John Postgate (food safety campaigner)
| John Postgate | |
|---|---|
Portrait by Vivian Crome
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| Born | 21 October 1820 Scarborough, North Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom |
| Died | 1881 (aged 60–61) London, England, United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Activist |
| Spouse(s) | Mary Horwood (1819–1889) |
| Children | John Percival Postgate |
| Parent(s) | Thomas Postgate Jane Wade |
| Relatives |
Raymond Postgate (grandson) Margaret Cole (granddaughter) Edith Allen (daughter-in-law) Oliver Postgate (great grandson) |
| Family | Postgate family |
John Postgate (1820–1881) was an English surgeon and academic, a campaigner against food adulteration.
The son of a Scarborough builder, Thomas Postgate, by his wife Jane Wade, he was born in Scarborough, on 21 October 1820. He started his career as a grocer's boy at the age of eleven. but, shocked by such practices as adding sand to sugar and plaster of Paris to flour, he apprenticed himself to two Scarborough doctors. He had taught himself chemistry and botany and went on to become a licensed apothecary in London where he discovered that drugs could often be dangerously impure. He attended lectures at the Leeds school of medicine.
Postgate acted as assistant to a firm in the east of London. He then attended the London Hospital, satisfied the Royal College of Surgeons in 1844, and in July 1845 he qualified at Apothecaries' Hall. After a brief period as a GP in Driffield, Yorkshire he set up a practice in Birmingham in May 1851, and three years later became fellow of the College of Surgeons.
In Birmingham Postgate was shocked by the state of general pollution. No fewer than 176 industrial chimneys were spewing smoke into the air and the streets were "running sewers"; he published his first reformist pamphlet, on the "sanatary aspects" of the town calling for municipal action. But unfortunate experiences with his patients drew his attention to food and drug adulteration, which became the major preoccupation of his life. He was aware of the earlier campaign against food adulteration by Thomas Wakley and Arthur Hill Hassall publicised through The Lancet; but he considered that publicity alone was inadequate, and only political action would lead to legislation. He organised a meeting on food adulteration for the scientific and medical community of Birmingham, but his major success was to interest the Birmingham Members of Parliament William Scholefield and George Frederick Muntz in the issue. Postgate suggested that a system of public analysts be set up charged with monitoring samples of food and drugs, supported by magisterial powers to levy fines on fraudsters. As a preliminary step, Scholefield moved on 26 June 1855 for a Select Committee of Inquiry in the House of Commons, and this was duly agreed.
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