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Sir Edwin Chadwick
Today it is 216 years ago that Edwin Chadwick was born in Manchester.
Sir Edwin Chadwick (24 January 1800 – 6 July 1890) was an English social reformer who is noted for his work to reform the Poor Laws and to improve sanitation and public health. He was born in 1800 at Longsight, Manchester, to James Chadwick. His mother died when he was still a young child, yet to be named. His father, James Chadwick, tutored the scientist John Dalton in music and botany and was considered an advanced liberal politician, thus exposing young Edwin to political and social ideas. [1]
At 18, he decided to pursue a career in law and undertook an apprenticeship at an attorney's office. In 1823, he enrolled in law school at The Temple in London. On 26 November 1830 he was called to the bar, becoming a barrister, also known as a court lawyer.
Called to the bar without 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. He became friends with two of the leading philosophers of the day, John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham. Bentham engaged him as a literary assistant and left him a large legacy. He also became acquaintances with Thomas Southwood Smith, Neil Arnott, and James Kay-Shuttleworth, all doctors.
From his exposure to social reform and under the influence of his friends, he began to devote his efforts to sanitary reform. 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) was researched and published at his own expense. A supplementary report was also published in 1843. The formation of the Health of Towns Association and the creation of various city-based branches followed rapidly. The national and local movements contributed to the passing of the Public Health Act 1848. [1]
Chadwick's 1838 Bethnal Green parish map showing mortality from four diseases
By 1848 Chadwick had become Sanitary Commissioner of London, and was very influential in the city's approach towards cholera. He believed that filth in rivers was less dangerous than filth in sewers. As Commissioner, he had the power to have sewers regularly flushed into the River Thames. This policy inadvertently contributed to the spread of cholera by water purveyors which had their intakes in the polluted areas of the river. Contrary to Dr. John Snow, he was a strong believer in the theory that epidemics were generated spontaneously from dirt, and that basic sanitation rather than specific avoidance of cholera germs would control the disease. He rejected with scorn as mere hypothesis Snow's germ theory, as described in Snow's 1855 book. [2]
While others had come to accept the germ theory, Chadwick remained a committed sanitarian to the end, telling a newspaper reporter shortly before his death in 1890:
"I cannot tell you how strongly I believe in soap and water as a preventive of epidemics" (Weekly Dispatch, July 13, 1890).
It is interesting to observe that this strong position on use of soap and water, is not at all in conflict with the germ theory. In addition, his work on mapping disease in Bethnal Green Parish resembles the later work of Snow on mapping cholera mortality a lot. It seems that the two men had a strong passion for improving public health in common, and were mainly divided over the theories of causation.
In January 1884, he was appointed as the first president of the Association of Public Sanitary Inspectors, now the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health. Its head office, in Waterloo, London, is named Chadwick Court, in his honour.
In recognition of his public service, he was knighted in 1889. He served in his post until his death, at 90, in 1890, at East Sheen, Surrey.