Page 22 - Smallwood Hospital

Redditch Heritage Smallwood Hospital

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being horses and carts should be hired to remove the night soil as quickly as possible, and
that each householder should be charged sixpence for the service. Handbills were circulated
telling people to cleanse their houses. If they did not do so, the Board would do it and charge
people for the expense. 42

Frederick Birt’s 1856 smallpox vaccination certificate

In August 1874 smallpox was still evident in Redditch and it was believed that it had come
from Aston near Birmingham. It was thought that the two female patients, eleven and twenty
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two years old, in the Round House in Mount Pleasant had not been vaccinated properly.
They had been isolated and did recover. Mr. Page, the Medical Officer of Health for
Redditch, reported that part of the building was unfit for human habitation and overcrowded
as it was occupied by seventeen adults and twelve adults. The owners of the Round House
were to have the property disinfected and a copy of Mr. Page’s report sent to them. The
details of the Round House gave a good example of the public health process at that time, as
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the Board’s surveyor then inspected the premises. In September 1874 there were numerous
cases of smallpox and scarlet fever in Birmingham that were ‘fatally prevalent’, so that Local

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See glossary.
42
Worcester Journal, 28 December 1872.
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Williiam Avery’s father had persuaded Mr. Sheward, a needle master, to build a turbine windmill with sails
inside, but it was never completed (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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Worcester Journal 15 August 1874.

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