Conclusion

Summary

By 1864, compulsory vaccination backed by free public provision was operating throughout the United Kingdom. The process by which this legislation was put in place was complex. Although vaccination acts across Britain shared the same broad goals—to make vaccination compulsory for infants and to ensure that the poor had access to free vaccination—the measures devised for England and Wales did not serve as models for those applied in Scotland and Ireland. In each part of the United Kingdom, different acts were devised to fix vaccination into existing systems of administration. The failure of the 1840 Vaccination Act in Ireland shows the disastrous consequences of shoehorning measures designed for the poor law service in one country into that of another. As a result, public vaccination in each part of the United Kingdom was distinctive in its scope and administration and in the workforce of vaccinators it employed. In Scotland, free vaccination was strictly limited. Only the poorest—those listed as paupers—received free vaccination from parish medical officers. In Ireland, free vaccination was available to all through the medical staff of the large network of dispensaries and vaccine stations run by the poor law. Irish medical officers thus vaccinated much greater numbers of children than their Scottish counterparts. In England and Wales, as in Ireland, free vaccination was available to all through the poor law, but a separate staff of public vaccinators, who held a special qualification to prove their competence, conducted the procedure.