Page 15 - Smallwood Hospital

Smallwood Hospital Redditch Heritage

in Redditch and the neighbourhood was taking and recommending them ... and as they were
taken as a preventive agent there was hardly any limit to the demand or the dose. 20

Details of Morison’s Pills are given in Appendix 2. The writer of the following extract
pointed out that the needle pointers and Dr. Royston preferred brandy to protect them from
the disease.

The [needle] pointers took to brandy drinking, partly to drown their fears and partly as a
preventative against the disease ... I heard an old servant of Dr. Royston say that her master ...
scarcely ever had an hour’s rest. ... ... He used to keep a little table constantly laid with coffee,
biscuits, and brandy. People generally seemed to have great faith in coffee and brandy. 21

Details of the victims

Avery wrote that the first victim was John Lead and the second one was the wife of George
Parsons. However, the local Board of Health’s details of individual patients suggested that
Joseph Merry was the first cholera patient and that this was on 20 August 1832. On 30
August John Lea was the fourth patient and the third person who died from cholera. The wife
of George Parsons was not included in the list of patients, but ‘G. Parson’s Son’ two year old
son died from cholera on 7 October.

Avery also wrote that he had made a list of those he knew to have ‘succumbed to the
pestilence’ and found 50 names. It was unclear whether those who ‘succumbed’ were
cholera patients or those who had died from cholera. The Needle District Almanack stated
that 50 people died in September, October and November. Perhaps Avery’s account was
22
the Almanack’s source of information. The local Board of Health’s statistics noted that there
were 80 cases of cholera and 38 deaths, but these figures included four cases in August with
three deaths.

Finding the addresses of patients was difficult, because there were no death certificates at that
time. Examination of the 1841 census returns suggested a few names that might be those of
patients who survived. These people lived in Red Lion Street and Pool Place when the Big
Pool had not been drained. (See later section.)

20
Local notes and queries No. 156, Redditch Indicator in Herbert Page (Ed.) (1899) ‘In memoriam William
Avery’, vol. 1; available at Redditch Library.
21
Local notes and queries No. 318, Redditch Indicator in Herbert Page (Ed.) (1899) ‘In memoriam William
Avery’, vol. 1; available at Redditch Library.
22
The Needle District Almanack and Trades Directory for Redditch & Neighbourhood 1888.

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