it had 126 paupers. It is a neat and very commodious building, pleasantly situated on its own grounds of about 21/2 acres, on the east side of Melton Mowbray, and divided into several wards, with spacious yards. There are also about 31/2 acres of pasture laud, which is let off. A hospital was added in 1847, at a cost of £500, and rebuilt on a greatly enlarged scale in 1870, at a cost of £1950. It has accommodation for 48 patients, and stands upon a gentle eminence, commanding pleasant views of the surrounding country. Frederick J. Oldham, Esq., is union clerk and superintendent registrar; Mr. Wm. Leadbeater, registrar of births and deaths, for Melton district; Mr. Jackson, for Somerby district; Mr. John Gilian, for Waltham district; and Mr. George Harrison, for Clawson district; Mr. John Towne, of Melton, and Mr. John Gilian, of Waltham, are registrars of marriages. The Independent, Wesleyan, and Roman Catholic chapels at Melton, the Baptist chapel at Hose, the Catholic chapel at Eastwell, the Wesleyan chapel at Hoby, and the Independent chapel at Hose, are licensed for marriages. Mr. Samuel and Mrs. Martha Weston are master and matron of the workhouse; Mr. George and Mrs. Rebecca S. Bennett, schoolmaster and mistress; the Rev. Henry Gregg, is chaplain; Messrs. William Leadbeater and John Gilian, relieving officers and Messrs. N. Whitchurch, J. Roberts, J. M. Swain, Edward Brewster and Charles George Leacock are surgeons.

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