| This dissertation is about the English public health movement: its intellectual inspiration, its social and political bases, and its cultural effects. It is based on a comparative study of the operation of the 1848 Public Health Act (PHA) in five mid-sized communities: Hertford, Ware, Aylesbury, Windsor, and Eton. It argues that these places were representative of the towns interested in public health reform and that a detailed examination of the course of sanitary reform in these localities revises our understanding of the genesis and function of local public health.; After discussing the ideology of the public health movement in chapter one, chapter two demonstrates the vitality of the provincial public health movement from 1842 to 1848. It shows that the form and timing of local sanitary revivals was structured by the administrative and epidemiological context of 1840s England, but their programmatic intentions were determined by the ideology of the public health movement.; The third chapter consists of a detailed analysis of the local reaction to public health legislation. It shows, in contrast to the standard view, that there was significant support for sanitary legislation. It is based on three indices: 868 petitions submitted to Parliament from around the nation in 1847 and 1848, local editorial commentary, and 'popular'reactions expressed during local debates over the propriety and necessity of the PHA.; The fourth chapter consists of an analysis of the course of sanitary reform in the five towns. It first describes major urban infrastructural reforms such as water supplies and drainage works. This chapter argues, however, that major projects were not the only means through which local sanitary activism was converted into activity, and the chapter thus also focusses on the differential implementation of the routine micro-interventions sanctioned by the PHA. This focus is important as these microinterventions vastly increased state control over property and individuals, and the chapter concludes with a discussion of the significance of this routine sanitary work in the creation of new sanitary and political norms. |
