"What could I say? I undertook the task until I handed it over to the great London architect, Mr. Cockerel, who completed it."
Now came an important epoch in Mr. Rawlinson's career. In 1848 the Public Health Act was passed and he was appointed the first engineer superintendent inspector. He made the first inquiry and wrote the first report on Dover—he subsequently inspected and reported on the state and condition of towns and villages from Berwick-on-Tweed to Land's End, from Liverpool to Hull.
THE DINING-ROOM. From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.
"The Commission of Inquiry lived until 1854," continued Sir Robert. "It met with such violent opposition in Parliament that it had to be broken up, though it was immediately revived by Lord Palmerston, under the chairmanship of Sir Benjamin Hall. I was at this time engineer to the Birmingham and Wolverhampton Waterworks." The lad who had been stone-mason and bricklayer, sawyer and carpenter, was earning £5,000 a year. It was at this point in our conversation that Sir Robert referred to the Duke of Wellington.
"I used to see him," he said, "walking down from Apsley House to the Chapel Royal, St. James's, in white trousers and blue frock-coat with brass buttons. Whenever he was in London on a Sunday he used to attend the early morning eight o'clock service at St. James's, and when I had any friends who wanted to see the great Duke, I used to take them to church. Frequently he, with myself and friends sitting at a good point of vantage, would be the only people there. But this by the way. Now came the winter of '54 and '55—the time of Crimea. In the spring of 1855 I was sent out as Engineering Sanitary Commissioner to the East. There is a portrait hanging there of Dr. Sutherland and myself taken in our hut in the Crimea.
"I was down in Lancashire one Saturday and came up to Euston in the evening, arriving there at ten o'clock. My wife was there with the brougham waiting for me—much to my surprise. She said, very quietly, 'I've got a note for you from Lord Shaftesbury; he's called several times to-day.' I knew what it meant—the Government wanted me to go out to the Crimea. The note read: 'Dear Rawlinson,—See me to-night if possible; if not, at eight o'clock to-morrow morning.' We drove away to Grosvenor Square at once, but Shaftesbury was dining with Palmerston. I went again at eight o'clock in the morning. He was sitting in his library.
"'Well, Rawlinson,' he said, with a gloomy expression, 'we are losing our poor army in the Crimea. I've induced Palmerston to agree to a Sanitary Commission. Dr. Sutherland and Dr. Gavin will go, but I want an engineer. Will you go?'
"The whole thing now comes vividly before me. When I learned afterwards that from December to March, out of an army of 32,000 men, 11,000 had died through starvation and climate—in three months more at the same rate there would have been no British Army!
"'I'll go, my lord,' I said.