CHADWICK, SIR EDWIN (1800-189o), English sanitary reformer, was born at Longsight, near Manchester, Jan. 24, 1800, and was educated for the bar. His essays in the Westminster Review (mainly on different methods of applying scientific knowl edge to the business of government) introduced him to the notice of Jeremy Bentham, who engaged him as a literary assistant and left him a handsome legacy. In 1832 he was employed by the royal commission on the poor laws as an investigator, and in 1833 he was made a full member of that body. In conjunction with Nassau W. Senior he drafted the report of 1834 which pro cured the passing of the new poor law. His special contribution was the institution of the union as the area of administration. He favoured, however, a much more centralized system of admini stration than was adopted, and complained that the reform of 1834 was fatally marred by the rejection of his scheme for the management of poor law relief by salaried officers controlled from a central board, the boards of guardians acting merely as inspec tors. In 1834 he was appointed secretary to the poor law com missioners. His relations with his official chiefs became much strained, and the disagreement led among other causes, to the dissolution of the poor law commission in 1846. Chadwick's chief contribution to political controversy was his constant advo cacy of entrusting certain departments of local affairs to trained and selected experts, instead of to representatives elected on the principle of local self-government. While still officially connected with the poor law he had taken up the question of sanitation. His report on "The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population" (1842) is a valuable historical document. He was a commissioner of the Board of Health for improving the water supply, drainage and cleansing of great towns, from its establishment in 1848 to its abolition in 1854. He was made K.C.B. in 1889. He died at East Sheen, Surrey, on July 6, 189o.
See a volume on The Evils of Disunity in Central and Local Ad ministration . . . and the New Centralization for the People, by Edwin Chadwick (1885) ; also B. W. Richardson, The Health of Nations, a Review of the Works of Edwin Chadwick, with a Bio graphical Introduction (1887). Many of his statistical papers are to be found in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society.