Edwin Chadwick
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sir Edwin Chadwick KCB (24 January 1800 – 6 July 1890) was an English social reformer, noted for his work to reform the Poor Laws and improve sanitary conditions and public health. One of the reasons why Chadwick believed in improvement to public health was because he believed it would save money. He was born in Longsight, Manchester. Called to the bar without any independent means, he sought to support himself by literary work such as his work on Applied Science and its place in Democracy, and his essays in the Westminster Review (mainly on different methods of applying scientific knowledge to the practice of government) brought him to the notice of Jeremy Bentham, who engaged him as a literary assistant and left him a large legacy.
In 1832 Chadwick was employed by the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the operation of the Poor Laws, and in 1833 he was made a full member of that body. Chadwick and Nassau William Senior drafted the famous report of 1834 recommending the reform of the old Poor Law. Under the 1834 system individual parishes were formed into Poor Law Unions – each Poor Law Union was to have a union workhouse. Chadwick favoured a more centralised system of administration than that which was adopted, and he felt the Poor Law reform of 1834 should have provided for the management of poor law relief by salaried officers controlled from a central board, the boards of guardians acting merely as inspectors.
In 1834 he was appointed secretary to the Poor Law commissioners. Unwilling to administer an act of which he was largely the author in any way other than the way he thought best, he found it hard to get along with his superiors. This disagreement, among others, contributed to the dissolution of the Poor Law Commission in 1847. Chadwick's chief contribution to political controversy was his belief in entrusting certain departments of local affairs to trained and selected experts, instead of to representatives elected on the principle of local self-government.
While still officially working with the Poor Law, Chadwick took up the question of sanitation in conjunction with Dr Thomas Southwood Smith. Their joint efforts produced a salutary improvement in the public health. His report on The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population(1842),[1] was researched and published at his own expense. A supplementary report was also published in 1843,[2] Chadwick's efforts were acknowledged by at least one health reformers of the day. William James Erasmus Wilson dedicated his 1854 book Healthy Skin to Chadwick "In admiration of his strenuous and indefatigable labors in the cause of Sanitary Reform".[3]
Chadwick was a commissioner of the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers in London from 1848 to 1849; he was also a commissioner of the General Board of Health from its establishment in 1848 to its abolition in 1854, when he retired on a pension, and occupied the remainder of his life in voluntary contributions to sanitary, health and economical questions. In January 1884 he was appointed as the first president of the Association of Public Sanitary Inspectors (now the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health).
In recognition of his public service Chadwick was knighted in 1889. He served in his post until his death in 1890 at East Sheen in Surrey.
[edit] Bibliography
- Edwin Chadwick, Nineteenth-century Social Reform, ed. David Gladstone, Routledge (1997) ISBN 0415168716
- B. W. Richardson, The Health of Nations, a Review of the Works of Edwin Chadwick, with a Biographical Introduction, London, Longmans, Green and Co. (1887); Kessinger (2007) ISBN 0548215626.
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
[edit] References
- ^ Chadwick, Edwin (1842). "Chadwick's Report on Sanitary Conditions". excerpt from Report...from the Poor Law Commissioners on an Inquiry into the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain (pp.369-372) (online source). added by Laura Del Col: to The Victorian Web. http://www.victorianweb.org/history/chadwick2.html. Retrieved 2009-11-08.
- ^ Chadwick, Edwin (1843). Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain. A Supplementary Report on the results of a Special Inquiry into The Practice of Internment in Towns. London: Printed by R. Clowes & Sons, for Her Majesty's Stationery Office. http://www.archive.org/details/reportonsanitary00chaduoft. Retrieved 2009-11-08. Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org)
- ^ Wilson, Erasmus (1854). Healthy Skin: A Popular Teatise on the Skin and Hair, their Preservation and Management (2nd American, from the 4th Revised London ed.). Philadelphia: Blanchard & Lea. http://www.archive.org/details/healthyskinapop04wilsgoog. Retrieved 2009-11-08. Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org)
[edit] External links
- Marjie Bloy, "Edwin Chadwick (1800-1890)", The Victorian Web
- Chartered Institute of Environmental Health
- Archival material relating to Edwin Chadwick listed at the UK National Register of Archives
- Sir Edwin Chadwick (Obituary) in "Eminent persons: Biographies reprinted from the Times, Vol IV, 1887-1890", Macmillan & Co., 1893, pp. 244-250, http://books.google.com/books?id=PxIYAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA244 Sir Edwin Chadwick (Obituary) in
- Edwin Chadwick at Find a Grave
