Report to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department from the Poor Law Commissioners, on an Inquiry into the sanitary condition of the labouring population of Great Britain : with appendices.

  • Edwin Chadwick
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department from the Poor Law Commissioners, on an Inquiry into the sanitary condition of the labouring population of Great Britain : with appendices. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    One on the sanitary condition of Tain and Easter Ross, by Mr. James Cameron, surgeon. We have likewise received a report on the sanitary condi- tion of the labouring population in Inverness, from Mr. Anderson, solicitor; and one on the sanitary condition of the Old Town of Edinburgh, by Mr. William Chambers. As our inquiries led us to believe that considerable doubt exists as to the provisions of the existing law of Scotland upon matters concerning the public health, and as there is not in Scotland any local administrative machinery similar to that of the English unions which can exercise a superintendence over the health of the working classes, we obtained the services of Mr. J. H. Burton, advocate of Edinburgh, to report on the legal provisions exist- ing in that city and in other parts of Scotland, and on the additional legislative measures which appeared, from the reports of the medical gentlemen, to be expedient for the improvement of the sanitary condition of the population of that part of the empire. We also obtained the services of Mr. Charles R. Baird, of Glas- gow, writer to the signet, w'ho was pointed out to our notice by the circumstance of his having paid much attention to the condition of the labouring ])opulation of that city to report on the powers with which the local authorities are at present invested by law”^, and the additional powers thej'^ may need for the protection of the health of the inhabitants. It will be observed that the letter of Lord John Russell, in accordance with the address of the House of Lords to Her Majest}% merely directed us to make inquir}'^ as to the extent to wdiich the causes of disease, stated in the Reports of Drs. Arnott and Kay, and of Dr. Southwood Smith, to prevail amongst the labouring classes of the metropolis, prevail also amongst the labouring classes in other parts of England and Wales, and to transmit the results of that inquiry to the Secretary of State for the Home Department. We should, therefore, have complied with the letter of our instructions if we had merely laid before you the information which w'e have collected in answer to the inquiries which we circu- lated. It appeared to us, how^ever, that so large a mass of mis-