This is my latest research on the outbreak of cholera in Upton on Severn 1832
Smoke and Mirrors: The 1832 Cholera outbreak at Upton on Severn
By
John Maynard PhD
In a fenced off corner portion of a field on the outskirts of Upton on Severn is a rectangular block of low stone walls with small pilasters at the front linked together with iron chains. In the centre of these walls is a large grassy plot. A metal plaque announces it to be ‘Cholera Burial ground 1832’. However, the plot is bare: it has no headstones, no flowers; not even a flowering shrub to commemorate the dead. Outside the burial ground a notice board tells the visitor something about the outbreak of cholera in Upton and gives the names of the victims buried there. The visitor is told that the dead were buried there because the town churchyard was full at the time of the outbreak and the rector made a piece of his glebe land available out of necessity caused by the rapid number of deaths in such a short period of time in the summer months of 1832.
For the visitor, the burial ground is a forlorn spot, but for the historian it raises a number of interesting questions: why are cholera victims buried here rather than closer to the town centre? Who were the victims? Can anything be found out about their lives? How were they treated during their sickness? .And who was the Mrs Lawson mentioned on the visitor information board, since she appears to be the chief historical source for most of the details relating to the 1832 outbreak of cholera in Upton on Severn.
Emily M. Lawson, in fact, was not hard to trace. She was the wife of the Reverend Robert Lawson (1822-1897) who was the Rector of Upton on Severn between 1864 and 1895. Emily Lawson was more than a rector’s wife since an author in her own right and her best known work The Nation in the Parish or Records of Upton on Severn [1] appears to contain a definitive account of the outbreak of cholera based on the oral evidence she heard from people who were alive at the time of the outbreak who remembered it well. For the modern historian, however, there are a number of problems with Mrs. Lawson’s account of the outbreak and it is surprising it has not been challenged earlier. Even as late as 1975, a subsequent historian of the town quoted Lawson at length as if she were the sole authority on the outbreak and praised her for leaving the modern reader with “a vivid portrait” of the epidemic[2].
Reading Lawson’s account, it quickly becomes clear that her “vivid portrait” is more of an imaginative dramatic narrative. Rather than writing a factual and analytical account of the epidemic, Mrs Lawson presents events as a series of mise en scene, set pieces of highly descriptive writing relating how individual victims died and their funerals. Lawson begins this by providing a back drop to the town in which the drama was to unfold. Upton is described as a generally healthy town, but not in the narrow alleys and yards by the river where the poor lived. Lawson describes this area as having residents who lacked “sanitary knowledge” and a river prone to mists that spilt into the areas ill drained alleyways. It is one such alley that cholera claimed its first victim, Jane Allen. In this first mise en scene, Lawson portrayed Jane as a young married woman with a six week old baby, an ex nurse, who knew how terrible the disease was. Jane is described as a “bright, pleasant little woman” but “nervous and timid” about the possibility of getting cholera. When she is struck by cholera, Lawson gives a vivid description of her sufferings and “the horror of her distorted face and limbs.” In Lawson’s re-telling of what she has gleaned from oral history, Jane’s screams pierce the night and keep the neighbours awake as she is tortured throughout her short illness by endless pain racking her body. Then Lawson brings the narrative episode to its dramatic climax by telling the reader how, “Towards day break her agonising cries ceased” – Jane was dead and “cholera had slain its first victim”.[3]
The next victim of the disease, which Lawson almost personifies as a malevolent living force, was William Halford, a hay trusser. He was, in Lawson’s words a “strong and vigorous” man” when he landed in Upton after returning from working in Gloucestershire, but this was not to last. Struck by the disease, he also suffered similar agonies to Jane Allen until, after a short illness, he too died and, in Lawson’s sepulchral words, “ the grave closed over him”.[4] His seventeen year old son, who witnessed his father’s sufferings was said by Lawson to have been so traumatised by the ordeal that he fell unconscious with an epileptic fit and, because of the horror he had witnessed, was never the same afterwards. His fits continued, his mind weakened and he ended up being committed to Powick Lunatic Asylum.
Even more dramatic is the imagined tale of Susan Oakley and her brother, John. , This mise en scene starts with Susan being described as “one of the beauties of Upton” with a “noble figure” and “beautiful eyes”. She was also a dressmaker and “as good as she was pretty”.[5] The first scene focuses on Susan and the reader is informed that on the day illness struck, she was visiting her widowed mother’s home and helping her make preserves; presenting us with a pleasant picture of Upton domestic life. This peaceful scene is shattered when Susan steps outside the house to watch Jane Allen’s funeral pass by. She was then “struck” by the disease and, in the words of Emily Lawson, “cholera had her in its deadly grip” and after sufferings similar to the others, death soon followed.
Shortly afterwards, to add to the family’s tragedy, her brother John, a waterman came back to Upton to his sister’s funeral, caught the disease and died on board his barge at Worcester. His body was brought back to Upton to be buried there, and this act allows Mrs Lawson the opportunity to create yet another set piece of dramatic narrative which, in its own way, is the equivalent of a Victorian genre painting. Rather than being buried at Worcester, John Oakley’s body was to be taken back, secretively, to Upton. The corpse was put into the coffin and “at the edge of night” the barge stole away from its Worcester mooring and “slipped down the Severn towards home”. But as the barge voyaged on “through the silence and the darkness” the bargemen are unaware that John’s pregnant widow has just given birth to a stillborn child. When the barge arrives at Upton between twilight and dawn “bearing its deadly cargo”, John’s sick widow is there to meet it, and both have to be carried from the riverside to the town. He is buried, allegedly in the Baptist Church burial ground, and for months afterwards his wife hovered between life and death. [6]
Subsequent deaths are written about in the same melodramatic way, as are the funerals. A dying fisherman, for example, staggers from his deathbed hearing something calling him to go fishing. He is too heavy to get back into bed and so he dies in the arms of the young woman who is nursing him. As well as each individual mise en scene, Emily Lawson also paints a portrait of a frightened town with seemingly endless funerals taking place:. The church bell tolls constantly. The dead are taken away from their homes on a hand cart pushed by a man smoking incessantly to keep off the infection. Burials take place at night, because of the summer heat and corpses have lime shovelled over them to prevent the disease spreading. Mourners keep their distance at these events and the corpses are buried as quickly as possible, seemingly one after another as more and more townspeople fall victim to cholera..[7]
In the end, there were so many funerals that the rector ordered the bells to stop tolling so as not to frighten the townspeople and arrangements were put in place to isolate the sick , firstly in a building in the town set up as a hospital and later in an isolation hospital on Tunnel Hill..[8] In the temporary hospital for the sick in New Street, Upton, they received treatment from local medical men and non professional nurses . A frequent visitor to the hospital was a young local solicitor, Thomas Walker, who, Mrs Lawson said, worked tirelessly to support the patients, no matter how unpleasant the conditions he encountered or how hazardous it was to himself.[9]
Throughout the outbreak of cholera, and bearing in mind that blueness of some bodily parts was a symptom of the disease, it is not surprising that Emily Lawson uses this symptom for dramatic effect as well. For during the period the disease struck Upton, she writes of “frequent bluish mists” hanging over the meadows at twilight at the end of hot sultry days.[10] This detail is telling, since contemporaries thought cholera was a disease spread by ‘miasma’, a bad smell in the air, a theory supported by leading public health figures of the day, including Florence Nightingale. Emily Lawson also subscribed to this theory, because she was in no doubt the disease began in the narrow lanes and alleys around Lapstone Alley in the town, where residents not only lacked sanitary knowledge, but there were unpaved streets with no drains, where evil, foul smelling refuse proliferated, particularly from fishermen’s nets and fish waste. No doubt there was human and animal waste as well, but in this account, as in many others, such waste is usually covered by the polite euphemism ‘nuisances’. [11]
Subsequent research discovered that cholera was, in fact, a bacterial disease carried in contaminated water, but Emily Lawson would not have been privy to that knowledge. Although Doctor John Snow established this through his research into the disease during an 1854 outbreak in Soho, London, the bacteria itself was not isolated until 1883 and Snow’s work was not generally known about or universally accepted in 1868, the time that Emily Lawson published her account of the epidemic at Upton..[12] Lawson therefore accepted the idea of a ‘miasma’ being the cause of the illness.
Disregarding the way that the ‘miasma’ colours her narrative, there are also some significant factual problems with Lawson’s account of the 1832 Cholera outbreak at Upton. Firstly, the account is a dramatic narrative reconstructed from informants’ memories and Mrs. Lawson’s own imagination and, as such, it is not an analytical account of the epidemic. Secondly, Mrs Lawson was informed of these events in the 1860s, some thirty years after the cholera epidemic took place and nothing is known of her informants’ ages , status and credibility. . Although historians accept that oral history can give an insight into the lives of ordinary people, John Tosh has pointed out that people’s memories can become confused about specific events over time and the order in which they occurred, because people filter their memories through subsequent experience.[13] Tosh also makes the point that historians themselves are selective about what they choose from what they hear and the end product is also conditioned by the historian’s social position.[14]
These facts, therefore, call into question the veracity of Mrs. Lawson’s version of the outbreak of cholera in Upton on Severn in 1832. These doubts increase when analysing her account of the death of the first victim, Jane Allen. In Lawson’s narrative, designed to add to the poignancy of Jane’s death, her baby was said to be only six weeks old when she died on the 25th July, 1832. In reality, Jane’s son, William Henry, was baptised on the 17th July 1831[15], making him a year old rather than a recently born babe in arms. Whilst the death of a mother whose child is one year old is none the less poignant, it does point out either a factual error in the information given to Emily Lawson about Jane’s child or Lawson tweaking the evidence for dramatic effect.
The same is probably true about the death of John Oakley and the account of his body being taken back to Upton by barge. There is no record of the death of John Oakley to be found and no written account or otherwise of the arrival of his body by barge. Emily Lawson appears to have been told he was a Baptist and buried in the burial ground of Upton Baptist Church, but this again is non-proven. Nor is there any evidence, other than from Emily Lawson’s informants’ memories that his sister Susan was one of the beauties of Upton. What is true, is that her Christian name was actually Susanna (not Susan) and that she was baptised and buried as a member of the Church of England. These are small details, but they are sufficient to make Mrs. Lawson’s account of the cholera outbreak questionable.
This is not to say that, factually, there were not real human tragedies to be found among the cholera victims. Using family reconstruction techniques, it was easy to establish that among those who died was a young couple who had recently married: Thomas and Mary Bourne. The Bournes had their banns called at the parish church on March 18th, 25th March and April 1st 1832 and they married on the 13th of April. It is likely that the marriage was a necessary one, because Mary was pregnant. Within a few months of starting married life, however, both newlyweds died of cholera – Thomas on August the 9th 1832 and his wife, Mary, one day later on August 10th. Their infant son, Samuel, was left an orphan and baptised a week later on the 17th August.
In the same month, four out of six members of one family died – the Feredeys. William, the husband, died first on the 8th August, followed by his daughter, Frances, aged 10 on August the 13th. His second daughter, Elizabeth, aged 14, died on August 14th and finally, William’s wife, Lydia, died on August 16th. Two other daughters were left orphans. The deaths of Lydia and Elizabeth were also somewhat ironic since they had been employed by the Board to clean the cholera hospital only a week earlier[16]
Another family to suffer death by cholera were the Pursers. Robert Purser, (1796-1857) a butcher, had married his wife Elizabeth in 1822. Their son George Bourne Purser was born in 1822, to be followed by twins George and William in 1828 and Georgina in 1832. Elizabeth and her oldest son George died on August 1st, to be followed by William on August 5th. Georgina was baptised on August 6th suggesting that she, too, was sick with cholera. Elizabeth’s death may have been hastened by the fact that had only recently given birth to Georgina.
The historian, however, does not have to rely on family reconstruction techniques to determine how the cholera epidemic impacted on Upton or on the information gleaned by Emily Lawson from her informants. This is because a complete set of Upton’s Board of Health Minutes exist which cover the whole period of the outbreak from 1831 onwards.[17] The Minutes begin on the 14th November 1831 with the establishment of the Board of Health, formed in response to cholera arriving in Sunderland in October, the previous month. The symptoms of cholera were already widely known and the Board sought to take preventative measures against the diseases. Symptoms began with diarrhoea, followed quickly by vomiting, severe dehydration and the body racked with extremely painful cramps. Victims faces and lips then usually turned blue and death came quickly afterwards.
The Board was a mixture of local clergy (including the Rector of Upton, the Rev John Davidson, his curate and the town’s Baptist minister),the town’s surgeons, church wardens and poor law overseers. Although the Privy Council did not require local Boards of health to be set up until March, 1832, [18] parish vestries already had powers to intervene in matters concerning the health of the poor and to appoint parish surgeons if necessary. [19] The Board’s first concern was “to inspect the houses of the poor” and anything else that might mitigate or prevent an outbreak of cholera in Upton.[20] Board members were assigned districts for inspection purposes and asked to write to landlords about whitewashing their cottages and to report back to the next meeting. There are two important things to note about this decision: firstly, the fact that the Board, in keeping with general thinking automatically associated cholera exclusively with the poor and, secondly, the focus on whitewashing cottages as a preventative measure. In Leeds, similar steps were taken because whitewashing was thought to reduce the risk of infection.[21]
The idea that cholera was a disease exclusively linked to the poor is reinforced by the Report of the Worcester Board of Health in the Worcester Herald on Saturday. November 19th 1831. The Reverend Davidson was also a member of this board, because as well as being Rector of Upton, he was also a Prebendery of Worcester Cathedral and divided his time between Upton and Worcester. In a speech to the Worcester Board, the Rev. Davidson suggested the city follow the same practice as Upton and that inspections focused on visiting all the houses of the poor as well as the city’s lodging houses and check on, what the Reverend Davidson referred to as “their filthy inmates”.[22]
Writing to The Spectator some years after the event one of the Board members of Upton-on-Severn, the surgeon George Sheward, was also in no doubt about where the source of Cholera could be found. Re-stating his belief that Cholera was caused by a miasma (poisonous air), Sheward stated the victims of the outbreak “were entirely confined to the lower class.”[23] This, in fact, was not strictly true since two of the victims, Susanna Bates and her daughter Anne, were the wife and child of a baker, Thomas Bates. However, since the miasma was created by bad smells, this was thought most likely to develop around the homes of the poorest where sanitation and drainage were bad and where refuse was most likely to accumulate in “the close thoroughfares and inferior streets”.[24] The attitude in cities like Worcester and Birmingham was similar. In Worcester cholera was said to have mostly occurred in the area of the Pinch, at the back of Bridge Place, described as a “poor and dirty locality” [25] and in Leeds one commentator openly laid the blame squarely upon the poor , who lived in areas like the Boot and Shoe Yard, because they not only lived in unsanitary conditions but also in a depraved and immoral manner.[26]
Since the true cause of cholera was unknown, local Board members could only put their faith in the medical thinking of the day and one of these, already mentioned, was about the efficacy of whitewashing cottages and work houses with a lime based wash with added size or a wash of quick lime alone. Both were thought to destroy vermin and remove infection.[27] In getting landlords to whitewash the cottages they rented to the poor, the Upton Board hoped that any outbreak could be prevented in advance or that it would lessen the impact when the disease arrived.
At the next meeting of the Board on the 12th December, 1831, individuals reported back to the Committee about their assigned areas and some stated that many landlords had agreed to whitewash their cottages. Others, however, had not yet responded and several, including a Mr. Cole, refused to do so. The Board then agreed two further preventative measures. Parish constables were ordered to remove “several public nuisances” from the streets and to offer Welsh flannel to any resident willing to remove their own ‘nuisances’.
The focus on Welsh flannel as a preventative measure against disease was, again, part of contemporary medical practice. All flannel was considered medicinal, but Welsh Flannel particularly so. Thomas Young, writing in 1815, quoted one source which stated that Welsh flannel was particularly effective in treating consumption, and advised that, “An undergarment of Welsh flannel is recommended, not to be often changed, in order that it may retain its animals spirits.”[28] Flannels shirts were also used by European regiments in India in order to stop “frightful bowel complaints”.[29] Since cholera affected the bowels and gave its victims a consumptive appearance, it was no doubt thought that flannel was a good preventative measure.
By December 26th 1831 the focus of the Board was entirely on flannel. Gifts of flannel were made to 21 families who had removed nuisances. Several women were also commissioned by to make flannel waistcoats, petticoats and pantaloons and these were also distributed. At the same time, the Board ordered an investigation into Miss Armstrong’s houses at the back of Old Street and these were described as “an entire range of pigstyes of filth”. The back of “Burgess’s houses were also to be inspected because the area was reported to be “a nest of abominations”.[30] By March 1832,however,, the threat of Cholera appears to have receded, even though the Board were still distributing flannel and ordered an inspection of lodging houses, beer shops and public houses for any evidence of “improper things”.[31] The Board then focussed its attention on street lighting and took no further measures regarding cholera until the disease broke out in Worcestershire in July 1832.
The outbreak began, in fact, in the industrial areas of the Midlands, particularly Tipton and Berrow’s Worcester Journal blamed the incidence on impure air, recommending its readers to pay special attention to, “ventilating close and unwholesome apartments, cleansing drains and keeping the air pure”. It advised people who felt unwell to send for the doctor and take, “30 or 40 drops of laudanum, a little glass of magnesia and half a glass of brandy or gin all mixed together”.[32] The paper reported further outbreaks in England the following week and suggested other possible reasons for the outbreak were, “the heat of the weather and the immoderate use of fruit”.[33] By July 26th Cholera had reached Worcestershire and the paper reported outbreaks in Worcester, Pershore and Droitwich.[34]
By way of contrast, the county’s other newspaper The Worcestershire Herald treated the outbreak very differently. Whilst reporting that cases of Cholera had occurred, the paper deliberately down played the epidemic and suggested there was little to worry about.[35] By August 4th, when the outbreak was at its height, The Herald chose to report that cases in the county had “considerably diminished”. In the same edition the paper also denied there were any cases of cholera in Kidderminster. In denying the severity of the epidemic the paper appeared to be motivated by unduly alarming people and thereby creating a state of panic which would lead to, “..a stagnation of trade which is likely to lead to privation and distress amongst the working classes.”[36]
The first death from cholera in Upton (that of Jane Allen) occurred around about July 24th, 1832 and the Board of Health quickly convened a special meeting the following day, July 25th. Several of the surgeons present agreed to attend the sick in their own homes and the Board agreed to make funds available to pay for this and divided the parish up between the surgeons present. It was also agreed that the town’s fire engine should be used immediately to water and clean the streets, particularly the alleys and narrow lanes.[37] The Board then met five days later and agreed the immediate removal of any nuisances that appeared and for a gallon of brandy to be given to each of the medical men for the use of their cholera patients and their nurses.[38]
Nursing the sick was also an important issue and Mrs Lawson in her account of the outbreak lavished on the non professional nurses and one woman in particular who worked unceasingly to nurse the sick at home.[39] This woman is likely to be Widow Croft, who was paid five shillings for attending the sick on August 1st 1832 and whose name crops up regularly in subsequent Minutes of the Board throughout its existence.[40] However, once again, Mrs. Lawson’s account of the care received by the sick cannot be taken at face value and not all residents were as fearless as Widow Croft.. Cholera was a deadly disease that created panic amongst the local population in Upton and elsewhere. George Sheward, the Upton surgeon, writing to The Spectator in 1847 recalled that once cholera arrived in the town, some Upton residents panicked to the point where they deserted their homes to live in fields, hovels and outhouses. Sheward said that he knew of parents who deserted their children and children who deserted their parents. He also said that when a cholera hospital was established it was “impossible to procure attendants” for the sick once they were moved there.[41]
Part of the panic engendered by the cholera was that people feared dead bodies were not being buried at all, but sent to surgeons for dissection or simply buried alive. During this period, hospitals found it difficult to obtain bodies for the purpose of teaching anatomy and sometimes used ‘resurrection men’ to supply them with recently buried corpses.[42] Such incidents were well publicised and widely known about. On August 9th 1832, Berrow’s Worcester Journal reported that the lower classes in Worcester were becoming prejudiced against medical men because they believed doctors were actually poisoning patients in order to get a supply of bodies for dissection.[43] This rumour was rife elsewhere, particularly in large towns and cities and there were reports of mobs stopping coffins being taken for burial because they believed they were empty or, in one instance, because it was thought the body was still actually alive.[44] These incidents occurred in areas worst affected by cholera and in Leeds on June 9th 1832 were so widespread that local people rioted outside the local cholera hospital because of a belief that sick patients were deliberately being taken there to be poisoned before their bodies were taken away to be dissected.[45]
No such incidents occurred in Upton, but, as noted, people did panic and abandon their homes, presumably making them, in the eyes of the Board of Health, a greater risk to the community. To alleviate this and in keeping with common practice, the Select Vestry authorised the Board of Health to set up a cholera hospital at a cost of £25 and approved a guinea a day fee for any medical men appointed to attend patients.[46] In the end, the Board agreed to appoint only two parochial surgeons for this purpose: Henry Sneath Trash and George Sheward. A woman called Lee was also appointed to nurse the patients at 2s 6d a day. The Board set up a temporary hospital in the town and then began the task of looking for a building l outside the town. The Board eventually set up a hospital called the Health Barn on Tunnel Hill, the highest point in the locality.[47]
At the same time, there were more preventative measures to stop the disease spreading. One cottage occupied by four tenants (Robert Purser, John Pritchard, John Peters and Thomas Church) was ordered to be properly cleansed, fumigated and whitewashed [48]and new nuisances were to be dealt with immediately. These includes a wash tub in the yard occupied by Samuel Layton and pigs that had appeared in Browns Square. [49] The town’s inhabitants were also told to top their children eating unripe fruit.[50] People were also instructed not to use the beds, bed clothes or wearing apparel of anyone who had the cholera. These were to be taken and destroyed to stop the disease spreading.[51]
On the 9th August, 1832 the Board drew up a list of cholera victims to be moved to the new hospital and the following day they ordered a “steady person” to be employed at the Health Barn “to preserve peace and order” and to exclude vagrants and idle people from the hospital grounds. The appointee was also to have custody of the stores. On August 11th the Board ordered that no one was to be admitted to the new hospital without a written certificate signed by a member of the Board.[52] These measures were likely for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was to discourage people who had fled their homes settling near the hospital and secondly, it prevented opportunists turning up and claiming to be sick in order to benefit from better food and drink than they might be getting at home. This is because the Board supplied the patients in the Health Barn with a daily ration of bread, beer and coals (to be used in common) and a supply of lamb or beef. The cost of this food, however, was to be met by public subscription rather than from the poor rate/[53]
As well as the Health Barn, the Board also resolved to rent somewhere on Hook Common “as far removed as may be from any dwellings or cottages” and use this as a convalescence house.[54] By the 14th August 1832 a convalescent hut was in place and by the 15th August the Board reported that patients in the Health Barn were all healthy.[55] Apart from patients being given brandy, however, we do not know what treatment they received or how they were nursed. Nurse Welsh, engaged on 10th August, appears to have quit her job, because on the 17th August, a Penelope Strong was appointed as a nurse. Widow Croft also remained as an employee of the Board at the Health Barn.[56] As an inducement, on top of their salary nurses were to receive one pound of beef or mutton a day plus a quart of beer. They were also to receive two ounces of coffee and tea a week plus a pound of moist sugar.[57]
Although there is no record of the treatment patients received at the Health Barn, The Worcester Herald for the 19th November 1831 printed a lengthy description of what was considered to be best practice. The first stage of treatment after diagnosis had taken place was to immerse the patient’s body in warm water and then add increasing amounts of hot water to raise the body temperature. The patient was then to be given eau de cologne, sal volatile or Ammonia to breathe in order to stimulate circulation in the lungs. This was to be followed by Galvanisation (applying a low rate electrical charge to the head). After this, it was recommended to apply mustard plasters to the patient’s stomach and give spoonfuls of rectified turpentine every two hours. If the patient died the body was to be immediately immersed in cold water into which should be added a pound or two of chlorate of lime. Medical men were advised, however, not to rely on one remedy but to try others.[58] Nationally, advice varied, but in Leeds various treatments proposed included taking an ounce of peppermint water and camphor or 40 drops of opium served in a gruel every three to four hours.[59]
Medical men and others treating cholera victims were advised to change their dress daily and to drink as much wine and spirits as was sensible in order to preserve their own health. Health Boards were also told to remember that the body of a cholera victim could poison the air and that air would circulate to infect others. It was recommended that patients should be isolated in the countryside, where the air was purer. [60] This why the Upton Board, like most others, created its Health Barn in an isolated spot on a hillside and chose to bury its dead cholera victims in an isolated plot outside the town boundaries.
By August 20th 1832 the disease was on the wane and all the patients in the hospital and the (by now) two convalescent huts on Hook Common were healthy. The Board now turned its attention to dealing with the aftermath. This included the further removal of nuisances from the town and getting the empty houses of cholera victims whitewashed and cleansed so that the original tenants could be moved back home or the houses let to new occupants.[61] The Board also proposed to deal with the problem of an open gutter at the bottom of New Road and raise it so that the downfall of water carried waste away from the houses to the bottom of the street. Initial this was to be paid for by the parish, but at a subsequent meeting the order to improve the drain was suspended and a fresh application was made to have this work done by the Commissioners of the Turnpike Roads.[62]
In her account of the cholera epidemic, Mrs. Lawson stated that the clergy and laity met daily and granted relief to the sick “in the most liberal and abundant manner” [63]and that the outbreak had resulted in a kindlier feeling between the rich and poor.[64] Whilst not wishing to denigrate the undoubted hard work of the Board during this period, the truth is somewhat different. This is because, firstly, the poor were blamed for the outbreak the Board had to deal with and, secondly, the Board members were not generous philanthropists and the better off townswomen probably behaved more like Lady Bountiful than Florence Nightingale.
Whilst initially, attending the sick was paid for out of parish funds, the Board set about raising money by subscription to provide food and clothes for the poor [65] and took steps to ensure that neighbouring parishes paid a share of the costs of their residents who fell sick in Upton and had to be treated there.[66] At the end of the outbreak payment for medical treatment still came from money raised by public subscription and the Board agreed to charge other parishes 10 shillings for any non resident’s accommodation and to also charge the full cost of their medical treatment.[67] A few weeks later it agreed to have the debts of the Board liquidated.[68]
In early September, the Board also received a donation of £26.15s from the proceeds of a bazaar sponsored by “ladies, patronesses and managers of the bazaar.” Their stipulation was that this money should be used as a fund for the relief of families who had suffered cholera. Particularly, “widows or orphans or others brought into distress by the visitation.”[69] The Board accepted this gift and sent their thanks to the ladies concerned. At the same meeting they recorded a vote of thanks to Captain Martin, who had been responsible for setting up the Health Barn and convalescent huts and been responsible for supervising them. A similar vote of thanks went to Thomas Willis Walker for his “zealous and valuable service to the Board.”[70] Whilst we do not know what this work was, it is worth noting that it was on behalf of the Board rather than personal commitment.
For Mrs. Lawson, undoubtedly, the Board and individuals like Thomas Willis Walker, had done noble work throughout the crisis, but their roles to the modern historian were undoubtedly patriarchal in intent and underpinned by a fear of social unrest.. The term ‘patriarchal’ is not used loosely in this context, because it is worth noting that ladies who had raised money from their bazaar did not seek to undertake their own philanthropy but automatically gave the money to the Board, which consisted entirely of men. In an age when language mattered, we should also note that the money was raised by “ladies” of some social standing whereas those of lower rank are always referred to by the Board as ‘women’ or by their full name, unless they were widowed.
Underpinning the actions of the Board throughout the outbreak of cholera is the sense that the epidemic had to be ‘managed’, because the poor were certainly unable to manage it themselves and their insanitary lifestyles and freedom of movement was likely to put the whole town at risk. The sick were also known to be deeply suspicious of authority and prone to believing that there was a conspiracy to use the victims of cholera for dissection purposes or that people were being buried alive. In Worcester, the Health Board were sufficiently concern to pay for a large advert in the local paper denying there was any reason for the lower classes to be prejudiced against medical men and begging them to trust them in order to prevent the disease spreading.[71]
It has to be remembered that the epidemic also came two years after riots by carpet weavers in Kidderminster and the Swing Riots in rural Worcestershire and elsewhere. The principle solutions to what was seen as lower class ignorance and panic was not simply to raise money to pay for treating the sick but also to isolate the cholera patients from the rest of the town both in life and in death. Patients who were ill were effectively excluded from the community and sent to the Health Barn where they either died or recovered. If they died, the dead were further excluded from the town by being buried in a separate burial ground. Money to pay for their treatment and to feed and clothe them was raised by subscription, rather than paid for from the poor rates, because it demonstrated benevolence and cultivated dependence in a time of crisis. The Board also planned for further benevolence that winter since it voted to use the surplus from the subscription fund to set up a soup kitchen to open on December 28th, 1832. The soup was to consist of meat and vegetables and to be sold to the poor at the reduced price of a penny a quart. [72] Benevolence, therefore, lay in the provision of soup that was paid for rather than providing something that was given away gratis and therefore might not be appreciated.
Another indicator of prevailing local attitudes to the poor and how to manage them can be found a few years later, when a school was established at Upton, again by subscription, for training female servants. Places at the school were to be offered to girls from national schools who were to be selected for their good conduct. Each would have a sponsored place at the school for two to three years and those who subscribed to the school would have a prior right to select girls as servants. The attitude towards schooling the girls was as follows:
It is thought essential that the institution should be strictly a religious
one. To train up the English girl in the path of humble duty, to teach
her to love, honour and succour her parents and to follow the steps
of her blessed Redeemer, in life and in death, will be the single aim
of those who direct her, under the guidance of her spiritual pastors
and masters.[73]
When the Board came to distributing the ladies’ benevolent fund they did focus, as requested, on widows, orphans and families of cholera victims, coloured perhaps by ideas as to who were the most deserving, because not all cholera families got relief. The money distributed allows us a glimpse of the impact of the epidemic particularly on individuals who lost a partner or their parents. The widow of William Halford, the hay trusser, was given fifteen shillings and the same amount given to provide clothes for the surviving children of the Pursers. We also learn a little more about the subsequent fate of the Bourne’s infant child, Samuel, because the Board gave ten shillings to one Lotty Smith to provide him with clothing.[74] A month later it appears that a permanent home had been found for Samuel as the Board gave £2 to the wife of David Humphries, “for taking charge of the orphan of the Bournes.”[75] Benevolence, however, was not available for all. The two orphaned children of the Feredey family, for example, had been sent to the Health Barn after their parents died, but as soon as the authorities knew they were free from the risk of cholera they were ordered to be removed to the Workhouse.[76]
Indeed, within a few years the Poor Law Amendment Act led to the establishment of the Upton-Upon-Severn Union and the setting up of two new temporary workhouses – one at Upton for the old and infirm and another at Kempsey for the able bodied. Paternal benevolence shown to the cholera victims now ceased to exist and the Union now pursued a policy of removing the poor to the new workhouses and swingeing cuts in outdoor relief. In the same way that Upton’s streets were cleaned of nuisances, the parishes in the new Union cleansed their parishes of the poor. The only resistance to this came the Reverend George Tuberville, rector of Hanley Castle. In order to prevent four elderly women in his village being removed from their homes and sent to the workhouse he agreed to maintain them out of his own pocket. A month later he also saved a poor girl from removal by paying her to look after the old women he had agreed to support.[77]
The one thing the Board and the medical men could not deal with effectively was the cholera itself. This was because they knew nothing about the cause of disease they were treating other than the received wisdom of the day. The medical men who attended the sick focused on patient treatment rather than epidemiology, but even after a significant period of time elapsed medical opinions about the cause of cholera did not change. Writing to The Specator, George Sheward stated his belief that Upton was particularly vulnerable because it was a riverside town with a shifting lower class population, thus making it particularly susceptible to cholera:
Upton- upon-Severn; which town, situated on the bank of a large navigable river, and liable to a constantly changing population, (many of the lower orders depending on the river for support,) was peculiarly obnoxious to its attack……….The most diligent inquiries led me to believe that the disease was epidemic, caused by miasma, taking generally the course of navigable rivers; but that it was not contagious—no single case of infection being traced either to contact with the living or dead body, or with the clothing…… The inhabitants of the surrounding parishes escaped the scourge; only one or two cases occurring in the neighbourhood, and those could be easily accounted for. Worcester, Tewkesbury, Gloucester, suffered severely; the neighbouring towns of Ledbury, Pershore, Cheltenham, and Malvern, escaped.[78]
In short cholera was an air-born disease capable of being blown up-river from other cholera hot spots and most likely to occur amongst the lower classes in the poorer areas of riverside towns and cities along the River Severn. It was unlikely to occur in towns in Worcestershire’s upland areas where the air was fresher and certainly not in the spa town of Malvern high in the hills.
There is also further evidence that Upton was not regarded as a healthy town by higher social groups. When the Reverend John Davidson’s occasional papers were published in 1840, the introduction stated that although Davidson divided his time between Worcester and Upton, he never enjoyed good health there because, “the climate did not suit him.”[79]These comments raise the issue as to whether Upton was a particularly unhealthy town and whether it was especially vulnerable to cholera. Sheward certainly believed this was the case and wrote that:
“….three per cent of the gross population fell victims to it within the short space of three weeks; but the ravages were entirely confined to the lower class”.[80]
Sheward’s view is confirmed by statistics published by Sir Charles Hastings in 1834 which recorded cholera deaths per hundred of the population in Worcestershire as follows:
Table 1: Cholera deaths in Worcestershire 1832[81]
Town No. Of deaths Deaths per 100 of population
Kidderminster 102 1 to 175
Bewdley 16 1 to 244
Droitwich 63 1 to 39
Tenbury 2 1 to 884
Upton 88 1 to 61
The statistics make it clear that Upton did have one of the worst outbreaks of cholera in the county, although, interestingly, Droitwich, which was not a Severnside town, fared worse. Looking at Upton’s death and burial rates in the years immediately before and after the cholera outbreak, however, some statistics emerge which enable the epidemic in Upton to be seen in a more interesting light.
Table Two: Deaths and Burials in Upton on Severn by age 1831-1833
| Age | No deaths 1831 | % of all deaths 1831 | No deaths 1832 | % of all deaths 1832 | No deaths
1833 |
% of all deaths 1833 |
| 0-2 years | 17 | 34% | 13 | 20% | 14 | 37% |
| 3-7 years | 3 | 6% | 4 | 6% | 4 | 11% |
| 8-10 years | 1 | 2% | 5 | 7.5% | 0 | 0% |
| 11-20 years | 1 | 2% | 4 | 6% | 2 | 5.5% |
| 21-30 years | 3 | 6% | 10 | 15% | 2 | 5.5% |
| 31-40 years | 1 | 2% | 5 | 7.5% | 0 | 0% |
| 41-50 years | 3 | 6% | 4 | 6% | 3 | 8% |
| 51-60 years | 5 | 10% | 5 | 7.5% | 2 | 5.5% |
| 61-70 years | 0 | 0% | 7 | 11% | 2 | 5.5% |
| 71+ years | 15 | 30% | 8 | 12% | 8 | 22% |
| Age N/K | 1 | 2% | 1 | 1.5% | 0 | 0% |
What emerges most vividly from these statistics is that Upton, like many other towns and cities in this period had extremely high infant mortalities rates during this period, but that percentage of infant deaths in the year of cholera actually fell. The most likely reason for this is that the Board’s strategy of clearing nuisances, cleansing streets, burning cloths and furniture, fumigating houses and isolating patients is likely to have helped prevent death from many fatal childhood diseases other than cholera.
The other clear factor emerging from these statistics is that cholera, unlike other diseases, attacked all age groups and death rates in Upton rose in most age groups when the disease struck in 1832, with some anomalies. Paradoxically, in 1832 death rates fell most markedly in those aged 70+. However, one must add a note of caution here, because there may have been more deaths from cholera than were officially designated and some of those taken ill may have left Upton to return to their own parishes and therefore died elsewhere.
When we look at the cholera deaths alone, it is clear that some age groups were more vulnerable than others:
Table Three: Cholera deaths by age in Upton on Severn 1832
| Age | No of deaths from cholera 1832 | % of all deaths from cholera 1832 |
| 0-2 years | 6 | 17% |
| 3-7 years | 1 | 3% |
| 8-10 years | 3 | 8% |
| 11-20 years | 2 | 6% |
| 21-30 years | 6 | 17% |
| 31-40 years | 5 | 15% |
| 41-50 years | 2 | 6% |
| 51-60 years | 3 | 8% |
| 61-70 years | 4 | 12% |
| 71+ years | 3 | 8% |
This table indicates that infant children were highly likely to die from the illness, but that other age groups particularly vulnerable to the disease were 21-40 year olds. There may, of course, have been individual health factors affecting some people in the 21-40 age group that made them particularly vulnerable.
Statistics, however, are not people and those who died left no records that would fill out their lives and deaths in more detail. From the records that exist, however, we can reach a number of modest conclusions about the impact of cholera on the community. Firstly, the majority of the victims were poor and lived close to the river. They also appear to have lived in rented accommodation, some of which was overcrowded, and they lived in an area with poor sanitation. Some of their landlords appear to have been indifferent to their tenants and unwilling to improve the condition of the cottages they owned.
With regard to overcrowding, Robert and Elizabeth Purser and their son George certainly lived in such conditions since shared a cottage with John Pritchard, Thomas Church and John Peters. When cholera struck, most of these cottagers died within days of each other: Thomas Church died on August 2nd , 1832, Elizabeth Purser and her son George died on August 3rd, John Pritchard died on August 3rd and William Purser, George’s younger brother, died on August 5th. John Peters was also taken ill but appears not to have died of cholera. As already noted, all their clothes and bedding were destroyed and the house fumigated. The irony is that all these victims probably contracted the disease from the same contaminated water so that the destruction of their property would have no effect on lessening the impact of the epidemic, although it undoubtedly made the property more habitable.
Of the Purser family, only Robert Purser and his youngest daughters survived the epidemic. After receiving money from the benevolent fund to clothe his surviving children, Robert Purser’s life returned to normal. He was a butcher by trade so he continued in his profession and in 1850 he was still running a butcher’s shop in Old Street[82]. His surviving daughter, Georgina, survived to maturity and in September, 1849 she married Rupert King, a local shoemaker. Robert’s final days, however, were spent in Upton Union Workhouse, where he died in 1857.[83]
If the Health Board made hard decisions about how to manage the epidemic and deal with the aftermath, individual families were placed in the same situation, especially widowers left with young children. Of these, we know a significant amount of information about the life of Thomas Bates, the baker, who lost his wife and daughter to cholera in early August 1832. In the same year he also lost both his twin daughters who were born in January 1832. The first twin, Caroline, lived for only a month, whilst the second girl, Angeline, died in September. As a working man left with other children to raise, Thomas remarried quickly. His second wife was Elizabeth New and the wedding took place on 27th January 1833. This was undoubtedly a case of necessity overcoming sentimentality.
As well as the necessity of having to re-marry, Thomas Bates’ business also appears to have experience some problems in the wake of the cholera epidemic. In December 1837 a notice appeared in The Gazette and was placed there by Thomas Willis Walker. The notice stated that Thomas Bates had assigned all his personal estate and effects to two millers, one in Gloucester and one in Hanley Castle. Bates’ creditors were asked to take note of this. Any money owing to Bates was to be paid to his trustees or to Thomas Willis Walker himself.[84] Thomas Willis Walker is likely to have known the Bates family when visiting on behalf of the Health Board and this may have been a factor in his choosing to help Bates with his subsequent problems with debt. And whilst it cannot be proven, it may well be that Bates’ customers fell away during and after the cholera epidemic because his wife and daughter died from the disease and the business therefore considered ‘unhealthy.’
Thomas carried on working, however, and went on to have five more children with his second wife, Elizabeth, before she died in 1847 leaving him, yet again, a widower with a family of small children Thomas then married again in 1850 at the age of 49, although, sensibly perhaps, his third wife, Mary was ten years older and past child bearing age. By 1855 he was still in business as a baker in Old Street while Mary was at home bringing up her step children.[85] One child who did not get on with her, however, was Elizabeth’s daughter Mary Ann, who appears to have been ill treated by her step mother. As soon as she possibly could, Mary Ann left Upton to live with an aunt in Birmingham. Under her aunt’s influence Mary Ann joined the Church of the Latter Day Saints and became a Mormon.
For the historian, research is often tedious, but sometimes something delightfully odd occurs that throws up a curious paradox. This is because Mary Ann Bates met and entered a polygamous marriage with Edmund Ellsworth, a famous early Mormon pioneer. Although beyond the scope of this article, an account of this meeting and their subsequent marriage is available on-line[86], as is a biography of Edmund Ellsworth.[87] The couple met on one of the first handcart trains from Utah to Salt Lake City and subsequently had twelve children together. In America, Mary Ann Bates from Upton-on -Severn is remembered as a great early Mormon pioneer. Had cholera not taken the life of her father’s first wife, Mary Ann Bates would never have existed. In her home town, Mary Ann’s history appears to be unknown.
This study began with a visit to a monument of the past and was motivated by a lack of detail about the cholera epidemic itself and the lives of its victims. It also sought to challenge the local oral tradition resulted in Mrs Lawson’s highly popular re-and colourful re-creation of the epidemic.. In bringing a more analytical and explanatory approach to the outbreak of cholera n Upton on Severn in 1832 it is hoped that the outbreak will be seen in context both as an insight into medical thinking and disease management in the early nineteenth century and a more accurate account of those townspeople who fell into the category of what John Tosh called “the mass of the population which lived outside the charmed circle of literacy”.[88] It is hoped that by looking beyond the mere names of the victims of the epidemic that something valuable has been learned about their lives beyond the melodramatic account given in, The Nation in the Parish..
[1] Emily.M. Lawson, The Nation in the Parish or Records of Upton on Severn (1868: London), 1884.
[2] Pamela Hurle, Upton, Portrait of a Severnside Town (Phillimore, Chichester, 1974): 76
[3] Lawson, The Nation in the Parish:169
[4] Lawson, The Nation in the Parish: .170
[5] Lawson, The Nation in the Parish, 171
[6] Lawson, The Nation in the Parish:171-172.
[7] Lawson, The Nation in the Parish: 173-174.
[8] Lawson, The Nation in the Parish:177
[9] Lawson, The Nation in the Parish: 175
[10] Lawson, The Nation in the Parish: 177
[11] Lawson, The Nation in the Parish: .170
[12] http.www.ph.ucla.edu, Kathleen Tuthill, ‘John Snow and the Broad Street Pump’.
[13] John Tosh, The Pursuit of History: ( Longman: England, 1994) 1998, p210.
[14] Tosh, The Pursuit of History: 213.
[15] Worcestershire Archives and Archeology Service: Upton Parish Registers: Baptisms.
[16] WAAS: BA6218/5:Board of Health Minutes, August 7th 1832.
[17] WAAS: BA6218/5:Board of Health Minutes 1831
[18] William Henry McMenemey, A History of Worcester Royal Infirmary, (Trinity Press, Worcester 1947): 201
[19] W.E. Tate, The Parish Chest (1946) (Phillimore, Chichester, 1983): 167
[20] WAAS: BA6218/5: Minute Book, November 24th 1831.
[21] http://www.evolve360.co.uk/Data/10/PageLMHS/Bulletin24/37to54JohnBrooke.pdf: John Brooke, A Tidal Wave of Disease: the 1832 Leeds Cholera Epidemic: p 47
[22] Worcester Herald: November 19th, 1831.
[23] The Spectator, 23rd October 1847, Letter from George Sheward about the Cholera outbreak in Upton on Severn.
[24] WH, November 19th, 1831.
[25] T. C. Tuberville, Worcestershire in the Nineteenth Century, (London, 1832):.p 278
[26] Brooke, A Tidal Wave of Disease:p 43
[27] The Report of the Society for Bettering the Conditions and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor: Vol.2, 1797:175
[28] Thomas Young, A practical and historical treatise on consumptive diseases deduced from original observations and collected from authors of all ages, (London, 1817). 175.
[29] The Farmer’s Magazine, Vol.5, London, 1835, p.50.
[30] WAAS: BA6218/5: Minutes of the Board , December 3rd 1831.
[31] WAAS: BA6218/5: Minutes of the Board, March 14th 1832.
[32] Berrow’s Worcester Journal, July 12th 1832.
[33] BWJ, July 19th 1832
[34] BWJ, July 26th 1832.
[35] WH, July 28th, 1832.
[36] WH, August 4th 1832.
[37] WAAS: BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, July 25th 1832
[38] WAAS: BA6218/5, Minutes of the Board, July 30th 1832.
[39] Lawson, The Nation in the Parish: 175
[40] WAAS: BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, August 1st 1832.
[41] The Spectator, 23rd October 1847, Letter from George Sheward.
[42] McMenenemy, A History of Worcester Royal Infirmary: 196
[43] BWJ, August 9th 1832.
[44] BWJ, August 16th and August 23rd 1832.
[45] Brooke, A Tidal Wave of Disease: pps 48- 50.
[46] WAAS: BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, August 3rd 1832
[47] WAAS: BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, August 9th 1832
[48] WAAS: BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, August 4th, 1832
[49] WAAS: BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, August 7th 1832.
[50] WAAS: BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, August 7th 1832.
[51] WAAS: BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, August 8th 1832.
[52] WAAS: BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, Minutes of August 9th and August 11th, 1832.
[53] WAAS: BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, August 11th 1832.
[54] BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, August 10th, 1832.
[55] BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, August 14th and 15th 1832.
[56] BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, August 17th, 1832.
[57] WAAS: BA6218/5:Board of Health Minutes, August 8th 1832.
[58] WH, November 19th 1831.
[59] Brooke, A Tidal Wave of Disease: p 47
[60] WH, November 19th 1831.
[61] BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, 27th August, 1832.
[62] BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, 31st August, 1832.p174
[63] Lawson, The Nation in the Parish: p 174
[64] Lawson, The Nation in the Parish: p 179
[65] Berrow’s Worcester Journal, August 23rd 1832
[66] BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, 7th August 1832.
[67] BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, 5th September, 1832.
[68] BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, 24th September 1832.
[69] BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, 5th September, 1832.
[70] BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, 5th September, 1832.
[71] BWJ, August 16th 1832.
[72] BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, December 21st, 1832.
[73] The Cottager’s Monthly Visitor (London, 1840, Vol.xx: p 321
[74]. BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, September 28th, 1832.
[75] BA6218/5,Minutes of the Board, 19th October, 1832.
[76] WAAS: BA6218/5:Board of Health Minutes, 20th August 1832.
[77] WAAS: BA/414, Minute Book of Upton-on-Severn Union. See entries 28th January 1836 and 4th February 1836.
[78] The Spectator, Letter from George Sheward about cholera, 23rd October 1847
[79] Remains and Occasional Publications of the late Rev. John Davidson (Oxford, 1840): preface xi.
[80] The Spectator, Letter from George Sheward about cholera, 23rd October 1847.
[81] Sir Charles Hastings MD, Illustrations of the Natural History of Worcestershire (London, 1834) p 36
[82] Slater’s Directory of Worcestershire (1850)
[83] http://huntleygenerations.jimdo.com/death-burial-records/: burials 1857
[84] The Gazette, December 14th 1837.
[85] Billings Directory of Worcestershire (1855)
[86] http://www.public.asu.edu/~ellswork/EdmundsBiography.htm
[87] http://pearlsofgreatfamilies.weebly.com/mary-ann-bates.html
[87] Tosh, The Pursuit of History: p 101
worcestershirehistory 