Edwin
Chadwick,
the son of a successful businessman, was born in Manchester
on 24th January, 1800. Chadwick's father had progressive political
views and encouraged his son to read books by radicals such as Tom
Paine and Joseph Priestley. While
studying in London to become a lawyer,
Chadwick joined the Unilitarian Society
where he met Jeremy Bentham, James
Mill, John Stuart Mill and Francis
Place.
In 1832, the Prime Minister, Earl Grey, initiated
a Royal
Commission of Enquiry on the Poor Laws. Chadwick was appointed as
one of the assistant commissioners responsible for collecting information
on the subject. Edwin Chadwick soon emerged as one of the most important
members of the investigation and he was eventually responsible for
writing nearly a third of the published report.
In the report published in 1834, the Commission made several recommendations
to Parliament. As a result of the report, the Poor
Law Amendment Act was passed. One of the suggestions accepted
by Grey's government was that there should be a three man Central
Poor Law Commission that would be responsible for supervising the
working of the legislation. Chadwick was not appointed as a Commissioner
but was offered the post as Secretary, with a promise that he would
have the power to make further recommendations on administering
the Poor Law.
During the economic depression of 1837, many working people were forced
to enter the workhouse. Chadwick was identified as the man responsible
for abolishing outdoor relief and during the 1837
General Election there were public demonstrations against him.
After the influenza and typhoid epidemics in
1837 and 1838, Edwin
Chadwick was asked by the government
to carry out a new enquiry into sanitation. His report, The
Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population
was published in 1842. In the report Chadwick argued that disease
was directly related to living conditions and that there was a desperate
need for public health reform.
Over 7,000 copies of the report was published and it helped create
awareness of the need for government to take action in order to protect
the lives of people living in Britain's towns and cities. Sir
Robert Peel and his Conservative
administration were unwilling to support Chadwick's
recommendations. A pressure group, the Health
of Towns Association, was formed in an effort to persuade Peel's government
to take action.
However, it was only after the 1847 General Election,
when Lord John Russell became leader of
a new Liberal government, that new legislation
was introduced. In 1848 Parliament passed a Public
Health Act that provided for the formation of a Central Board
of Health. This new body had powers to create local boards to oversee
street cleansing, refuse collection, water supply and sewerage systems.
Chadwick, who was appointed Sanitation Commissioner, had several ideas
on how public health could be improved. This included a constant supply
of fresh clean water, water closets in every house, and a system of
carrying sewage to outlying farms, where it would provide a cheap
source of fertilizer. Attempts to introduce public health reforms
were resisted successfully by people with vested interests, for example,
landlords and water companies, in maintaining the present system.
In 1854 the Earl of Aberdeen appointed
Lord Palmerston as his new Home Secretary.
Palmerston was a supporter of public health reform. However, he came
to the conclusion that Chadwick was so unpopular it would be impossible
to persuade the House of Commons to renew
the powers of the Board of Health while he remained in charge of the
organisation. In order to preserve the reforms that he had achieved,
Chadwick agreed
to resign.
Although officially retired on a £1,000 a year pension, Chadwick
continued to campaign for changes in the law. This included the reform
of sanitation, education and transportation. Edwin
Chadwick
died on 6th July, 1890.
(1)
Edwin
Chadwick, The Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population
(1842)
The
chimneys of the furnaces which darken the atmospheres, and pour out
volumes of smoke and soot upon the inhabitants of populous towns,
afford most frequent examples of the inefficiency of the local administration,
and the contempt of the law for the protection of the public against
nuisances which are specially provided for. As smoke in Manchester
and other towns becomes more dense, the vegetation declines.
(2)
Edwin
Chadwick, The Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population
(1842)
The various forms of epidemic, endemic, and other disease caused,
or aggravated, or propagated chiefly amongst the labouring classes
by atmospheric impurities produced by decomposing animal and vegetable
substances, by damp and filth, and close and overcrowded dwellings
prevail amongst the population in every part of the kingdom.
That such disease, wherever its attacks are frequent, is always found
in connection with the physical circumstances above specified, and
that where those circumstances are removed by drainage, proper cleansing,
better ventilation, and other means of diminishing atmospheric impurity,
the frequency and intensity of such disease is abated; and where the
removal of the noxious agencies appears to be complete, such disease
almost entirely disappears.
(3)
Edwin
Chadwick, The Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population
(1842)
The annual loss of life from filth and bad ventilation are greater
than the loss from death or wounds in which the country has been engaged
in modern times.
The primary and most important measures, and at the same time the
most practicable, and within the recognized province of public administration,
are drainage, the removal of all refuse of habitations, streets, and
roads, and the improvements of the supplies of water.
That by the combinations of all these arrangements it is probable
that an increase of 13 years at least, may be extended to the whole
of the labouring classes.
(4)
Edwin
Chadwick, The Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population
(1842)
| Average
Age of Death |
| Place |
Professional/Gentry |
Tradesmen
|
Labourers |
| Bethnal
Green |
45
|
26
|
16
|
| Bolton |
34
|
23
|
18
|
| Derby |
49
|
38
|
21
|
| Kendal |
45
|
39
|
34
|
| Leeds |
44
|
27
|
19
|
| Liverpool |
35
|
22
|
15
|
| Manchester |
38
|
20
|
17
|
| Wiltshire |
50
|
48
|
33
|
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