John Postgate (activist)

John Postgate (1820–1881) was an English surgeon and academic, a campaigner against food adulteration.

John Postgate, portrait by Vivian Crome

Early life

The son of a Scarborough builder, Thomas Postgate, by his wife Jane Wade, he was born in Scarborough, on 21 October 1820. He started life as a grocer's boy at the age of eleven. In 1834 he found a position as assistant to a surgeon, and taught himself chemistry and botany. He attended lectures at the Leeds school of medicine.^[1]

Postgate acted as assistant to a firm in the east of London. He then attended the London Hospital, satisfied the College of Surgeons in 1844, and July 1845 he qualified at Apothecaries' Hall. He settled in May 1851 at Birmingham, and three years later became fellow of the College of Surgeons.^[1]

Campaigner

Postgate succeeded in interesting the Birmingham Members of Parliament William Scholefield and George Frederick Muntz in the issue of food adulteration, and on 26 June 1855 Scholefield moved for a select committee of inquiry in the House of Commons. Postgate was repeatedly examined by the committee, and publicised the question. Meetings were held, and samples of bread, flour, ground coffee, mustard, vinegar, pepper, wine, beer, and drugs, as adulterated by the local retailers, were publicly exhibited and analysed.^[1]

The local appointment of public analysts, and jurisdiction by magistrates, was the machinery by which Postgate proposed to repress food fraud. Nine bills dealing with adulteration were introduced into the House of Commons by the members for Birmingham, under Postgate's influence. Their efforts met with strenuous opposition from retailers.^[1]

The Adulteration of Food and Drink Act 1860 was a measure giving local authorities the option of appointing public analysts, with powers of prosecuting offending tradesmen. Muntz, at Postgate's suggestion, subsequently introduced the Adulteration of Food and Drugs Act 1872, and other ideas of Postgate's were embodied in the Sale of Food and Drugs Act 1875. This legislation was followed by similar measures in the British colonies.^[1]

Later life

Postgate took an active part in the inauguration in Birmingham of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science in 1857. On 7 May 1860 he was appointed professor of medical jurisprudence and toxicology at Queen's College, Birmingham.^[1]

Postgate died on 26 September 1881 at the London Hospital, taken there returning from Neuenahr in Germany. He was buried in Warstone Lane Cemetery, Birmingham. His epitaph recorded that, for "twenty-five years of his life, without reward, and under heavy discouragement, he laboured to protect the health and to purify the commerce of this people".^[1]

Works

Postgate published the following pamphlets:^[1]

• Sanitary Aspects of Birmingham, 1852.
• A Few Words on Adulteration, 1857.
• Medical Services and Public Payments, 1862.

Two papers by him on adulteration were published in the Transactions of the Social Science Association, for 1857 and 1868.^[1]

Family

Postgate married, in May 1850, Mary Ann, daughter of Joshua Horwood of Driffield, Yorkshire, by whom he left issue.^[1]

Notes

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Lee, Sidney, ed. (1896). "Postgate, John". Dictionary of National Biography 46. London: Smith, Elder & Co.