HISTORICALEIGH - Disease and Pestilence

July 27, 2015 by Carole Mulroney

In the 18th and 19th Century the Old Town was a tightly packed and insanitary conglomeration of buildings. Not surprisingly the spread of disease was a problem, with outbreaks of cholera, small pox and whooping cough. It was difficult to get people to nurse these cases for fear of getting the disease themselves - so the nurses had to be paid for such dangerous work.

In 1839, 10 children died of smallpox. In 1845 scarlet fever claimed 23 and in 1849 cholera killed off 17 adults and children.

In 1832 the burial register records the death of 11 year old Alexander Ritchie who died from the English Cholera said to be in consequence of him taking up clothes, which had been tied up in a hammock and sunk. Soon after he had put on a hat he was seized with diarrhoea and died in a few hours. Curiously, in a year that saw the disease run rife in the country as a whole, particularly in port regions, Alexander’s was the only recorded death in Leigh.