Day 31. A Childhood Tragedy

Following on from yesterday's post, we shall now look at a tragic but very common occurrence.

On 20^th January 1839, ten-day-old George Gurling was buried at Preston. Within a fortnight, four more babies had died in the village. Four others would die within the next three months. The infant mortality rate in Preston during the 1830s was usually one or two deaths per year.

 

All the children were from labouring families. The labourer's cottages in the village at this time were dilapidated, unsanitary and overcrowded. During winter, living conditions would be deplorable. The sudden spate of deaths suggests an infectious illness – something barely understood even by medical professionals – probably exacerbated by the poor living conditions. Infections such as measles, scarlet fever, dysentery, whooping cough and dozens more besides frequently rampaged through impoverished communities.

 

The death certificates of month-old Constance Bromwich and six-week-old Emma Hicks gave no cause of death. The cause of four-month-old Hannah Rouse's death was recorded as 'debility'.

Civil registration was in its infancy, and deaths did not yet have to be 'certified' by a coroner or medical professional. Each of these deaths was registered by the child's father, who simply didn't know why his child had died. A doctor was unaffordable to these impoverished families; district nurses were several decades in the future. Medical care was down to the sick person's family, who could probably ill afford even a bucket of coal to keep their weakening child warm, and could do little more than helplessly watch their life slip away.

 

The illness gradually ran its course. Probably many more children were affected but managed to stave off the infection, and natural immunity caused it to die out. All that remained of its occurrence are the sad entries in the burial book.  The  name of the illness, we shall never know.