In reply to Timmd:
"In 1837 and 1838 there were typhoid epidemics in the major cities. Chadwick was appointed by the government to start an enquiry into the sanitation of the UK’s major cities. In 1842 Chadwick, assisted by Dr. Thomas Southwood Smith, published his landmark report, ‘The Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population’. The report stated that there was an urgent need to improve the living conditions of the poor and that the lack of public health was directly related to the lifestyles endured by the poor. Chadwick also noted that the labouring class could not labour as well as it could in an expanding industrial economy because of their poverty and poor health. Therefore it was argued that the improved health of the poor would directly benefit the nation as a whole. When his findings in the report were read out in the House of Commons, it is said that MP’s listened in “astonishment, dismay, horror and even incredulity".
However, the improvements suggested by the report had one major weakness – their cost and this brought Chadwick into conflict with many highly influential people who were not keen to pay out money to help the poor. Chadwick’s report targeted the UK’s industrial cities and the number of people this involved ran into the hundreds of thousands. The Conservative government of 1842 effectively rejected Chadwick’s report and this remained the case until 1847 when a Liberal government under Lord John Russell took power. Russell was a lot more sympathetic to the report and in 1848 a Public Health Act was passed.
Chadwick was appointed Sanitation Commissioner and a new Central Board of Health was created with the powers to clean the streets and improve both the water and sanitation systems. Chadwick had many ideas on how he could improve the lifestyle of the poor but his priorities were a constant supply of fresh and clean water, toilets in homes and a sewage system that would carry sewage from the cities out to rural areas where it could be treated. One of his innovations was the use of glazed earthenware pipes for sewage, which reduced the possibility of contamination of drinking water. Shallow drinking wells were abolished and replaced by a mains water supply.
But the key issue was always the same – who would pay for such reforms? Landlords who would have been responsible for improvements to the homes they owned were against the reforms. Many of them had influence over MP’s who sat in the House of Commons. Many members in the House of Lords (who then could override any decision made by the Commons) were landlords themselves or had family members who were. Chadwick found that he had little support in Parliament and while on paper his reforms were good for the country as a whole, he found that Parliament did not agree. However, it may simply be the case that Chadwick was the problem and not his projected reforms. Chadwick had his own way of making his case and it was this that seemed to put people off him and therefore his reforms. Chadwick wanted things done as he wanted them done leaving little room for manoeuvre."
Not much changes, eh?
