Catalogue description Folios 279-283. To: The General Board of Health. From: Dr Waller Lewis, Superintending...

Folios 279-283.

To: The General Board of Health.

From: Dr Waller Lewis, Superintending Medical Inspector, The General Board of Health.

Subject Matter: Letter advising that, in accordance with the instructions he received from the General Board of Health, he and William Lee, Engineer of the Board, visited the Town of Hexham on the 29 September 1853 and met with a deputation of Magistrates and medical and other authorities of the town. Lewis provides a statement of the total number of deaths from cholera and diarrhoea (23) since the 1 September 1853 to the present day. He explains that there have been about 1200 cases of diarrhoea and cholera under treatment - 'at the present time there are about 150 still under treatment'. He reports that the medical men of the town have done their duty very well, but that what has not be done well is the removal of nuisances - 'there have been many orders given, but no system or regularity in the actual removal of them'. Lewis explains, however, that the authorities have now promised that there will be much more efficiency: - 'They are to provide a book, with one page for orders and the other for performances. Two extra inspectors have now been engaged, and they are to send me every week a list of those actually removed. They are also to make a cholera map for me, which I will forward when received to the Board. It will be marked with a black dot for every death from cholera (23); a blue dot for every case of cholera (97); a brown shade at every great nuisance. This will be a valuable document'.

With reference to the Public Health Act 1848, Lewis reports that there has been great division and opposition in the town, 'but a large majority now wish for it, and indeed are extremely anxious that the [Order in Council] shall be issued at once for it'. He submits that it is of great importance that they should 'have it now while the fear of the disease is so vivid in their minds'.

Lewis further reports that among the fatal cases of cholera in Hexham are four that require public notice being taken of them in any instructive way the General Board may think best. He provides a brief outline of the facts: - 'John Fairbridge was a Surgeon at 60 of very irregular habits, being frequently intoxicated. He lived in a house in Broad Gates with his wife at 59 and family. Himself, his wife and daughters, Matilda and Anne at 26 and 31, all died of cholera on the 21, 23 and 24 September. The house itself was a good one, over a shop, but it was exposed to the effluvia emanating from numerous pig-styes, privies and slaughterhouses'. He encloses a sketch depicting the proximity of these nuisances to the Fairbridges' house.

Another case is also considered to be well deserved of remark: - 'The man was a labourer who worked close by a filthy open ditch called Skinnerburn. There was a large midden close to where he worked full of dung, ashes and excrement. As soon as the epidemic broke out in Hexham, he said he was sure that that would give him cholera. In a few days, he actually was seized with the disease, and died with the exclamation in his mouth, which he had frequently repeated during his illness, that that midden was the cause of his death!'

Lewis advises that the Town of Hexham is 'almost entirely unprovided with sewers', and that 'filth of all sorts' is collected in large pits and bins, the contents of which is then carried out into the streets where it remains until a cart happens to pass by to carry it away - 'the poisoning of the air is the inevitable consequence of this state of things'.

Though much lime and white washing has been done, Lewis explains that Hexham is still in a filthy state and 'full of nuisances'. He confirms that he and Lee inspected all the parts of the town visited by cholera, and submits that many of the rooms they visited are, in his opinion, 'unwholesome and unfit for human habitation'.