The sources agree to some extent that Edwin Chadwick made little contribution to the progress made in the years 1838-1852 as he made no immediate impact at the time, he had all the theories and evidence but didn’t put any of this into action. This led to the limited progress made in public health within these years. Edwin Chadwick made massive long term significance and little immediate impact.
Source 13 is a book written by the historian R.J Cootes expressing his view point on the welfare state. It was published in 1966, after the public health act was put in place. This source shows the little impact Chadwick made as it states he, ‘experimented with glazed earthenware pipes for making sewers’ showing he had substantial ideas of what needed to be done but never put this into practice, meaning no progress was made. This source agrees with the statement that he contributed little as it states he needed greater government powers to help fund the experiments, blaming the lack of progress on the rate payers as without their support they would not agree to the funding as they didn’t believe in his ideas and theories. We know for previous knowledge that Chadwick believed that poverty was a main reason for the lack of public health as people where to ill to work therefore claimed benefits and this took more money from the government that could be used on the public health system. This source shows that he thought by making a sewage system it would help to clean up so less people would be ill and more people would be working, therefore paying taxes. However this was a very expensive idea and many people were not keen to support it and this shows that even though he had the ideas he never pushed to put them in place. This source cross references with source 15 in stating that Chadwick made a lack of judgement and that he didn’t put any of his