Epidemics and pandemics (1): Cholera and Sheffield

Sheffield ' s Cholera Monument stands above the railway station ( " Sheffield Midland " , as some signs and things still call it).  The foundation stone was put in place in December 1834 by James Montgomery, the poet, and the monument completed in April 1835.   There it stayed till it was damaged in a storm in the 1990s.  It was put up again, completed in 2006.A board by the monument records that 402 people died, and were buried in the " grounds " where the monument stands.And that the " total number of persons attacked by this disease " was 1347.Sheffield City Libraries have a research guide, with information about the epidemic and a long list of sources, published and unpublished.A paper read to the Section of the History of Medicine at the Royal Society of Medicine and published in theirProceedings in 1935 discusses the outbreak in Yorkshire.   The table on p.608 records 1355 cases, and earlier in the article the figure of 402 deaths is mentioned.  This was the second highest number of deaths in any town in Yorkshire, Leeds having more (702).What was the population of Sheffield in 1832?  According toA vision of Britain through time (1) the population of Sheffield in the 1831 census was 111851.   402 deaths, assuming everyone was a member of that population, equates to a death rate of 359.4 per 100000 (2).John Snow ' s work with the water pump did not take place until 1854.  What was known in 18...
Source: Browsing - Category: Databases & Libraries Tags: cholera sheffield Source Type: blogs