View report page

The one factor above all others which made the Government take an active interest
in public health was the Industrial Revolution. Starting in the latter part of the eighteenth
century and continuing throughout most of the nineteenth, using iron as its raw material, coal
as the source of power, and the steam engine to harness that power for productive purposes,
its influences on the life of this country are still evident.
Before this period Britain was an agricultural country with a population in 1750 of 6
to 7 millions. The people were spread evenly over the country and no town except London
contained more than 30,000 people. The building of these new factories, and mills drew labour
to them and people flocked into the industrial towns which grew rapidly in size. Workers had
to live near their employment as there was no public transport. The owners of the factories
built dwelling houses near their factories to accomodate their workpeople, this resulted in
large estates of back to back houses, courts and tenements which are characteristic of our
present industrial towns in the Midlands and the North.
As the density of population in the towns increased a host of environmental health
problems arose. Methods of sanitation which were tolerable under rural conditions were grossly
defective in densely packed communities, the water supply was often taken from the same
river into which untreated sewage was discharged.
In 1838 the Home Secretary commissioned Edwin Chadwick to prepare a report into
the health of the working population in England and Wales (later extended to Scotland). This
report was entitled "Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great
Britain", and was pub I i shed in I 842. The conclusions of this report included the fol lowing
"That the various forms of epidemic, endemic and other disease caused, or
aggravated, or propagated chiefly amongst the labouring classes by
atmospheric impurities produced by decomposing animal and vegetable
substances, by damp and filth and close and overcrowded dwellings prevail
amongst the population in every part of the Kingdom, whether dwelling in
separate houses, in rural villages, in the larger towns - as they have been
found to prevail in the lowest districts in the metropolis.
That such disease wherever its attacks are frequent, is always found in
connection with the physical circumstances above specified and that where
those circumstances are removed by drainage, proper cleansing better
ventilation and other means of diminishing atmospheric impurity, the
frequency and intensity of such disease is abated, and where the removal
of the noxious agencies appears to be complete such disease almost
entirely disappears."
This was referred to as Chadwick's "sanitary idea", the principle that the environment
had a substantial influence on health, and the principal remedies he advocated were proper
drainage, removal of refuse from houses and streets and the improvement of water supplies.
He also recommended the appointment of public health officials to initiate public health
measures and legislation. His findings were the principles on which sanitary reform was based
for the next 50 years and it was on this foundation of sanitation that our modern public health
service was buiIt.
After Chadwick's report had been published a Royal Commission was appointed which
confirmed his findings. The direct result of the Commission's report was the passing of the
first public health act in 1848, which among other things established a Board of Health. Later
other Boards and Commissions were appointed and as a result of these the Public Health
18