Historic Book

Extract from “History and Traditions of Darwen and Its People” by John George Shaw

Published in 1889

Pages 165-166

“A very serious epidemic of typhoid fever occurred in the year 1874 ,
and the Local Board of Health , whose primary duty it was to take care
of the sanitary condition of the town , had a very arduous and thankless
task to perform under unusual circumstances of difficulty . The first
case occurred on the 25th of September , at Woodside Bank , the house
of the Rev. Thomas Davies , whose daughter was stricken with it .

Three
weeks later , the newly – appointed Medical Officer of Health , Dr. George
Hindle , of Holker House , reported to the Local Government Board that
there were then between 500 and 600 cases of typhoid or enteric fever in
the district , and that the epidemic was almost precisely similar to one that
occurred in 1861 .

He attributed the epidemic primarily to the defec
tive sanitary condition of the town , adding- ” It is simply dirt fever ,

arising from bad drainage ; nightsoil lodged in imperfect cesspools , and
a large amount of filth and organic matter in other parts of the town . “

Dr. Stevens , an Inspector under the Local Government Board , imme
diately came down to Darwen , and going direct to the house where the
first case occurred , discovered by pulling up the drains that the water
supply of the town was polluted . Addressing the Local Board at a
special meeting the same day ( Oct. 31 ) he remarked that since the 8th of
October they had lost 44 lives , and that on the lowest computation there
were then 1200 cases of fever in the town . He said he had traced the
sewage of Mr. Davies’s house until it ” sucked itself into the pure water “
running through a porous stone drain from one reservoir to another , and
” there was as much dirty black matter as any one of them could be
steeped in . ” ” Hence , ” he said , ” they had this sudden flash of fever ,
which had broken out in all parts of the town , ” and ” the town was pre
pared for the distribution of any kind of disease , ” by its bad sanitary
condition . He described the scavenging system then carried out in
Darwen as ” a farce , a delusion , and a snare , ” and said that an enor
mous amount of work must be done in the way of drainage . ”

It subse
quently transpired that the pollution of the water by the drains of Wood
side Bank was suspected in 1861 , on the occasion of the former epi
demic , and that the authorities at that time , as they believed , effectually
stopped the sewage from getting into the conduit , but did not connect
the iron pipe which they put in to carry it safely across !

The Rev. H. H.
Moore , M.A. , Vicar of St , John’s , wrote a long letter in The Times ,
( London ) on November 2nd , severely criticising the neglect of the
Local Board to put the town into a proper sanitary condition , and
Darwen obtained an unenviable notoriety by the vivid pictures of its
benighted condition which were drawn by the leader – writers of the
London and provincial Press .

In November , the filtering – lodge of the
town’s water – supply was cleaned out , for the first time for 20 years , and
more evidences of contamination were brought to light .

The Local
Board at once laid a line of earthenware pipes along the porous stone
conduit of the water – supply , where the pollution had taken place , the cost

being £ 544 . They also had the water analysed , and Mr. R. Railton ,
F.C.S. , of Blackburn , twice reported emphatically that there was not the
slightest evidence in the samples submitted to him of animal or sewage
pollution . He said , ” You must look nearer to your river side for the
cause of the fever which is now raging in your town , rather than to your
water – supply . “

The first annual report of the Medical Officer showed that during the year 1874
there were 839 deaths in Darwen , the death – rate being 36.9 per 1000 of the popula

tion , against an average for the previous five years of 25.3 . The death – rate of the
United Kingdom for 1874 was 21.6. More than one – third of the total number of
deaths in Darwen were due to the zymotic diseases ; the zymotic death – rate being 12.9
per 1000 of the population , whilst for the whole of England and Wales it was only 3.6.

This was chiefly due to the epidemic , there being 114 deaths from enteric fever
during the last three months of the year . The Medical Officer added that in 222
cases the cause of death was not certified by any legally qualified medical practitioner .