The Stuff of Life: Public Health in Edwardian Britain

The Stuff of Life is an accessible, well-researched guide to how environmental improvements – to food, housing and the workplace – made Britain a safer and healthier place in the early twentieth-century, as local government came of age. Its main subjects have not been much recognised by conventional histories – sanitary inspectors employed by local authorities. These public officials seized contaminated food, inspected workshops and factories, stopped contagious disease from spreading and improved slum housing. The illustrated book has a chronology and extensive range of sources, with chapters on the public health traditions, housing, planning, poverty, the workhouse, mental health and other topics. It is designed for students of public and environmental health and anyone who has an interest in social history. The authors are journalists, academics and practitioners in environmental health. They use rare archives and contemporary sources to give us a vivid and original social rather than ‘top down’ history.