House-drainage, sewerage and sewage disposal in relation to health / by Louis C.Parkes.

  • Parkes, Louis Coltman, 1857-1942.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: House-drainage, sewerage and sewage disposal in relation to health / by Louis C.Parkes. 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.

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    was presented to Parliament the Report of the Poor-Law Commission, in the preparation of which Chadwick took the leading part. As a result of this Report, the Poor-Law Amendment Act was passed by Parliament in 1835. There was then evolved the system of Poor-Law Administration with which we are familiar at the present time, and which, being found, after some seventy years' experience, in many respects unsuitable to the needs of our twentieth-century civilisation, has now again been subjected to re-examina- tion and revision at the hands of a Royal Commission. In 1833 Chadwick was appointed a member of the Royal Commission on the Factory Acts, which initiated the appointment of Factory Inspectors under Government, and led to that comprehensive system of factory legislation for the protection of the workers from accidents, ill-health, and overwork, which is admittedly the most complete and enlightened system that any civilised state has as yet adopted. It was also largely owing to Chadwick's researches, and his admirable powers of exposition, that the Government of the day was induced to make provision for the civil registration of births and deaths. Soon after the passing of the Act, in 1837, Dr. William Farr was appointed (in 1839) the Superintendent of Statistics under the Registrar- General. It is to this appointment of Dr. Farr that we owe those priceless statistical records of the Early- and Mid- Victorian periods that form the foundation of all our present knowledge of vital statistics in this country. In 1839 the Poor-Law Commissioners were requested by Government to make an exhaustive inquiry into the health of the labouring classes in England and Wales outside the Metropolis. The Commissioners reported in 1842; and in the main this Report was the work of Chadwick,