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Plague

Tacitus wrote back in April 2010 about plague victims buried in Ladywood area. I noticed recently the large number of burials 1760-1761. Wondering if this was a specific epidemic or a large number of plagues in the area. Don't have access to any newspapers of the day, just hoping someone might know of a cause. Cholera, maybe?

It’s something interesting to look into. Cholera first appeared in the UK in 1831, so it’s a bit early for that.
 
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I was once told that there was a plague pit in the triangle of land between Icknield Street, Warstone Land and Carver Street, but have not been able to substantiate this.

Pit.JPG
 
Tacitus wrote back in April 2010 about plague victims buried in Ladywood area. I noticed recently the large number of burials 1760-1761. Wondering if this was a specific epidemic or a large number of plagues in the area. Don't have access to any newspapers of the day, just hoping someone might know of a cause. Cholera, maybe?
Not sure about Birmingham but in April 1761 there was a huge influenza outbreak in London. This caused a significant number of deaths. Maybe similar in Birmingham?
 
Realising I’m not entirely sure what ‘Plague’ officially means, I looked it up. The OED tells us:

B802A59F-BD63-44BB-AC13-70A4CE9DF5A1.jpeg

So in theory it could cover a number of diseases. I expect Covid will fall into the category too. So perhaps the ‘plague pit’ mentioned in Morturn’s post #41 could be a reference to a number of contagious diseases. There were certainly outbreaks of smallpox in Birmingham, hence the Isolation hospital in Perry Common, so I expect earlier outbreaks of this and similar diseases must have been known.

Viv.
 
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PAUL SLACK, The impact ofthe plague in Tudor and Stuart England, 1985, puts plague in the hot seat. Plague delayed the coronation of James I, apparently, but not football or bull baiting! They seemed to have their priorities sorted. Still, today, I am glad to wear a mask in the supermarket and hardware store.
 
Channel 5 recently showed a series of 3 programmes titled 'The Great Plague' now available on catchup (My5). Although it doesn't mention Birmingham it's interesting to learn how the plague was spread and with particular reference to Eyam how they discovered it could be prevented from spreading by social distancing. That was in 1666 - don't we ever learn! Worth watching.
 
Channel 5 recently showed a series of 3 programmes titled 'The Great Plague' now available on catchup (My5). Although it doesn't mention Birmingham it's interesting to learn how the plague was spread and with particular reference to Eyam how they discovered it could be prevented from spreading by social distancing. That was in 1666 - don't we ever learn! Worth watching.
My husband refused to watch it and asked why I should want to. Just as you say, I wanted to see whether we'd learned any lessons from this 17thC pandemic. and we don't appear to have done so.
 
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