ABSTRACT
EDWIN CHADWICK was the most prominent of that band of obscure civil servants who, in the quarter century after Bentham's death carried their Master's principles into practice. That quarter century, bounded by the Reform Bill and by the Crimean War, has a great claim on the attentions of the historian of our public institutions. At few other periods of time did the flux in institutions proceed so rapidly, and at no other time did so many emerge simultaneously into a recognizably modern shape. It laid the foundations of parliamentary democracy and cabinet government as we understand these to-day. It refashioned the machinery of both central and local administration. It created the modern police, and brought into being the services of public assistance, public education, and public hygiene. It made a new start, a modern start, in the public inspection and control of private economic enterprises.
