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Christopher Addison

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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"CHRISTOPHER ADDISON (1869-), English politician and medical practitioner, born June 19 1869 at Hogsthorpe, Lincs., was educated at Trinity College, Harrogate, and received his medical training at St. Bartholomew's hospital. He graduated at London University, taking the M.B. (Honours in For. Med.) and the B.S. in 1892, and the M.D. in 1893. He was elected F.R.C.S. in 1895. He became lecturer in Anatomy both at his own hospital and at Charing Cross hospital; professor of Anatomy at University College, Sheffield; and Hunterian professor at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1901. Besides the private practice of his profession, he contributed largely to medical knowledge by the publication of several books, mainly on the anatomy of the pancreas and the abdominal viscera, by papers in the Proceedings of the Royal Society and in professional journals, and by editing for a time the Quarterly Medical Journal. He took, moreover, a leading part in medical education in London University. In 1910 he entered Parliament as Liberal member for Hoxton. He immediately became active in the House. In conjunction with Sir George Newman he was mainly instrumental in securing the medical treatment of school children and State provision for medical research; and he was one of the few doctors of distinction who supported Mr. Lloyd George in his struggle with the profession over the Insurance Act (1912). The valuable support he then gave to Mr. Lloyd George in reconciling the doctors to his proposals created a firm bond between him and the future Prime Minister. When in 1914 Mr. Charles Trevelyan, on the outbreak of war, resigned the Parliamentary Secretaryship of the Board of Education, Dr. Addison was appointed in his place. But his principal work during the war was effected at the Ministry of Munitions, where Mr. Lloyd George obtained his assistance as Parliamentary Secretary when the office was created under the first Coalition Ministry in 1915. So long as Mr. Lloyd George was Minister, Dr. Addison was his right-hand man in the strenuous labours of the office, resulting in the enormous multiplication of engines of war, and in the redeeming of many vital industries, fertilizers, tungsten and potash from German control; and when Mr. Lloyd George formed a Government himself in December 1916, he placed him at the head of the department. Dr. Addison had to deal with various labour troubles, and in particular with a serious strike of engineers in May 1917. In July he left the Ministry of Munitions to become Minister of Reconstruction without portfolio. In this new but very important work his policy was apparently influenced by a rather idealistic vision of a " new world " after the war. One result was the unemployment dole, at first a necessity, but afterwards a hindrance to a return to normal life. To promote national health had always been his main object in politics, and when Mr. Lloyd George reconstructed his Ministry in the beginning of 1919, he entrusted the Local Government Board to Dr. Addison, that he might complete Lord Rhondda's work and transform it into a Ministry of Health. This was accomplished in June. He also carried through Parliament an important Housing and Town-Planning bill compelling local authorities to provide housing schemes, and obtained parliamentary sanction to an arrangement for the issue by such authorities of housing bonds. The ambitious medical establishment created by him was subjected to a good deal of criticism on the score of economy during 1920; and on the reconstruction of the Ministry in March 1921 he was transferred from the new department to become once more a minister without portfolio. This position he resigned on July 14. He married in 1902 Isobel Gray, and had two sons and two daughters.