Cholera 1832

When visiting St Mary's Church, Hook, you may be intrigued to see a number of simple stone monuments scattered around the graveyard. These are the mass grave markers for the 197 people who died from cholera in the epidemics of not only 1832, but during its return in 1848.

A letter 'C' is carved into the top of the stones. This was to remind people not to re-use these burial plots.

Parish records show that during April 1832 this area was devastated by the cholera epidemic which had arrived in this country from Asia during the second half of the previous year. Whilst air travel was not an issue at this time, Britain was a centre of world trade and so it was not surprising that ships brought cases to our shores. The first case arrived in Sunderland in October 1831. It did not take long for Goole to become affected, despite the fact that ships' crews were closely monitored as they left their vessel. However, most victims became ill very suddenly, without any warning, displaying symptoms of diarrhoea and vomiting. Many quickly became dehydrated, their faces becoming so withered and gaunt that they became almost unrecognisable, while their skin often developed a blue-grey tint. Amazingly, despite the fact that every person who died of cholera in Goole was buried in Hook, not one resident of Hook village became infected!

According to the Morning Chronicle, published on Monday 09 April 1832, the majority of victims lived in the North Side of George Street, Goole, with a large proportion being women and children. The article suggests that the victims became ill through breathing in the noxious air from a ditch of stagnant water close to their homes. Whilst this widely-held belief of the time that disease was caused by foul smells (or miasmas) was a credible, but incorrect theory, the suggestion was not far from the truth.

"Morning Chronicle - Monday 09 April 1832

GOOLE, THURSDAY MORNING, APRIL 5

Three new cases of cholera took place here during last night, making in the whole 14 cases and 11 deaths since its commencement in this town on Thursday last Five women, five children and one man have been the victims.

It is worthy of most particular remark, and ought to be the subject of immediate investigation, that these deaths have taken place chiefly, if not altogether, in one street (George Street), and on the north side of it, this street being that on the outside at the north end of the town, behind which, and within eight or ten yards of the houses, is a filthy deep ditch of stagnant water, covered over mostly with a deep scum, out of which the writer of this, on examining the place yesterday afternoon, saw water taken and carried into the houses by two of their inhabitants. So large a proportion of women and children falling victims at this place leads to a supposition that they have been injured by inhaling the noxious vapours arising from this water, which men, by their absence from home during the day, escape.

It is not supposed that the disease has been imported, but rather that it has originated in the noxious air breathed in George Street combined perhaps with the impure water used by the residents in that street."

In 1854 a physician named John Snow (1813-1858), who had always questioned the theory of disease being spread by bad air, identified a public water pump as the source of an outbreak of cholera in London. So convincing was his theory that the local council removed the handle of the pump, thus disabling it. The outbreak went into rapid decline. It has since been proved that, indeed, drinking contaminated water was the main cause of the spread of cholera.

On the left is a replica of the pump from which the handle was removed, thus halting the spread of cholera in the Broad Street, Soho district of London.

This hand bill from the New York City Board of Health, 1832, demonstrates the lack of understanding of the disease and its actual causative factors, although they did mention water!

The gravestone on the right is a memorial to John and Jane Allinson. It appears to be the only named cholera stone in the churchyard. The square cholera marker appears at the top of the gravestone.

"Hull Advertiser and Exchange Gazette - Friday 20 April 1832 (excerpt)

CHOLERA AT GOOLE

TO THE EDITOR OF THE HULL ADVERTISER, Goole, 17th April 1832

SIR - As various mis-statements have appeared in the newspapers, respecting the awful disease, whose ravages have been so fatal at this Port within the last three weeks, the Board of Health deem it a duty, not less to the public than to those who have taken an active part in endeavouring to mitigate its horrors and arrest its progress, to give to the world the following 'account of their stewardship'.

On the morning of Thursday, the 29th of March, four persons in one family were attacked by a disease, which had too many of the symptoms of Cholera not to render it highly probable that it was in reality that dreadful scourge. * Could this have been the Wood family?

One of the patients died in the course of that day, under circumstances which, as far as she was concerned, put all doubt out of the question. As, however, no fresh case appeared on the two following days, it was hoped that the alarm might have been premature, consequently no public notice was taken of it.

On the evening of Sunday the 1st inst., two little children were attacked, and, on the following morning, a third - all of which, with two of the patients first seized, died in the course of that day.

The Board of Health, which had been constituted on the first appearance of the disease in England, immediately re-assembled. Their first step was to divide the town into eight districts, and to appoint two of their member to each district, with instructions to visit every room and to report thereon on the following day.

The result was most satisfactory: the dwellings were in general in a cleaner state, and the personal and domestic comforts of the poor were greater than had been anticipated; there was very little sickness in the town and infinitely less distress and destitution than might have been found within the same space in any town in Yorkshire.

The next proceeding was to enter into a subscription headed by the Aire and Calder Company. From this fund, the poor are supplied (by ticket) with good and wholesome food.

A vacant house was promptly offered by the Aire and Calder Company for an Hospital, which has been fitted up by the township with every requisite and provided with suitable nurses. The Board meet there daily.

The Board are happy to be able to say that under this system of anxious surveillance, the cases of actual distress are few and decreasing and they would confidently hope that the predisposition of the poor to take the disease may be thereby materially diminished.

The Board beg most gratefully to acknowledge the high sense they entertain of the unremitting attention with which Mr. Cass has devoted himself to the poor.

J. H. Hodson, Chairman of the Goole and Marshland Board of Health"

"Yorkshire Gazette - Saturday 21 April 1832

GOOLE April 18; 9pm - No new cases or deaths today. Total cases 36, died 19, recovered 9, remaining 8.

Mr. Hodson says: "The patient who died yesterday was a female, married, having two children and aged about 32. She was not ill more than twelve hours, being a subject well calculated for the disease. It is scarcely possible to conceive any thing more entirely desititute than this family from their abandonment to drink. Although her husband is in the constant receipt of wages little if any thing short of £100 a year, there was not a yard of linen on the woman and the bed together when Mr. Cass was called in about five o'clock yesterday morning. A more disgusting or deplorable instance of the fatal consequences of a passion for ardent spirits never came under my observation. She was reported to have gone to bed drunk, as usual, the night before, and was attacked about three hours before medical aid was called in."

It is possible that the 32 year old victim mentioned in the above article may have been Elizabeth Peaker.

Elizabeth was buried at Hook on 17th April 1832, aged 32 years.

As for the suggestion that most, if not all of the victims lived on the North side of George Street, we have been unable to fully prove or disprove this theory. However, evidence suggests that some of the affected families did, indeed, live in George Street during the years leading up to the epidemic: