Catalogue description Folios 456-460. To: The President of the General Board of Health. From: The Reverend J...

Folios 456-460.

To: The President of the General Board of Health.

From: The Reverend J J Cresswell, 36 Robertson Street, Hastings [Sussex].

Letter calling attention to a small parish called Steeple, near Maldon [Essex], of which he is the Vicar. Cresswell explains that Steeple is 'such an unhealthy spot' that he has been obliged to remove himself to Hastings for a year, with a view to restoring the health of his wife and family. He explains that the population of steeple is 500 and that in the year of 1849 13 persons, 'all on one side of the road', were lost to cholera. Several more deaths are said to have occurred in cottages close to the village, but which actually belong to the parish of St Lawrence. He further explains that on the 10 September last year 'a fine young man', aged 18 and the son of a Schoolmaster, came to Steeple from Bermondsey [Surrey] and that within 24 hours 'he was a corpse'. Six days later Cresswell had buried him, his father, his mother, and his sister's three children. His sister 'was given over but recovered'. He adds that the young man's other sister's child was also 'supposed to be dead, but when the man came to measure her for a coffin she opened her eyes'. Two women who laid out the child's body are said to have been 'dangerously ill' and 'the nurse died'. Cresswell states that the Medical Officer lives three miles away and that he has reported that 'it was utterly impossible he could pay attention to them, which they required, at such a distance and so sickly a time'. The epidemic is said to have this time lasted 10 days, and altogether the parish again lost 13 inhabitants. Cresswell states that he does not know if the General Board has the power to do anything in so small a parish, but trusts that if they do, they 'will exert it'.

[Folios 456-457 are Place Guards: Maldon].