At this time Mr. Chadwick was preparing for practice at the common law bar, when he was recommended by Mr. Senior as an assistants commissioner upon the Inquiry into the operation of tho poor-laws in England and Wales. Mr. Senior was one of the commission. Mr. Chadwick's report—which was printed in the eelectiou from the various reports published in ]S33—in the wide range of its invostigatione, the searching nature of its evidence, the felicity of its illustrations, and the sagacious proofs of the neoessity of a most extensive reform, com manded the most general attention ; and the importance attached to the views of the writer was demonstrated by his being at once made one of the commission of Inquiry. He was called off from this duty to be united in an inquiry into factory labour with Dr. Southwood Smith and Mr. Tooke. But on the government feeling the immediate necessity of n great measure) of poordmv amendment, a report, in which Mr. Chadwick materially assisted was presented to parliament in 1834; the measure was passed, and the Poor-Law Commission was constituted. Mr. Chadwick was appointed by the government as the secretary to the board. From this period for twenty years Mr. Chadwick was oounected with the administration of those large measures of local improvement under central regulatiou whose principles were advocated by him at an early stage of his life, and which he has been ever actively eugaged in working out through good report and evil report. Whatever measure he has advocated or orgauieed has been based upon the prin ciple of the union of the central and local control, and the parrot-cry of centralisation,' which is still feebly heard wherever local authority is sought to be made an instrument of general good, was always the loudest when the evil to be remedied was most notorious. During this struggle of nearly a quarter of a century, through the labours of Mr. Chadwick in connection with other able and zealous administrators, this once-abused principle has at last come to be generally acknowledged as (to use the words of Mr. Chadwick) "an agency for the removal of those evils in tho repression of which the public at large have an interest ; next, as an authority of appeal and adjudic itiou between rival or conflicting local interests ; thirdly, as a security in the distri bution of charges, for the protection of minorities and absentees against wasteful works or undue charges lu respect to them ; and fourthly, as a means of communication to each locality, for its guidance, of the facts and principles deduced from the experience of all other places from which information may be obtainable." Mr. Chadwick, during his secretaryship of the Poor-Law Board, took much interest in a special inquiry, conducted by Dr. Arnott, Dr. Kay, and Dr. Southwood Smith, into certain physioal causes of fever In the metropolis which might be removed by sanitary measures. He was also associated with the commission for inquiring into the constitution of the constabulary force for England and Wales. The report of this commission, written by him, was presented in 1839. The sanitary inquiry was extended from the metropolis to the country at large, and in 1842 Mr. Chadwick completed the report On the general Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Classes in Great Britain.'
He prepared a supplementary report on 'Interments.' He was also associated with the labours of several eminent engineers and scientifio men on the preparation of two reports upon the questions connected with the water supply and drainage of towns. Mr. Chadwick con tinued in his position of secretary to the Poor-Law Commission, until the constitution of a new board under the presidency of Mr. Charles Buller. During the latter years of his connection with Poor-Law administration, Mr. Chadwick advocated a more stringent enforcement of the principles of Poor-Law Amendment than were thought expe dient; and a new sphere for his exertions was found, in his appointment to the Metropolitan Sanitary Commission in 1847. The importance of this commission became manifest upon the approach of cholera, upon which subject, and upon fever, valuable reports were published in 1847 and 1848. One effect of the report upon an outbreak of fever in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey was the measure fur superseding all local bodice having control over the sewerage of the metropolis, this authority under one body. In 1848 the Public Health Act of Lord Morpeth was passed, and a General Board of Health was constituted, of which Lord Carlisle was the chief, and Lord Ashley, Mr. Chadwick, and Dr. Southwood Smith, the other members of the board. Mr. Chadwick, in connection with this board, was an important mover of those local measures which have so materially changed the condition of the country. In between one and two hundred towns new works are In progress ander these measures. In various model dwellings and separate places where the houao and town drainage and other works have been partially executed, there has been a marked reduction of epidemio diseue, and in several instances a reduction of mortality from a rate of thirty in a thousand to fourteen and thirteen has been reported, the general average of mortality in the country being twenty-three in the thousand. But, as we have said, these sanitary measures disturbed various large interests ; and the government, in bringing forward a bill for the renewal of the Public Health Act, was taken by surprise, and defeated in July 1854 by a small majority. The administration of the Public Health Act was thenceforth charged upon a member of the House of Commons, and a retiring pension was given to Mr. Chadwick. One part of tho Poor-Law Amendment Act was directed to the suppression of appointments to local offices, as mere patronage, and the substitution of appointments for special qualifications tested by competitive exami nations. Mr. Chadwick's last public paper was ono in conourrenee with Sir Charles Trevelyan and others, urging the adoption of the principle of competitive examinations as tests of qualifications for appointments to the service of the general government.
The honour of Companion of the Bath was conferred upon Mr. Chadwick during the period of his labours as Commissioner of the General Board of Health.
(North British Review, May, 1850 ; Poor-Late Reports ; Factory and Constabulary Reports ; Reports of the General Board of Health, and other Parliamentary papers.) ClIALCONDYLAS LAONIC US. [Bezerrfuez HISTORIANS.]