Letters received from Robert Rawlinson

Two items of correspondence received by Frederick Crace-Calvert from Robert Rawlinson largely concerning the samples of carbolic acid that Calvert has sent down to London for Rawlinson to distribute amongst significant individuals and efforts to see it more widely used in public offices and general hospitals.

Sir Robert Rawlinson (1810-1898) was born in Bristol on 28 February 1810, the son of Thomas Rawlinson and his wife Grace Ellice. Not long after his birth the family moved back to his father's home town of Chorley, Lancashire leading to Rawlinson being educated in Lancaster. His early working life was spent assisting his father who was a mason and builder before he gained employment with civil engineering contractor Jesse Hartley at the Liverpool Docks. He then spent 4 years working under Robert Stephenson (1803-1859) on the building of the London and Birmingham Railway as an assistant resident engineer. His next appointment was in Liverpool again, this time as an assistant-surveyor and between 1843 and 1847 was an engineer with the Bridgewater Trust.

Working with the Bridgewater Trust he was involved in efforts to improve Liverpool's water supply and from this point on saw his reputation as a sanitarian grow. In 1848, immediately following the passing of the Public Health Act Rawlinson became a government health inspector and in found himself in an influential position as regards the sanitary conditions of the towns and cities of England. He later became chief engineering inspector under the Local Government Board.

In 1855, with huge numbers of British soldiers dying as a result of disease in the Crimea, Rawlinson was sent out as part of sanitary commission to investigate conditions at Sevastopol and the new conditions and procedures they implemented drastically reduced the death rate. Rawlinson's next major public service came in 1863 when he was sent to investigate the effects of the collapse of the cotton industry in Lancashire and organise relief works through the implementation of sanitation and construction schemes with public benefit.

He held a number of public positions during career including member of the army sanitary committee in 1863, chairman of the commissions appointed to inquire into the best means of preventing industrial river pollution in 1865 & 1868, member of a commission considering town sewerage in 1876, member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and its president in 1894, and president of the congress of the Sanitary Institute of Great Britain in 1884. For his continued services to public health he was knighted on 24 July 1883 and made a KCB in January 1888.

In 1831 he had married Ruth Swallow of Lockwood, Yorkshire. He died at the age of 88 on 31 May 1898 at his home in South Kensington and was buried in Brompton cemetery.