Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2009 3:59 pm Post subject: Cholera in Southport
I have had an email asking for help from one of our members. I can't help. Hope someone on here can
I quote -
I have now got the death certificate of Ellen
Sherrington who died in April 1849 as I didn't have her age and it was
a bit impossible checking earlier records without a clue. She didn't
make it to the 51 census, sadly. Yesterday I took the certificate
over to my neighbour who is a retired pathologist and asked him to
help.
I've added his comments below - and between us we came to the
conclusion it might have been cholera. A bit of research on the
Internet last night indicates there was a big outbreak of the disease
in Liverpool. Do we know if it affected Southport? The Sherringtons
ran a lodging house in London Street and, of course, wouldn't have
wanted it to be known that the landlady had cholera. Was this the
reason for the complicated death certificate? So where would
Ellen have died? Did Southport have a fever hospital in 1849 and could
Anne Carpel who witnessed the death have been a nurse? I can't find a
reference in my books or on line. Carper is an unusual surname but it
does exist, and the P is clear otherwise one could deduce it was
Carter.
1849, Ellen Sherrington died. Date of death 5 April 1849, female, 49
years, wife of Thomas Sherrington, Lodging House Keeper, Southport,
cause of death: The cause of Ellen's death is hard to decipher, that I
have managed is thanks to the help of my neighbour who was a
leading pathologist until he retired.
The certificate says:
Atony of
the Digestive Organs
Uncertain
Scirrh Effusion
Of the Brain
24 hours
CERTIFIED
This may be complex way of saying that Ellen died of cholera. Atony
(weakness)of the digestive organs is self explanatory. Less well known
to me was the fact that with serious diarrhea the brain can swell and
this then becomes the cause of death. Further research on the net
indicates there was a major cholera outbreak in England at this time;
in Liverpool in 1849 5308 people died, and presumably Southport, was
affected?
The death certificate doesn't state cholera. Could this be because
Thomas, Ellen's husband, was running a lodging house and would be
gearing up for the summer holiday trade?
Ellen's death was registered 7 April 1849; signed John Wright, deputy
registrar. Ormskirk volume 21, page 417
I have checked burials for St Cuthberts, Christ Church & Holy Trinity.
I can't find one for Ellen
If she did die from Cholera would she have been buried somewhere special?
_________________ Mad on Genealogy or just plain mad? :)
THE CHOLERA. The Manchester Guardian of
Wednesday says, " We have heard of one or two
cases [of cholera] at Lytham." This announcement
is quite incorrect, not a single inhabitant or visitor
at Lytham having, we are happy to say, been at all
effected by this disease.—A paragraph has also been
" going the rounds," stating that three deaths have
occurred through cholera at Southport, and that the
disease is still raging there. We have been autho-
rized to state that the deaths in question did not
arise through cholera ; that cholera, except in name,
has been unknown in Southport ; and so anxious
are the inhabitants to preserve the character of
salubrity which has hitherto attached to the " Mont-
pelier of England," that the local authorities are
carrying out with unusual stringency the provisions
of recent acts passed to suppress nuisances and pre-
serve the public health.
It's the only article I can find in the 19th C Gale database with either Southport or North Meols AND cholera as search criteria
should have said the only article around 1849. There is a later piece from 1866 which says that Little Ireland & Little London in particular were badly affected, and there were grave concerns that it would spread through Southport. From a meeting of the Disease Prevention Committee:
Quote:
The privies were in a most abominable condition, and the people are living in a state of semi-barbarism...
The chairman said it had long been his opinion that it would be a good thing if Little Ireland was burnt down
I'll try to download and put the whole article through my OCR programme tomorow and post the results
the transcription went well so here it is:
Preston Guardian, Saturday 27 Oct 1866
Quote:
ORMSKIRK 'SOUTHPORT.
CHOLERA AT SOUTHPORT.At a meeting of the disease
Prevention Committee held at Southport, last Monday,
Mr. Holbrook Gaskell in the chair, Dr. Synnott, of London,
the medical officer engaged by the committee to attend
the cholera cases arising in the district, stated the
condition of Little Ireland and Little London was very
bad. There had been many cases of cholera and choleraic
diarrhoea in those places, and he apprehended, unless
steps were immediately taken to have proper drainage
and the houses thoroughly cleansed, cholera or typus
fever would sweep through Southport like a pestilence.
There was the greatest danger to apprehend from these
places. The privies were in a most abominable condition,
and the people are living in a state of semi-barbarism.
The chairman said it had long been his opiniori that it
would be a good thing if Little Ireland was burnt down.
Dr. Craven: Little London is worse. Mr. John Fernly
moved that the offending parties be brought before the
magistrates. Some questions arose as to the power of the
committee or of the improvement commissioners to take
this work in hand and compel the parties to do it. Dr.
Craven said that the commissioners could not undertake
the paving or sewering of these places without first
giving three months' notice to the owners of the property.
Dr. Synnott remarked that any such delay might be
attended with the most serious results. Eventually the
further discussion of the question was adjourned till
Wednesday in order to give the law clerks an opportunity
of examining the acts of parliament, and ascertaining
what powers the local authorities had to remove these
nuisances, and carry out the recommendations of the
medical officers. There have been seventeen fresh cases
of cholera and diarrhoea in Southport and the district during
the week ending Saturday last, one only of which has up
to the present proved fatal.
I seem to remember somewhere (in the deepest depths of my mind) that if people died of this type of disease (typhus, cholera) their bodies were either incinerated at the hospital where they died or they were buried in lime in order to stop the spread of the disease? Not sure how true that is
_________________ I may be a shrimp but I'm BIG on family history
Although not pertinent to the death of Ellen Sherrington the following does relate to the theme of cholera & Southport. It is from Bland's Annals of Southport and it originally appeared in the Liverpool Mercury in 1832.
Quote:
November 21st was observed at Southport, and in the whole parish of North Meols, as a day of Thanksgiving to Almightly God for His mercy in preserving that neighbourhood from the fatal disease [cholera] which has visited so many parts of the United Kingdom. The parish Church, the Church at Southport, and all other places of public worship were open for Divine service. There was a large attendance at each of the places. The shops were all closed, and the stillness which marked the whole vicinity gave a pleasing indication that a pious feeling was generally prevalent.
I must say that it is a little harsh of the authorities to describe my ancestors the Conways of Little Ireland as living in a state of "semi barbarism"! That said conditions must have been less than ideal as James Conway and Hannah Howard lost seven children as infants the last having been born in 1871.
The authorities were at it again in 1871, this time fighting off an accusation of a smallpox outbreak. In a reply published in the Liverpool Mercury in Feb 1871, following an article in the BMJ
Quote:
If your paragraph had been headed 'Smallpox
at Crossens,' which is a hamlet four miles distant
from us, and if your strictures had been directed
against the negligent population, who can hardly
be induced to attend to any sanitary matters at all,
you would have put the saddle on the right horse;
and possibly, if you had admonished the guardians
of the poor of the Ormskirk Union (who are the
authorities charged with carrying out the Vaccina-
tion Act in this district) to redouble their efforts
to enforce vaccination, we should have gladly
welcomed your moral support in urging upon a
reluctant or apathetic population the observance
of a law the authority of which has been lately
much undermined in this district by the mis-
chievous activity of the Anti-Vaccination League.
The article then drones on about how it is not Southport's fault, Southport is wonderful, it's the Ormskirk lot, Crossens nothing to do with us, the writer of the article had a grudge etc.
In March 1871 my GG grandmother Margery Halsall died of Smallpox in Churchtown; two of her children were in Southport Infirmary - I wonder why?
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