CHADWICK, SIR EDWIN (1800-1890), English sanitary reformer, was born at Longsight, near Manchester, on the 24th of January 1800. Called to the bar without any independent means, he sought to support himself by literary work, and his essays in the Westminster Review (mainly on different methods of applying scientific knowledge to the business of government) introduced him to the notice of Jeremy Bentham, who engaged him as a literary assistant and left him a handsome legacy. In 1832 he was employed by the royal commission appointed to inquire into the operation of the poor laws, and in 1833 he was made a full member of that body. In conjunction with Nassau W. Senior he drafted the celebrated report of 1834 which procured the reform of the old poor law. His special contribution was the institution of the union as the area of administration. He favoured, however, a much more centralized system of administration than was adopted, and he never ceased to complain that the reform of 1834 was fatally marred by the rejection of his views, which contemplated the management of poor-law relief by salaried officers controlled from a central board, the boards of guardians acting merely as inspectors. In 1834 he was appointed secretary to the poor law commissioners. Finding himself unable to administer in accordance with his own views an act of which he was largely the author, his relations with his official chiefs became much strained, and the disagreement led, among other causes, to the dissolution of the poor law commission in 1846. Chadwick’s chief contribution to political controversy was his constant advocacy of entrusting certain departments of local affairs to trained and selected experts, instead of to representatives elected on the principle of local self-government. While still officially connected with the poor law he had taken up the question of sanitation in conjunction with Dr Southwood Smith, and their joint labours produced a most salutary improvement in the public health. His report on “The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population” (1842) is a valuable historical document. He was a commissioner of the Board of Health from its establishment in 1848 to its abolition in 1854, when he retired upon a pension, and occupied the remainder of his life in voluntary contributions to sanitary and economical questions. He died at East Sheen, Surrey, on the 6th of July 1890. He had been made K.C.B. in 1889.
See a volume on The Evils of Disunity in Central and Local Administration ... and the New Centralization for the People, by Edwin Chadwick (1885); also The Health of Nations, a Review of the Works of Edwin Chadwick, with a Biographical Introduction, by Sir B.W. Richardson (1887).
CHAEREMON, Athenian dramatist of the first half of the 4th century B.C. He is generally considered a tragic poet. Aristotle (Rhetoric, iii. 12) says his works were intended for reading, not for representation. According to Suidas, he was also a comic poet, and the title of at least one of his plays (Achilles Slayer of Thersites) seems to indicate that it was a satyric drama. His Centaurus is described by Aristotle (Poet. i. 12) as a rhapsody in all kinds of metres. The fragments of Chaeremon are distinguished by correctness of form and facility of rhythm, but marred by a florid and affected style reminiscent of Agathon. He especially excelled in descriptions (irrelevantly introduced) dealing with such subjects as flowers and female beauty. It is not agreed whether he is the author of three epigrams in the Greek Anthology (Palatine vii. 469, 720, 721) which bear his name.
See H. Bartsch, De Chaeremone Poëta tragico (1843); fragments in A. Nauck, Fragmenta Tragicorum Graecorum.
CHAEREMON, of Alexandria (1st century A.D.), Stoic philosopher and grammarian. He was superintendent of the portion of the Alexandrian library that was kept in the temple of Serapis, and as custodian and expounder of the sacred books (ἱερογραμματέύς sacred scribe) belonged to the higher ranks of the priesthood. In A.D. 49 he was summoned to Rome, with Alexander of Aegae, to become tutor to the youthful Nero. He was the author of a History of Egypt; of works on Comets, Egyptian Astrology, and Hieroglyphics; and of a grammatical treatise on Expletive Conjunctions (συνδεσμοὶ παραπληρωματικοί). Chaeremon was the chief of the party which explained the Egyptian religious system as a mere allegory of the worship of nature. His books were not intended to represent the ideas of his Egyptian contemporaries; their chief object was to give a description of the sanctity and symbolical secrets of ancient Egypt. He can hardly be identical with the Chaeremon who accompanied (c. 26 B.C.; Strabo xvii. p. 806) Aelius Gallus, praefect of Egypt, on a journey into the interior of the country.
Fragments in C. Müller, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, iii. 495-499.