Catalogue description Sir George Newman, Chief Medical Officer: Diaries

Sir George Newman was born on 23 October 1870 at Leominster. After an MD at Edinburgh University and election to a Fellowship of the Royal Historical Society, he became Assistant to the Medical Officer of Health of the Board of Works in 1895. Two years later he was appointed Medical Officer to the Holborn Board of Guardians and began research work in tuberculosis. He became Medical Officer of the Board of Education in 1907 and Chief Medical Officer at the Ministry of Health in 1919, holding both posts until retirement in 1935.

He was a member of various interdepartmental committees which covered such subjects as playgrounds, reformatories, tuberculosis, medical research, production and distribution of milk, dental registration, post-graduate medical education and maternal mortality. His many publications included Hygiene and Public Health (1917), Rise of Preventive Medicine (1932) and The Building of a Nation's Health (1939). He died on 26 May 1948.