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XVIII.
EPIDEMIC diseases attack many people at once or in quick succession, and exhibit a tendency to spread from place to place in the lines of most frequent intercourse. For instance, the late epidemic of small pox was imported into Wednesbury from Tipton, and hence has spread to the neighbouring towns of West Bromwich, Darlaston, and Walsall. These epidemics are most deadly where people are massed together, are not over cleanly, and where the sanitation is most defective. The Black Country has generally suffered severely from all these several causes ; and perhaps, in addition to these. may be added the peculiarly favourable conditions of our atmosphere for disease propagation, laden as it is with smoke, sulphur, and many other deleterious foreign substances. This town no doubt experienced its full share of suffering and misery between the years 1349 and 1369, when the Black Death swept away half the population. But the first recorded epidemic here is that of 1761, when small pox is said to have raged fearfully in Wednesbury. Vaccination was not discovered till 1798, and in those times this dreadful malady decimated the population. In the first six decades after this preventative measure was adopted the proportion of deaths fell from 83 to 12 in the thousand, till in 1870, when it rose again considerably during an epidemic period. In those older times, prior to compulsory vaccination, the victims left blind by this disease were appallingly numerous.
In 1832 cholera visited this country, and before it was again completely banished from our midst it had claimed 30,924 victims in England and Wales. Our neighbouring town of Bilston suffered perhaps more than any other place in the country, for out of a population of 14,492 it lost 742 by this dire disease. Bilston was called the "Epidemic centre of the Midland Coalfield," and the 12th of September that year was kept as a Day of Humiliation. On 3rd August of the following year a "Cholera School" was opened there for the reception of the numerous orphans whose parents had perished from the scourge. This institution was the result of the labours of their local philanthropist, John Etheridge, an artist in the japan trade. The disease was introduced into Wednesbury by one "Jemmy the Tinker," who lived in Beggar's Row, and the infection was said to have been caught at Tipton Wake, where he had spent a week of debauchery. Then Wednesbury was ravaged for many weeks, and persons who had been seen walking about in the morning were buried hurriedly and "darkly at night" ; the old British School in Lower High Street, which had not then been rebuilt, was pressed into service as a temporary Hospital. A terror-stricken populace flung themselves into the churches and chapels of the town, and prayer-meetings were held nightly. Some of the lowest reprobates of the locality were seen to be influenced so deeply by apprehensive fear that the dissenting bodies of the town seized the opportunity and took pains to make the impression permanent, and more additions were made to their ranks at that gloomy time than at any other period of their history. The higher powers of the nation, however, still remained lamentably blind, and sixteen years were allowed to elapse before the Public Health Act was passed (1848). In the meantime large centres of population, like Bilston and Wednesbury. were left to struggle on without that local jurisdiction which conferred the power of making the necessary efforts in the direction of tenement reform. Our crowded denizens cried aloud for light, fresh air, and quickening ventilation ; a pitying nation offered them good advice and raised them a public subscription.
Well, the Epidemic Fiend answered the invitation, and in 1848 cholera again appeared in our midst and although the number of deaths throughout the kingdom mounted up to 53,293, locally we suffered much, but not quite to the extent of the previous calamity. The disease lasted in this country from October, 1848, to December, 1849. This district was attacked late in the season, and murky Bilston again ran rapidly to the front of this dreadful race with a record of 605 deaths ; while on the other side of us, West Bromwich with a clearer atmosphere, had only 21 deaths. At Wednesbury 212 deaths were registered, although our Board of Surveyors were fairly energetic in remedial measures. For the reception of cholera patients they erected a Hospital of wooden huts on Monway-field, to the left of the Moxley Road just beyond the site of the present railway bridge. In the panic it was difficult to obtain the services of anyone in connection with the disposal of the dead ; one "Bonker" Turner became a conspicuous character in the very necessary office of general undertaker. As his nickname implied he had originally worked on the pit bank, but for many years he obtained his living by working as a haulier with a jobbing cart, and at that time was one of the remarkable "characters" of the town. "Bonker" was seldom seen abroad without his goose, or rather gander, a knowing old bird that followed him about, for many years, with all the affectionate fidelity of a trusty dog ; and Friday's market would have been incomplete without the parade of this queer pair during some part of the day. "Bonker" Turner's method of conducting these cholera funerals was very effective, but somewhat primitive. The coffins, mere boards knocked loosely together, were supplied through a parish contract, and Turner was employed to collect the dead, both from the hospital huts and also from the private residences where deaths occured ; an allowance of brandy was granted him for every case. He went round with his wagon, loaded up his mournful burden, and his poor old horse toiled slowly with it up Church Hill. Arrived at the churchyard he summarily disposed of his load ; for in the case of the poor - and most of the deaths occurred amongst this class of the community, although many prominent families of the town sustained losses through the pestilence - he simply deposited the coffins in one huge grave which was prepared in a new portion of the graveyard on the north side of the church. The service was performed wholesale, by a clergyman who stood at a safe distance from the excavation, and who usually alluded to the dead in the comprehensive phrase of "our dear brothers and sisters."
Afterwards, when the cholera was stamped out, and with a normal state of things, the death-rate in Wednesbury continued as high as 62 per thousand, till a petition from the inhabitants to the General Board of Health resulted in calling into being our present Local Board of Health at the close of 1851, when the irresponsible and self-elected Board of Surveyors were for ever superseded. Since that pestilential period it would seem that the country has lost over 20,000 in 1854, and upwards of 14,000 in 1866, from cholera. But happily Wednesbury has not had another terrible experience of it, although a leading article in The Wednesbury Observer, of October 17th, 1857, sounded the note of alarm on the probable advent of another epidemic. The same newspaper contained a report of a Board of Health meeting, presided over by Mr. Richard Williams, at which were stated three important facts which arrest attention ; first we note the reading of a communication from the authorities in London urging the adoption of precautionary measures with reference to epidemic cholera : then follows a wholesale condemnation of a place known as Bolton's Square ; and thirdly the medical officer's returns may be deemed significant when, of the 20 deaths recorded, the causes assigned include fever, diarrhoea, smallpox, and typhus.
Of the late epidemic of small-pox the first case was reported at a meeting of the Local Board on the 28th of March, 1882, when the medical officer, Dr. J. C. Garman, deplored the absence of any means of isolation, and stated that he had taken the best precautions at his disposal. The disease first appeared in St. James's Street, and rapidly assumed an epidemic form. At the meeting on April 24th, the Chairman, Mr. Richard Williams, made an interesting speech, in which he alluded to the hand of the Almighty finding out the arm of the unvaccinated ; he pointed out the duty of the public, of the clergy, and of the school teachers, but expressed an opinion that an Isolation Hospital was unnecessary. If this costly preventative machinery had been set in motion at this early stage, and the disease had been thereby stamped out at once, it must be admitted that carping critics would not have been lacking who would have contended that the thing was hastily conceived ; and because the plan had succeeded they would no doubt have argued that the money spent upon it had been so much wasteful extravagance. Hence the Board adopted a hopeful policy, and on June 15, although 35 fresh cases had broken out in a fortnight, the disease was declared to have done its worst. However, events belied the hope, and with the light of experience one cannot but regret that Wednesbury had not followed the example of Newcastle-under-Lyme, where a permanent Isolation Hospital had been erected in a panic ten years before, and which building had never received a single patient, till a poor woman on tramp, having passed through Wednesbury, at this period became its first occupant. Well, the dimensions of the plague showed scarcely any diminution by July 17th, when the pawnbrokers came in for a share of the Board's admonitory precepts ; but still no isolation was resolved on till August.
Then the Board set to work in all the precipitation of a panic. Through the Chairman a piece of land was considerately lent by the Patent Shaft Company, situated on a levelled pitbank in Crankhall Lane, opposite the railway crossing. Here a barricade was rapidly run round at considerable expense, and in the enclosure were erected a number of tents and brick buildings. The tents were in two lines, one side for males and the other for females. The men's tents accommodated 8 each, and the others only 4 each ; after the follies of the Wake week this accommodation had to be increased from 48 beds, and this was done by putting up a wooden building for 12 convalescents. At the head of the men's side was the Medical tent, and the Matron and Nurses' tent headed the other line. In the far corner near the Cemetery, was the Mortuary tent, and the Bath tent was between a Dirty-clothes Room and the other brick erections. These erections included a Lavatory and Laundry, a Store-room, and Superintendent's apartments ; and a cooking Kitchen. The whole of the establishment was approached by a brick pavement which separated the two wards ; and the entire place was lighted with gas. Water was laid on, and the tents were heated with hot water from several half-sunken fire-holes and boilers, the temperature being regulated by traps or valves. The staff included a Hospital Superintendent, a resident Surgeon, a Matron, Assistant Matron, and a staff of female nurses. There was also a Porter and a man to attend to the Ambulance Can. The clergy were permitted to visit periodically, when they donned a macintosh and skull-cap at the entrance lodge. The cost of all this splendidly-equipped establishment was about £50 per week, and that it was not dear at the price is sufficiently proved by the rapidity with which it overtook the epidemic. By Christmas the hospital was nearly empty, and the resident medical officer dispensed with ; by the New Year six of the small tents had been sold to Rowley Regis Board - another authority in a hurry to cope with the epidemic - for the sum of £228, or two-thirds of their value ; there was still left accommodation for 40, the administration of which was costing only £15 a week. This sale was a fortunate transaction for the town, for admirably as the hospital marquee is adapted to the purposes of isolation by its cleanliness and ventilation, yet the disposal of it afterwards is the great problem still unsolved. From the opening of the Hospital to the time the epidemic was killed out, the number of patients admitted was 122. The number of cases reported in the town up to that time was 605, of which over 50 proved fatal. Only 15 died in the Hospital in the same period.
As an epidemic the disease then died out, but the place was still kept open for the treatment of sporadic cases. An experienced Sanitary Officer was permanently employed by the Board, and a disinfecting oven was set up at their Yard in Albert Street. A van was kept to send round for clothing and bedding, and a disinfecting staff cleansed the affected houses. For some of the bereaved a public subscription has been raised, and much has been done to alleviate the misery caused by the disease. One poor little waif was born just before its mother was taken to the Hospital, and was actually taken to the Vaccination Officer by one of the nurses ; strange to say the disease was not contracted from the mother. [No permanent Hospital has yet been provided for the town. The Sewering of the town has not been commenced either, although both schemes are in hand. These are important matters ; and the Board of Health would do well at the same time to consider the advisability of providing Public Abattoirs. Union Street is crowded with slaughter-houses, the drainage from which runs down the open channels of that important thoroughfare. The "Bitter cry" of Outcast Wednesbury is not so loud nor so deep as that of many neighbouring towns ; but still there are some wretched rookeries to be found in many of the back Courts of our more pretentious thoroughfares, to which the provisions of the Artisans' Dwellings Act might be advantageously applied. Oatmeal Square has already been demolished for sanitary reasons.]
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