Chadwick, Sir Edwin, 1800–1890, English social reformer. For many years an assistant to Jeremy Bentham, Chadwick applied Bentham's utilitarianism to the reform (1834) of the Poor Law and to the development of public health measures, particularly in his The Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population (1842). He was largely responsible for the passage of the Public Health Act of 1848, which established a board of health. Chadwick's chief writings were collected and edited by B. W. Richardson as The Health of Nations (1887).
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