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Plague

Penny. I think you meant that th emap was from the early 19th century. It is the mid 1820s Pigott smith map
 
Thanks Mike, yes. that's what I should have typed. I've edited my post and have now written your information on the back of the map. When I first started family history many years ago, I never put the date or source on anything and now I'm trying to rectify that.

My 3 x gt grandfather lived at Monument Place (you can just see 'place' on Monument Lane). He was there from about 1820 to 1826 with his second wife who was 40 years his junior. I've never been able to find out much about Monument Place except that it had the Church of the Redeemer built on the site in later years followed by a cinema. What struck me about this map was the amount of small gardens, I think they were called 'guinea gardens'.
 
Noticeably only for young males (or gentlemen according to the advert). This would, I guess, be an elementary three R's curriculum.
I am curious about the closure. Was this due to Mrs. Fearon and her daughters having a short holiday? I don't think factories and other small industries closed down at this time (1826), but there were trips and exclusions run by the new railways after 1840 - for those who could afford them - but the 1844 Parliamentary trains Act did allow a less costly journey. Wakes Weeks and similar came some time later I believe and paid holidays were a 20th. century introduction.
On the other hand some of her pupils may have been away with family during the summer.
 
Radiorails said:
Noticeably only for young males (or gentlemen according to the advert). This would, I guess, be an elementary three R's curriculum.
I am curious about the closure. Was this due to Mrs. Fearon and her daughters having a short holiday? I don't think factories and other small industries closed down at this time (1826), but there were trips and exclusions run by the new railways after 1840 - for those who could afford them - but the 1844 Parliamentary trains Act did allow a less costly journey. Wakes Weeks and similar came some time later I believe and paid holidays were a 20th. century introduction.
On the other hand some of her pupils may have been away with family during the summer.
Click to expand...

I wonder if they had an outbreak of something contagious like chicken pox or scarlet fever. I remember the name Fearon from the property. I must unearth my papers and see what I can find. Do you think it was common knowledge that the plague pit was supposed to be there?
 
I do not know the reason, but have seen quite a number of these type of notices in the past concerning re-opening
 
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?
 
daid rathgen said:
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?
Click to expand...

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
 
daid rathgen said:
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?
Click to expand...
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.
 
jukebox said:
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.
Click to expand...
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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