Cholera scrapbooks
Material created during the first outbreak of cholera, in Gateshead 1831-1832, compiled into scrapbooks by John Bell. Sources include: sketches; pamphlets; manuscript accounts and correspondence; broadsides; statistical reports; eye-witness accounts; and cartoons.
The cholera scrapbooks held within Special Collections and Archives bring together a wide range of predominantly local primary sources that offer unique insights into how a new and misunderstood public health crisis impacted ordinary people, the medical profession, and the clergy. Broadsides and cartoons tell us something important about communication during this epidemiological crisis, while eye witness accounts and daily statistical reports speak to the spread of disease, unhealthy spaces, and inadequate medical knowledge.
Cholera first arrived in Britain in 1831. The symptoms of cholera are depicted in a cartoon of a cholera patient by Robert Cruikshank (1789-1856) and include vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy (i.e. lack of energy), sunken eyes, dehydration, and a blue tint to the skin. It can kill within hours.
The first identified case of cholera occurred in Sunderland. William Sproat, a keelman (someone that worked on the boats carrying coal), became unwell in October 1831. He died three days later. Gateshead’s first known victim was Mrs Mary Hindmarsh, who became unwell on 11th December and died on 15th. By 25th December 1831 (Christmas Day), cholera had taken hold in Gateshead.
On 31st December 1831, the Manchester Guardian reported intelligence from north-east England: “At Sunderland, the cholera appears to have nearly run its course; but at Newcastle it continues its ravages with unabated force; and in Gateshead . . . the accounts are of the most formidable nature.”
Unsurprisingly, cholera thrived in industrial towns and cities. It particularly spread among the poor who lived in unsanitary and crowded conditions. In Gateshead, cholera spread in the areas near the River Tyne, where there were gas works, workshops and factories, and poverty-stricken families living in a dense warren of unhygienic, over-crowded tenements. One such area was Pipewellgate, along the stretch of water that now lies between the Redheugh and High Level bridges.
One response to the cholera outbreak was the establishment of the Gateshead Board of Health, led by John Dobson (1787-1865). Gateshead was divided into 12 districts, and the member of the Gateshead Board of Health assigned to each district was tasked with enquiring about the state of the health of the residents and with recommending responsibilities for cleanliness.
The medical profession didn’t understand how cholera spread or know how to treat it. They even debated whether it was contagious. So it was that the Gateshead Board of Health warned people of the danger associated with drinking alcohol, and the Church stepped in to offer people cleaning materials and encouraged them to pray. This information was communicated through broadsides, or printed posters, displayed in the streets. The measures, followed by some; ignored by others, were ineffective.
In 1831, the people of Gateshead collected their water from pants (public street water fountains with troughs). The water was piped from a reservoir on Gateshead Fell. Meanwhile, untreated sewage ran down streets, straight into the River Tyne. It would not be until 1854 that Dr John Snow suggested a link between contaminated water and cholera and even then, the medical profession resisted the theory that cholera was spread through water.
John Bell (1783-1864) was an antiquary and bookseller in Newcastle upon Tyne. He was an avid collector of local ephemera on a range of subjects. In 1817, his business failed, and he moved to Gateshead where he practiced as a land surveyor. Despite his zealous collecting having perhaps contributed to his having been declared bankrupt, Bell continued to collect local ephemera, and it is thanks to him that we have rich primary source material relating to the 1831-1832 cholera outbreak in Gateshead. The material he collected includes pamphlets and printed ephemera as well as unpublished eye-witness accounts, daily statistics, Board of Health committee minutes, correspondence, visual material, and more, brought together by Bell into two scrapbooks which he titled Collections relative to the cholera at Gateshead, in the County of Durham, 1831. This material gives us insights into the experiences of the local community and allows us to construct a timeline of the outbreak and responses to it. In the scrapbooks, individual cholera patients are even identified by name, age and place of residence. The scrapbooks were sold to another nineteenth-century antiquary and book collector, Robert White (1802-1874) whose library was donated to Newcastle University by his great-nephew in 1942.
The Special Collections and Archives team supports teaching on undergraduate, taught postgraduate and research programmes prioritising the acquisition and practising of practical skills using primary sources. For several years, the cholera scrapbooks have been used with stage 1 undergraduates in the School of History.
In HIS1030: Evidence and Argument, students worked in small groups to conduct source analyses of documents contained in the scrapbooks. Whole class discussions centred around the different forms that evidence can take and the need to make evidence-based arguments. Each group contributed to the construction of a timeline of the cholera outbreak in Gateshead and the responses to it, based directly on the primary sources they encountered in the scrapbooks.
As teaching and learning has evolved, the use of the scrapbooks in HIS1101: Sources and Methods ensures that every first-year undergraduate History student has the opportunity to get up close to unique original materials. Workshops teach students appropriate document handling, provide them with a basic awareness of the Gateshead cholera outbreak, and introduce them to related sources from our collections. They get to see and handle examples of the sources contained in the scrapbooks (in person and with use of an overhead camera), such as broadsides, notices, and accounts of deaths. Following a guided source analysis task, the workshops conclude with a discussion of the digital versus analogue versions of the scrapbooks. This prepares students for their first two assignments, one formative and one summative, that are based directly on documents in the scrapbooks.
Our Education Outreach team provide school and college students with the opportunity to engage with materials held in the University’s Special Collections and Archives through workshops, project-based learning and online resources. During Education Outreach’s Cracking Cholera workshops, students have the opportunity to explore one of the cholera scrapbooks, learning about the outbreak of cholera in Gateshead in 1831-32. Using sources collected in the scrapbook like adverts, letters and reports, students find out how people believed cholera was caused and cured, the symptoms of cholera, and how people responded to the outbreak. They then have the opportunity to carry out practical work in a Newcastle University science lab. There, they create their own nineteenth-century cure for cholera supported by academics in Biomedical Sciences, they investigate the use of magic bullets (antibiotics) and see first-hand how their tinctures affect the function of cells.
The Education Outreach team also has a dedicated website on the topic of cholera for schools, developed in collaboration with local teachers. Using one of the cholera scrapbooks, it tells the story of the cholera outbreak in Gateshead through interactive activities and games.
