Book contents
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures and Tables
- List of Abbreviations
- Notes on the Text
- Who's Who in the Narrative
- Introduction
- 1 Town and School, 1875
- 2 Local Society and Local Government
- 3 Local Medicine and Local Doctors
- 4 Typhoid: The First Two Outbreaks, 1875
- 5 Winter 1875–6
- 6 Spring 1876
- 7 Summer 1876
- 8 Autumn, Winter and Spring 1876–7
- Aftermath and Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Uppingham Union Membership 1875
- Appendix 2 Abstract of Sums Raised by RSAs
- Notes
- Note on Sources
- Works Cited
- Index
4 - Typhoid: The First Two Outbreaks, 1875
- Frontmatter
- CONTENTS
- Miscellaneous Frontmatter
- Acknowledgements
- List of Figures and Tables
- List of Abbreviations
- Notes on the Text
- Who's Who in the Narrative
- Introduction
- 1 Town and School, 1875
- 2 Local Society and Local Government
- 3 Local Medicine and Local Doctors
- 4 Typhoid: The First Two Outbreaks, 1875
- 5 Winter 1875–6
- 6 Spring 1876
- 7 Summer 1876
- 8 Autumn, Winter and Spring 1876–7
- Aftermath and Conclusion
- Appendix 1 Uppingham Union Membership 1875
- Appendix 2 Abstract of Sums Raised by RSAs
- Notes
- Note on Sources
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
Epidemic disease was by no means a new experience for Uppingham. The town had suffered plague in 1840, 1848 and 1850, and there appears to have been a small outbreak two years later, followed by a major and more documented one in 1853–4. The Stamford Mercury reported in December 1854 that ‘the filth from the backyards which in most cases flows in to the open channels in the public street will scarcely be tolerated in any other decent market town’. However, the paper had also carried reports four months earlier of
a plan … for a main drain at a depth of 10 feet that met with a good deal of opposition on the grounds that such a depth would drain the wells as well as the cellars, and the plans were accordingly rejected.
In many ways this early skirmish between the RSA and local community serves as a symbolic event for the two decades before the 1875 epidemic, which was a period in which the RSA struggled to balance a local desire for improvement with fears about both its cost and the practical implications for householders. The LGB and its predecessors had numerous dealings with the RSA in this period – confirming the perception of people in Oakham in the 1860s that Uppingham's guardians were more proactive in sanitary reform than their own.
In Uppingham the concerns – and the desire for improvement – soon reemerged. In 1857 churchwarden William Compton, who had a house in the High Street and a wine and spirit shop in the marketplace, complained about the state of the drainage. As a result there was an enquiry, and the Nuisance Removal Committee commissioned a survey of drainage options, which resulted a year later in the main sewer being laid along the northern part of the town at cost of £750.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Typhoid in UppinghamAnalysis of a Victorian Town and School in Crisis, 1875–7, pp. 73 - 90Publisher: Pickering & ChattoFirst published in: 2014