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.JPG "dedicated to the Bilston Cholera vicitms")
The Church yard was given a makeover last year and this new stone was laid in the Church grounds dedicated to the Cholera victims of Bilston. The inscription reads ' In commemoration of the local victims of the 1832 & 1849 Cholera epidemics, this burial ground is the site of one of the mass graves.'
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This picture jogged my memory from a few years back when we encountered the Church of St. Andrew at Netherton. I later learned that, in 1832 the neighbouring Church of St. Edmund at Dudley had put up a notice to say...All persons who die of cholera, must in future be buried at Netherton.
Here is a picture of the Church at Netherton...
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/22795690
and a view from the churchyard...
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/22795670
Regards Peter
In the town of Bilston the cholera continues with unremitting virulence. On Thursday 94 new cases and 13 deaths, Friday 19 cases but no deaths making 669 cases and 99 deaths with 221 cases remaining. So generally has the pestilence spread that it is estimated that 1 in 25 of its inhabitants have been attacked by the malady.
The devoted attention of the resident medical staff has affected their health and strength, and compelled the Board of Health to provide professional help to the town.
At Tipton, Netherton and the Level the disease continues with little abatement and Sedgley
had several cases last week. At Wednesbury and West Bromwich the malady is said to be in decline. At Walsall the disease appeared on Tuesday and by the evening there were 74 cases...
Regards Peter
I have looked in the National Archives Newspaper site for information concerning the 1832 outbreak. I found the following which appears in the Birmingham Gazette for 20 August 1832.
Due to copyright I will paraphrase in the post below
Great info Peter. Have you read one of the Vicar's/Minister's accounts of the outbreak? I will try and locate my notes and upload them. He must have been a man of enormous faith and bravery.
Found this account of the cholera in Bilston in the Lancaster Gazette, describing the letter from the Parsonage by Rev W Leigh in August 1832. Unfortunately, due to copyright, I cannot copy the lot and so I will paraphrase...
"The state of Bilston continues frightful in the extreme, without any abatement of the disease...our professional gentlemen warn out with exertion. Kind help from medical men from Birmingham...when and where this awful visitation will end God only knows, here it is unhappily increased by wretched condition of the poor...But this I may say with truth, and tremble when I give you the statement, that from the 4th of this month up to this morning, there have been 1200 cases and 240 deaths within the township...I came to the painful resolution of closing the Church last Sunday to prevent the spread of the disease..."
How terrifying it must have been for all concerned. Thanks Peter
How brilliant is that! IWhen my mother was at Swan Bank at the time her father, Fred Goodwill was Minister, the graveyard was next door . Mother said there were white stones marking where the cholera victims were buried. She may have been wrong but she may have been right! Great that these poor people are properly remembered now.