The Language of Exclusion in F. Solly Flood's “History of the Permit System in Gibraltar” 1

  By 1871, the year in which Flood presented his “History of the Permit System” he had been in office as Attorney General for six years. He had originally been sent to Gibraltar to prepare an Order on sanitary reform after the town had been struck by a minor cholera epidemic in 1860 although a far more severe outbreak was to strike in 1865. Overcrowding was isolated as a primary agent of contagion and perceived to be a major threat to the troops given that the military lived in very close proximity to civilians. The unchecked ingress of foreigners or aliens was therefore held by the authorities to represent a major threat to the wellbeing of the Garrison; once resident in the town these aliens added to the already overcrowded living conditions. Their entry therefore needed to be restricted. All these factors contributed to the drive for permit reform. Still, the territorial restrictions placed upon the Rock after conquest most certainly informed the urgent need for population management. The resources available on the Rock were limited yet the demands from inhabitants' on the military for civic provision continued to increase throughout the nineteenth century. Flood's document subsequently draws our attention to the tensions brought about by Gibraltar's dual status as Colony and Fortress, a major concern of Flood's being that military expediency was becoming seriously undermined by an ever expanding town inhabited by a resident civilian population that was increasingly alien in composition. His aim therefore was to take measures to ensure that the only permanent presence in Gibraltar was that of the Garrison.