Page 16 - Smallwood Hospital

Redditch Heritage Smallwood Hospital

Those who survived cholera in 1832 Those in 1841 census

rs
11 M Hughes child 10ms John Hughes b. 1831 Red Lion Street
16 Warner’s child Richard & Mary Warner’s children are Maria b. 1821, Mary b. 1826, and
Joseph b. 1829 Red Lion Street
m
17 W Bennett b. 1830 Pool Place
s
18 Tho James’s Ellen James if married when 16, b. 1816 Pool Place
Wife

rs
19 M Hughes Sarah Hughes b. 1806 (Same household as John Hughes) Red Lion Street
32 Aston’s daughter Ann Aston b. 1824 Pool Place
8yrs b. 1824

The Big Pool

There were also memories of the Big Pool.

THE CHOLERA VISITATION OF 1832

It broke out suddenly and never at any time extended to any of the surrounding villages nearer
than Alcester, with the exception of one solitary case at Sambourne.

It must be remembered that the sanitary condition of the town was very different in those days
... there were no local boards then ... [There were] the difficulties an energetic and
conscientious doctor would meet with in stirring up the authorities, whose duties it was to
attend to those matters, to aid them in their efforts to remove nuisances.
23
The Big Pool as it was called was in a very bad estate, and was the receptacle for all the dead
dogs and cats and all the filth of the surrounding houses, and even the sewage of the cottages
called Poley’s (Paoli’s) Row and other cottages in Red Lion Street was discharged into it. Dr.
Gaunt considered it to be the cause of all the fevers and other serious diseases that broke out in
the little town, and tried hard to get it drained, indeed he said to one old lady, who is yet living,
that he would never let the matter drop until this was done. Next to the Big Pool the worst
locality was the neighbourhood of the Round House and the Front Hill, or New End,
as it was then called, and it was in that district where there were some of the earliest cases. ... 24

William Avery also gave a detailed account of the Big Pool, but it was not until 1843 that the
25
Big Pool was drained.

One of the first steps towards the sanitary improvement of the town was commenced on
th
the10 April, 1843, when the pool opposite the house of Mr. A. G. Baylis was let dry. This
pond was doubtless of great antiquity and had, in its brighter days, served to feed the moat
which formerly surrounded the half-timbered buildings now known as Salter’s Yard, but which
23
The Big Pool was in the area that was later called Pool Place.
24
Local notes and queries No. 318, Redditch Indicator in Herbert Page (Ed.) (1899) ‘In memoriam William
Avery’; available at Redditch Library.
25
Avery, W. (Ed. A. Bradford) (1999) OLD REDDITCH being an early history of the town (1800-1850).
Redditch, Hunt End Books.

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