The Croydon typhoid epidemic of 1937 claimed 43 lives from 297 cases. Despite debatable bacteriological evidence at the time of the subsequent Ministry of Health inquiry, the outbreak was determined to have been caused by a typhoid carrier working on a well which fed into a water supply consumed by 40,000 people in South Croydon. This chapter examines how, through knowledge of the transmission of typhoid and contact tracing, lay people researched the cause of the disease. Subsequently, the epidemic resulted in a test case and 260 claims for compensation from the local authority. Although infamous for debates on lack of communication within local government, the epidemic has not been studied in any detail before, and the extent of the influence of the local community has not been highlighted. An examination of the press, the inquiry and court records reveals the extraordinary nature of the reaction to this epidemic, and the way in which bacteriological evidence was used by lawyers.

The lawyer appointed by the Ministry of Health to lead the inquiry, Harold Murphy, KC, was accompanied by two expert assessors: the civil engineer Harold Gourley and Sir Humphry Rolleston, the eminent Addenbrooke's physician and Cambridge Regius Professor of Physic, who had been physician- in-ordinary to George V. The inquiry began on 6 December 1937, when the epidemic was still very active with at least eighty patients remaining in hospital.