Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population

This collection brings together two pioneering maps from Edwin Chadwick’s 1842 Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain. The Map of Bethnal Green Parish, Shewing the Mortality from Four Classes of Disease plots deaths during 1838 and distinguishes homes occupied by weavers and labourers from those of tradesmen. It makes the gulf in mortality between poorer and better-off households visible. Robert Baker’s Sanitary Map of the Town of Leeds distinguishes working-class homes from shops, workhouses and tradespeople’s houses, while blue and orange dots plot cholera and other contagious diseases. The clustering of these marks along close, badly drained and uncleansed streets provided vivid evidence that epidemic disease followed environmental and social conditions. This was the essential argument of Chadwick’s report: premature death was not inevitable, but could be reduced through drainage, sewerage, refuse removal, clean water and better urban administration. The report helped bring about the Public Health Act 1848, establishing a General Board of Health and local boards with sanitary powers, and prepared the way for the compulsory duties imposed by the Public Health Act 1875. These maps mark the point at which disease mapping became an instrument of public policy and social reform.