ABSTRACT
CHADWICK'S reputation as an administrator and a reformer has never recovered from its association with the early years of the New Poor Law. The savage charges endlessly brought against his Public Health administration were readily believed because they fitted in with his alleged behaviour as Secretary to the Poor Law Commission. Thus a double injustice has been perpetrated. Much criticism of his work at the Board of Health turns out under examination not to be entirely baseless; the immediately succeeding chapters will show how different from popular conception was his administration of the Poor Law Office. He influenced its high policy for merely seven years, he could not at anv one time do more than veto the Commissioners' policy, and even then only after appeal to the Cabinet. Three factors must be borne in mind in trying to pass judgement on his capacity.
