Vital statistics : a memorial volume of selections from the reports and writings of William Farr / edited for the Sanitary Institute of Great Britain by Noel A. Humphreys.

  • Farr, William, 1807-1883.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vital statistics : a memorial volume of selections from the reports and writings of William Farr / edited for the Sanitary Institute of Great Britain by Noel A. Humphreys. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    27/600
    the Metropolitan Police, on Avhicli lie prepared an exbaustivo report, with a complete set of tables in 1860, Dr. Farr, notwithstanding a slight constitutional tendency to bronchitis, enjoyed exceptionally good health np to the year 1876, when ho was in his 69th year. While attending the Statistical Congress, at Buda-Pcsth, in the autumn of that year, however, he suffered from an attack of dysentery, which left him much weakened ; and in December of the same year lie lost his second wife. Although he afterwards enjoyed fairly good health, those who were in the way of seeing him continually could not fail to observe that he never fully recovered from the two severe shocks he sulFered in the autumn of 1876. When the retirement of Major Graham, after an eminently successful administration of civil registration as Eegistrar-General for nearly 40 years, became imminent, Dr. Farr not unreasonably entertained hopes that he might be appointed to the vacant post, and in 1879, with a view to sparing himself the fatigue of railway travelling, which had begun to be irksome to him, left Bickley, and again took up his residence in London, in Portsdown Road, Maida Vale. This step was taken in the prospect of prolonged official service. The marked success which attended the administration of civil registration in England during the 40 years 1840-80, may be mainly attributed to the combined influence of Major Graham and Dr. Farr. Major Graham possessed in an exceptional degree the power of organization, with strong business capacity, and gave close and laborious attention to detail; these combined qualifications made him eminently fitted to be the administrative chief of nearly 3,000 registration officers, and of a central office with a staff of nearly 100 clerks of different grades. Pie felt the deepest interest in the success of civil registraxiou over which he so ably presided, and scarcely less interest in the welfare of those who served under him. The services of Major Graham, in the eyes of the public, who are singularly ignorant about the inner working of Government departments, were to some extent over- shadowed by the well-deserved esteem in which Dr. Farr's talents and services, in utilising the results of civil registration, were held by the public and the press. Not only abroad, but by a large section of the English press, was Dr. Farr regarded and spoken of again and again iis the Eegistrar-General. This tendency to ignore the more silent and hidden work of Major Graham, which was, however, none the less indispensable to the success of civil registration, on the part of an ill- ini'ormed public and pi-ess, cannot be admitted as any palliation of the unaccountable omission of the Government to confer on him at his retirement some mark of their appreciation of so long, so devoted, so successful a public service. Under all the circumstances of the case it is pleasant to refer to the entente cordiale which marked the long continued official relations between these two eminent public servants. Major Graham felt, we believe, genuine pride in the success and extended usefulness, as well as in the public b 2