Report to the General Board of Health on a preliminary inquiry into the sewerage, drainage, and supply of water, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants of the townships of Alnwick and Canongate, in the county of Northumberland / by Robert Rawlinson, Superintending Inspector.
- Robert Rawlinson
- Date:
- 1850
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report to the General Board of Health on a preliminary inquiry into the sewerage, drainage, and supply of water, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants of the townships of Alnwick and Canongate, in the county of Northumberland / by Robert Rawlinson, Superintending Inspector. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![houses built originally much too close; privies and cesspools within dwelling-houses and under the floors of sleeping-rooms ; the land having naturally a wet surface and damp subsoil, and no artificial drainage; narrow streets, lanes, courts, and yards imperfectly paved, or without any form of pavement ; the surface uneven and dirty, and no systematic cleansing; the middens left to accumulate, fester, rot, and give off poisonous gases throughout the whole year. The result to the inhabitants at all times and at all seasons is sickness, debility, and death above the ordinary average of well-regulated districts. When a concentrated com- bination of causes occurs, the result is fever in excess, or the more terrible cholera. The following notice, published and extensively circulated in the district after the disease had subsided, will show the character and strength of feeling existing on the subject at the time :— Almvich Union. « a « • , , Alnwick, October 27, 1849. At a Meeting of the Board of Guardians of the Alnwick Union held in the Board-room, in Alnwick, on Saturday, the 27th day of October, 1849, J ■ vTv.T rfes°lved>. That the Board of Guardians congratulate the inhabitants of the union on the disappearance of the cholera, with which I has lately been so grievously afflicted. That the Board cannot allow this opportunity to pass without recording iheir high sense of the dut.es voluntarily undertaken, and efficiently discharged, by the Visiting Committee of the town of Alnwick. This Board vieWwiL admuS the moral heroism with which the members of that Committee daily and hourly, without intermission, visited the abodes of sickness and of death with a view to alleviate the sufferings and avert the dangers of the poor, the friend ess, and the forgotten. Nor can the Board omit to notice be assiduity with which the ministers of religion sought to administer he consolat.on of that faith which alone avails to sustain the suflere amidst the pains and languors of approaching dissolution. The Board would also congratulate the Committee upon the faithful and disc, - SSnTT ' V hi,Ch tH?y have aPPlied ,he ^lief-funds intrusted by publu. benevolence to their discretion. The Board rejoice that, amidst the perils so nobly encountered, no member of the Committee has fallen a victim in the discharge of their sacred duty. It was also resolved, That the following letter from W. H. T. Hawlev th^B^d':-™ InSpeCt°r'.t0 their clerk> be inse*ed in the minutes of «' My dear Sir, York, October 17, 1849. 1** ;„.f 1 beS.t0.Rckn°wledge the receipt of your kind letter of the 13th instant enclosmg a circular from the Visiting Committee and K hell1 haV° t0 V1* S-tihcation I derived faTSX^ the cholera was on the decline, and rapidly disappearing from Alnw ek lo God s mercy, and the exertions made by yourself and the exZ] , persons forming the Committee, may be attril uted this lot c esTraU consummation; and I trust that in /few days you will be qL cS of](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20423469_0051.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
