This article is an attempt to place the origin of sanitary legislation in England, and its chief proponent, Edwin Chadwick, in the overall dynamics of 19th-century social development. It examines the public health movement in light of the transition of English society into the domination of the market ideology, and the effect that this had on health. Emphasis is placed on explaining the utilitarian movement, of which Chadwick was an instrumental part, and its role in promoting the market system through the enactment of the New Poor Law in 1834. The article suggests that the enactment of sanitary reform in the 1848 Public Health Act was the unplanned reaction to the detrimental effects that the market ideology had on health in the industrial centers. The main intent of this article is to go beyond the prevailing belief that sanitary reform was a humane contribution of publicly spirited men. It concludes that this state intervention was materially necessitated: it was forced by the contradictions inherent in the market system.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
RosenG.A History of Public Health. M. D. Publications, New York, 1958.
2.
FinerS. E.The Life and Times of Sir Edwin Chadwick. Methuen and Company, London, 1952.
3.
MartsonM.Sir Edwin Chadwick. Leonard Parsons, London, 1925.
4.
LewisR. A.Edwin Chadwick and the Public Health Movement, 1832–1854. Longmans, Green and Company, London, 1952.
5.
ChadwickE.The Health of Nations, Vols. 1 and 2, edited by RichardsonB. W.. Longmans, Green and Company, London, 1887.
6.
HodgkinsonR.Public Health in the Victorian Age, Vols. 1 and 2. Gregg International Publishers, Westmead, England, 1973.
7.
TaylorA. J.Laissez-Faire and State Intervention in Nineteenth Century England. Macmillan, London, 1972.
8.
PolanyiK.The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. Beacon Press, Boston, 1957 (originally published in 1944).
9.
ChecklandS. G.The Rise of Industrial Society in England, pp. 419–420. St. Martin's Press, New York, 1964.
10.
MyrdalG.The Political Element in the Development of Economic Thought. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1965 (originally published in Swedish in 1929).
11.
HaleviE.The Growth of Philosophical Radicalism. Faber and Faber, London, 1949, new edition, 1972 (originally published in French in 1900).
12.
HobsbawmE. J.The Age of Revolution: 1789–1848. Mentor Books, New York, 1962.
13.
RimaI. H.Development of Economic Analysis, Chs. 6 and 7. Richard D. Irwin, Homewood, Ill., 1967.
14.
HuzelF. P.Malthus, the Poor Law, and population in early 19th century England. Economic History Review22: 430–452, 1969.
15.
MarshallJ. D.The Old Poor Law, 1795–1834. Macmillan, London, 1968.
16.
de SchweinitzK.England's Road to Social Security, Chs. 1–8. A. S. Barnes and Company, New York, 1961 (originally published in 1943).
17.
ChecklandS. G., and ChecklandE. O. A., editors. The Poor Law Report of 1834. Penquin Books, Harmondsworth, England, 1974.
18.
HobsbawmE. J.Industry and Empire. Penquin Books, Harmondsworth, England, 1970.
19.
HobsbawmE. J., and RudéG.Captain Swing, pp. 72–77, 131–133. Pantheon Books, New York, 1968.
20.
RedfordA.Labour Migration in England, 1800–1850. Manchester University Press, Manchester, England, 1926.
21.
DigbyA.The labour market and the continuity of social policy after 1834: The case of the eastern counties. Economic History Review28: 69–83, 1975.
22.
BlaugM.The myth of the old poor law and the making of the new. Journal of Economic History23: 151–184, 1963.
23.
BlaugM.The Poor Law Report re-examined. Journal of Economic History229–245, 1975.
24.
BaughD. A.The cost of poor relief in South-East England. Economic History Review28: 50–68, 1975.
25.
WebbS., and WebbB.English Local Government, Vol. IX, English Poor Law History: The Last One Hundred Years. Longmans, Green and Company, London, 1929.
26.
HobsbawmE. J.Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour, Chs. 5–7. Weidenfeld and Nichols, London, 1968.
27.
ThompsonE. P.The Making of the English Working Class, Chs. 6–11. Vintage Books, New York, 1966.
28.
KuznetsS.Economic Growth of Nations: Total Output and Production Structure, Table 1, p. 11. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1971.
29.
RosenG.Health in the city: A comparative analysis. Ethics in Science and Medicine2: 89–95, 1975.
30.
EylerJ. M.Mortality statistics and Victorian health policy: Program and criticism. Bull. Hist. Med.50: 335–355, 1976.
31.
ChadwickE.Report on an Inquiry into the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain, edited by FlinnW. M.. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1965 (originally published in 1842).
32.
NicholsC. A.History of English Poor Laws, Vol. 3, edited by McKayT.. P. S. King and Sons, London, 1969.
33.
RedfordA.The History of Local Government in Manchester, Vol. 2. Longmans, Green and Company, London, 1940.
34.
RoseM. E.The English Poor Law, 1780–1930. Barnes and Noble, New York, 1971.
35.
KayJ. P.The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes Employed in the Cotton Manufacture in Manchester. Augustus M. Kelly Publishers, New York, 1970 (originally published in 1832).
36.
FrazerM. W.History of English Public Health. Ballier, Tindall and Cox, London, 1950.
37.
CreightonC.A History of Epidemics in Britain, Vol. 2, From the Extinction of Plague to the Present Time. Cambridge University Press, London, 1894.
38.
AckerknechtE. H.Anticontagionism between 1821 and 1867. Bull Hist. Med.22: 562–593, 1948.
39.
Howard-JonesN.The Scientific Background of the International Sanitary Conferences, 1851–1938. World Health Organization, Geneva, 1975.
40.
McDonaldJ. C.The history of quarantines in Britain during the nineteenth century. Bull. Hist. Med.25: 25–44, 1951.
41.
SimonJ.English Sanitary Institutions, Reviewed in Some of Their Political and Social Relations. Cassel and Company, London, 1890.
42.
WatsonR.Edwin Chadwick, Poor Law and Public Health. Longman, London, 1969.
43.
CartwrightF. F.A Social History of Medicine, Ch. 6. Longman, London, 1977.
