Eradicating Filth: Public Health in Victorian Times


Bilston | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

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Map showing Bilston Bridge Ironworks c.1851 (D-DRA/1/1)

On 12th March 1851 the Township Commissioners of Bilston, Nuisances and Public Health Committee decided,

"that they recommend the Board lose no time in having the Bilston Brook diverted and the sewage prevented from running into the same and by that means the nuisance abated".*

*Township of Bilston Nuisances and Public Health Committee Book 1851-1852 (TC-BIL/1/2/12)

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Oxford Street Bilston 1961 (C1/OXFO/2/4)

The Nuisances and Public Health Committee on 21st October 1851 was told that at Jackson's Buildings in Oxford Street there was a
"large cesspool full of filth", that at Armson's Buildings in Gibbet Lane "typhus fever exists to a fearful extent", and that Browns Yard and Foley's Buildings, Oxford Street, were in the same state as Jackson's Buildings.

The Committee recommended that drainage from those properties should be diverted into old mine workings nearby to solve the problem.*

*Township of Bilston Nuisances and Public Health Committee Book 1851-1852 (TC-BIL/1/2/12)

The Medical Officer of Health for Bilston in his half-yearly report for the half-year ending 31st March 1852 noted:

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Town Commissioners Meeting 2nd June 1852 as reported
Wolverhampton Chronicle 9th June 1852

The extract lists:

Mr Cooper the Medical Officer of Health for Bilston had visited almost every street, court, alley and yard in the district.
He had found them (with few exceptions) to be teeming with nuisances, unclean and unhealthy.
However when attention was brought to the state of their dwellings, the inhabitants were prepared to do something about it themselves. The report also states that there were 53 cases of scarlatina, 87 cases of diarrhoea, 89 of influenza, 107 cases of fever and 104 cases of typhus, resulting in 47 deaths.
Most of the deaths occured in the areas worst drained and ventilated and where sanitary precautions were most neglected.

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