ABSTRACT
The wider issues of public health and its reform were often raised by Victorian journalists themselves; Henry Mayhew’s investigations into the lives of the London poor, published in the Morning Chronicle, are a case in point. George Godwin is another individual whose contribution to the Victorian public health movement has been largely overlooked by posterity. The impressive variety of historical and foreign architecture illustrated and intelligently discussed in The Builder’s pages probably contributed to the eclecticism of Victorian architecture. The Builder fostered the establishment of the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings, and led the way towards modern listing procedures. Godwin quoted John Roberton’s recommendations at length and, in his own commentary, pointed out that Gwilt’s Cyclopaedia of Architecture dated the use of pavilion plan hospitals in France to the eighteenth century. Godwin’s appreciation of good design and the value of craft skills worked its influence upon William Morris and the development of the Arts and Crafts movement.
