‘There will be no compulsory vaccination. That’s not the way we do things in this country’: the journey to enforced smallpox vaccination in the 19th century

‘There will be no compulsory vaccination. That’s not the way we do things in this country,’ the Prime Minister told a news conference on 23 November 2020, on the eve of the rollout of the Covid vaccination programme. (‘Johnson says there will be no compulsory COVID vaccination’, Reuters, 23 November 2020.) Except it was how we did things, up to 1948. From 1853 to the advent of the NHS in 1948, smallpox vaccination was compulsory in England and Wales. Systematic vaccination had been introduced in England and Wales in 1840, with the introduction of a new law requiring local authorities to facilitate (but not compel) the vaccination of children against smallpox. But uptake was low, and with repeated smallpox outbreaks around the country the government took the controversial step to make vaccination compulsory. The Compulsory Vaccination Act of 1853 required that all children be vaccinated within the first few months of birth – with fines and threat of prison for parents who refused to comply. Compulsion was finally removed nearly 100 years later, in 1948, when vaccination became a matter of parental choice once again.

The compulsion element of the 1853 Act was challenged from the outset: the Keighley case in the 1870s/80s, where a number of guardians were imprisoned for refusing to enforce the Act (see our blog of 3 October 2019), was just one of many outbreaks of public disobedience. In the end, the government bowed to pressure, inserting a clause for ‘conscientious objection’ into the Act in 1898, although the principle of compulsion remained in place.

From the beginning, many parents were reluctant to get their children vaccinated, as shown in reports on annual vaccination submitted by the Unions to the central authorities. Reports from Camelford Union, in Cornwall, were probably not unusual. In 1845-46 it reported only 12 children had been confirmed as successfully vaccinated, and only six of those were under 12 months old when vaccination took place; yet there had been 254 births during the year. The vaccinators claimed that few parents bothered to bring their children back for inspection to confirm that the operation had been a success, hence the low number of successes. But, according to their own data, they had only managed to vaccinate 23 new-borns, regardless of outcome of the operation: a paltry 9% of all births. All three vaccinators, well aware that their performance would come under scrutiny, added explanations for the low figures. Edward West, in his 1845/46 report, blamed one parish in particular for his low success rate: ‘In the parish of St Breward, one of the largest in the district, there has not been a single child vaccinated for several years notwithstanding I have frequently attended for that purpose.’ Given that two years earlier he claimed to have vaccinated 57 children out of 100 (57%), this was an odd excuse. William King had managed to vaccinate 17 babies of the 80 born in his district (21%), but none had attended their second appointment to check if the vaccination had taken. He blamed an outbreak of measles for the poor results, but he also added that ‘A great number of the children of the lower classes are left unprotected in consequence of their parents being indifferent about vaccination as the Law is not imperative’. In his earlier return, from 1844 (and in echoes of calls today for local community leaders to assist in overturning vaccine hesitancy in their communities) King urged ‘Guardians and other influential persons in the reluctant parishes to remove this prejudice’.

Form completed by the three public vaccinators in Camelford Union, for year 1845-46 (MH 12/1299)

Disappointing vaccination rates continued in the following years. They reached a low in 1850/51, when in response to that year’s return, the Poor Law Board wrote to the Guardians, ‘The Board regret to observe that 14 persons only are returned as vaccinated during the year, and only 1 child under 1, although there are 308 births.’

While the officials in Camelford seemed to blame indifference and ignorance for their poor vaccination rates, others offered alternative explanations.  In Huddersfield, a letter to a local paper (dated 6 January 1854) graphically described one obstacle to vaccination which might deter mothers from bringing their babies forward. The writer, J Clough, surgeon to the Union, wondered at a law which compelled mothers to carry their young infants, sometimes one or two miles in dreadful weather, to undergo vaccination. Clough, in righteous indignation, presented the details of a case he had come across to make his point: a poor woman had carried her child, only 3 months of age, to her nearest vaccination station. Days later the child became poorly. She returned to the station eight days later, as required by law, but without the child, explaining she ‘did dare not bring it out again’. Three days after this, the child died. Surely, Clough said, it would be better if children were vaccinated in their own homes, ‘in hope to save many a mother at Cowcliffe, Netheroyd-hills and places distant two miles from a vaccination station the trouble (to say nothing of danger to the child) of a wet, wintry, cold walk’ (MH 12/15074).

Lack of easy access to a vaccination station was a common complaint in the records. After vaccination was made compulsory, Huddersfield Union undertook a major publicity drive to ensure citizens were aware of the new law, what it entailed, and most importantly where they could get their children vaccinated.  Huge posters were printed which outlined the law, fines for non-compliance and a long list of vaccination stations in the Union. The poster was displayed around the town and its outlying districts, and reproduced in local newspapers (MH 12/15073). It looks as if the people of Huddersfield were generously supplied with a wide choice of vaccination stations and hours to attend: sixteen stations were listed across the Union, many of which offered twice weekly clinics. The schedule is impressive, yet it was not enough to prevent babies dying after their mothers were forced to walk through bad weather to comply with the law. Today there has been much talk about access to vaccination centres and not everyone has found it easy to reach a centre.

Poster from Huddersfield Union advertising the 1853 Compulsory Vaccination Act (MH 12/15073)

‘Difficult to reach’ communities have been an ongoing focus of attention for modern day vaccinators. A report in The Guardian highlighted an initiative by two north London GPs, one Jewish and one Muslim, who set up a mobile vaccination clinic to visit places of worship, community centres and private homes in order to reduce barriers to receiving the jab. (‘UK faith leaders join to counter fears over vaccine in BAME communities’, Guardian 7 February, 2021) Similar strategies can be seen at work in Huddersfield in 1853: vaccination stations were set up in a wide range of venues. While the majority were in the vaccinators’ own surgeries, private houses of local people were used, as were school rooms, a variety of church premises (of several different denominations), the town hall and the two Huddersfield workhouses. In three places vaccination stations were established in local pubs. The choice, in some cases, may simply have been expediency, but it is also possible that church properties, school rooms and the local pub were thought to be less intimidating, and more likely to encourage attendance. In Thorne (another West Yorkshire town) the Union was reprimanded by the PLB, for using public houses as vaccination stations. The Union responded, ‘In some of the small villages … the public house is the only public space available’, but promised they would try to vaccinate children in their own homes in future, so they would not need to go to the pub (MH 12/15551).

Questionnaire completed by one of the vaccinators at Wakefield
(MH 12/15551)

In 1841, the PLC sent out questionnaires to local vaccinators to find out how things were going with the new Act and asking, among other things, what they thought could be done to improve uptake. Several reported they had more success if patients were visited at home, rather than being asked to attend a vaccination station. One suggested distributing hand bills in large print in the days running up to a clinic to raise awareness, while a couple raised the issue of vaccinator fees: ‘We think it would contribute to the extension of vaccination if the PLC were to fix a reasonable price for each … so as to induce medical men generally to attend to it.’ While payment of today’s vaccinators has not been raised as an issue (although GPs did wonder how they would balance their new role with their existing workload), the convenience of, and confidence in, the location of the clinics coupled with the need for good communication strikes a definite chord. However, the most common response in the 1840s was to ‘make it compulsory’.  Which in 1853 is what they did.

But the fact that an Act of Parliament made vaccination compulsory did not lead to 100% compliance. From 1853 to 1898 many parents were dragged through the courts for refusing to vaccinate their children, fined and in a few cases sent to jail. There were acts of public disobedience, and mutiny by public officials – a situation which was eventually resolved, in the post war period, when compulsion to vaccinate children was finally revoked.

Roast Beef, as Much Pudding as you Can Eat – and the dangers of Cancelling Christmas!

Victorian Christmas Market, from Thomas Kibble Hervey, Book of Christmas (1859)

Christmas: traditionally the season to be jolly and to shop till you drop; when public transport lets you down and people bet on the chances of it being a white one!  Perhaps Christmas 2020 will be somewhat different: last minute shopping online, public transport almost an irrelevance (apart from for those desperately trying to escape from the dreaded Tier 4) and, looking at the weather forecast, we are due a wet one this year (so maybe not so different after all). Jolly isn’t the word that springs to mind when anticipating Christmas 2020.

Perhaps, though, it was ever thus. ‘Christmas in Barnsley’, was the title of an article in the Sheffield Evening Telegraph of 26 December 1891, reflecting on the lead-up to the festive period.

A foggy disagreeable night, cold and piercing, so dark that at times it was impossible to see objects but a dozen yards away. Christmas eve was not as busy as expected … trains ran very irregularly, and no wonder when it was impossible to see from signal to signal. Country people were late arriving in the town and business was conducted very hurriedly in most cases, notwithstanding the occasion was market day instead of Saturday.

Christmas Day in Whitechapel Workhouse, 1874

Nevertheless, ‘the festival of Christmas was kept up in the accustomed manner’. In the Barnsley Workhouse, inmates were eagerly anticipating their customary Christmas treat. The Guardians had voted for the usual Christmas dinner of beef and plum pudding, and they hadn’t forgotten a ‘drop of beer for the old men’. After dinner the children would receive oranges, nuts and sweets, the old men looked forward to their plug of tobacco and for the old women there would be tea. As the newspaper commented proudly, ‘there was something for all’. In a custom established by Richard Ines, a local magistrate, each child would receive a silver threepenny piece, and although Ines had died a few weeks previously, the Miners’ Permanent Fund had agreed to continue the custom. No doubt, as in other Unions across the country, the entertainment would continue after dinner with music and singing; and for once, the 8pm curfew would be relaxed. Christmas in the workhouse – a stark contrast to the inmates’ experience of workhouse living during the rest of the year.

But also, not an experience to be taken for granted. There were enough dissenting voices in some unions to put a halt to the Christmas spirit if the mood took them. In 1891, in Barnsley, while the workhouse inmates anticipated revelry, those on outdoor relief were in a more precarious position. It was traditional to pay out door paupers a small amount of extra relief in Christmas week – usually a shilling, paid to the ‘adult head of families now in receipt of outdoor relief’. The Guardians wrote to the Local Government Board (LGB) in London to ask for permission to make these payments, and perhaps were shocked to receive response that: ‘The Guardians have no legal authority to pass a general resolution increasing relief to out door paupers for a particular period.’ (MH 12/14701/105642). It isn’t known whether the outdoor paupers of Barnsley received their Christmas box that year, but the omens were not good!

The LGB’s response contrasted harshly with the one received by the Guardians of Abergavenny Union, after asking a similar question a few years later. In 1899, the Clerk to the Union wrote that, ‘In consequence of severe weather and its been Christmas [the Guardians] find they are wishfull to give each out door pauper – that is every head of a family and adult whose name appears in the out door lists, one shilling next week, and to ask you to be good enough to give your sanction thereto if it be necessary.’  This time, the LGB replied that ‘under special circumstances, such as the occurrence of Christmas, the out door relief may be increased by a resolution of the Guardians. No sanction by the [LGB] would be required to such resolution’ (MH 12/7987/157270).

In 1891, in Skipton, North Yorkshire, the Guardians considered giving workhouse inmates a ration of alcohol to accompany their Christmas dinner. The practice of allowing the Workhouse Master to accept gifts of beer and spirits for the inmates was discussed at a Board meeting: one Guardian moved that ‘the Master should reject offers of intoxicating drinks’, but another moved that he should accept them, ‘strongly deprecating any attempt to deprive the inmates, especially the old and infirm, of their usual Christmas cheer’. The latter amendment was supported by William Peden, who just happened to be a public house proprietor! The inmates got their ‘intoxicating drinks’ by the narrowest of margins: 11 votes for and 10 against (Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 7 December 1891).

Similarly, The Truth (3 December 1891) reported that, in Halifax, the Guardians, having succumbed to an appeal by the Ladies Temperance Society, had decreed that ‘inmates shall be denied their customary supply of beer this Christmas’. The Truth pondered, ‘if the reflection that they have deprived these unfortunate paupers of the only luxury Christmas was to bring them will make their Christmas the happier and the merrier?’

The Ladies Temperance Society was not alone in casting a disapproving eye on the practice of allowing alcohol to paupers at Christmas. In January 1868, an inmate of Bethnal Green Workhouse wrote to the East End Observer (MH 12/6855/3567) of his disgust at the behaviour he had witnessed that Christmas. He described an orgy of drunkenness and lascivious behaviour:

Sir allow me to call your attention to the proceedings of Late at Bethnal Green workhouse [at] Christmas time I have been an inmate of Bethnal Green workhouse for years and never before have I wittnessed such disgraceful proceedings [W]e were kept up on Christmas night till a very late hour the officers and inmates male and female were in our ward drinking and singing and on Boxing-day the male officers were drinking nearly all day and at supper time there was no one to Read prayers or grace they were all in such a disorderly state and worse … after supper there was a quantity of what are termed the Refractory girls dressed in men’s clothing dancing in the Hall with the officers male and female and I feel it my duty to make it known I think it is dreadful such goings on where the word of God is preached and no wonder then that Bethnal Green has such A Bad name I trust you will pardon the liberty I have taken

I Remain Sir your Humble Servant

Benjamin Smith an inmate

His account of the revelry did not go unchallenged, however. The following week, another inmate wrote that his account was ‘hardly credible … we enjoy our selves and that in a proper manner’. The workhouse was a godly place, he wrote, but ‘does that prevent people from injoying them selves?’ (East End Observer, 25 January 1868). He also cast doubt on the earlier correspondent’s credentials, suggesting darkly that there was no such Benjamin Smith in the workhouse.

Most newspaper reports of Christmas in the Workhouse paint a picture of a day of jollity and entertainment, and Guardians themselves were often described as serving dinner to the inmates. There are, however, some reports suggesting that even these small pleasures were denied, as might have happened in Barnsley. In 1868 riots were feared after the Guardians of Caxton and Arrington Union cancelled Christmas. A group of irate inmates wrote to the LGB on 22 December:

Honoured Sir

We The undersigned take the liberty to write these few lines to you to state our Grievances which is as follows the Old men & Women and Children and Sick are to have their fare for their Christmas Dinner as usual but the able bodied men & women are to be Deprived of it and not have any at all which is causing a great disturbance all throughout the union … We are affraid that some will kick up a Riot and some of the innocent persons will get sent to prison instead of the Guilty ones … we know that you understand and are able to inform us if we are right in our cause or not.

The letter was signed by ‘your humble petitioners, The able Bodied Inmates of the Caxton & Arrington Union’ (MH 12/604/62527).

In Liverpool, a correspondent wrote to the LGB complaining that a poor woman in the workhouse had had some Christmas treats confiscated from her. ‘The charge’, he wrote, ‘is refusing a poor woman to receive a little eatables at Christmas from a friend’, as they had been ‘taken away & detained by the governor’. ‘Will you say’, he asked the LGB, ‘whether it comes within the range of your authority’ to allow such behaviour? (MH 12/5995/362) Whatever the outcome in this case, according to the Liverpool Mercury, the correspondent’s friend would still have enjoyed the customary Christmas fare of roast beef and plum pudding. It reported that workhouse had been ‘beautifully decorated’ outside and in by the nurses and officers, while the dinner was overseen by the Master and Matron and attended by a number of Guardians. Even so, she might have wished she was at Toxteth Workhouse, a mile or so down the road where, according to the Mercury, inmates received roast beef and plum pudding, ‘of which there was an unlimited supply’. It continued, ‘There was, no doubt, many Oliver Twists on this occasion, but it is satisfactory to say that “in asking for more” they met with a ready and generous reply’ (Liverpool Mercury, 26 December 1883).

So, it seems, on Christmas Day at least, workhouse paupers had something to look forward to. In the strange times we’re living in now, we have also been looking forward to Christmas as a relief from the stresses of the pandemic, and even as our Christmas plans seem to get smaller by the day, the ITOW team send warm wishes for a good Christmas to all our readers, and to the volunteers who continue to make our work possible.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

‘It’s Not Fair’: Natural justice and the New Poor Law

This month, we have a guest blog from Sarah Bradley, one of our volunteer transcribers, who reflects on the language of ‘natural justice’ in pauper letters.

‘She’s got more than me.’  ‘Why can’t I go out with my friends?’  ‘It’s not fair!’ It’s the cry of children everywhere.  And while, as adults, we might (sometimes) be more restrained, our sense of natural justice remains.  The refrain ‘I have paid my taxes all my life’, is not uncommon these days when people feel they are being ignored or penalised by the ‘system’.  Googling the phrase results in many stories from people who feel their contributions to society (through taxes and national insurance) should guarantee them access to services in their later years. More recently, we find the word ‘fairness’ cropping up regularly in relation to coronavirus. While the constraints of the initial lockdown were widely accepted as reasonable in such exceptional circumstances there is less unanimity on how to deal with the second wave, and debate continues on how to achieve a ‘fair’ balance between saving lives and saving livelihoods. This sense of fairness or moral justice underpins the relationship between the citizen and the state.  

People in the past were, of course, no different and it is inevitable that many of the letters written to the central poor law authorities by paupers or their advocates (and uncovered by In Their Own Write) were complaints of unfairness in the system or the way that it operated. The authors of these letters varied in how they reacted to those perceived injustices. Some focussed on their legal rights. In September 1853, for example, George Hancock of the Chelsea Poor Law Union, annoyed that he was unable to put his request for leave of absence to the guardians in person, wrote to say:  ‘I have always heard that every pauper had the right to request an interview … and if no such right exists, where is the protection for any pauper, and how can any grievances he may have be Known, and what chance of redress? I think upon further consideration you will find you have made a mistake in this’ (MH12/6991/33091). Others were whistleblowers, complaining about self-evident abuses (something we dealt with back in 2018). An anonymous writer, in a long letter of complaint about the Nantwich workhouse, for example, wrote in March 1839 that there ‘is as good meat took to that house ever was Butchered But when it is cooked wonderful to tell it is all vains and Grissells’ (MH12/1013/2467c). But some people wrote because, quite simply, they felt that the way they had been treated was just not fair.

George Ellis, aged 74, was so convinced of his case that in 1862 he wrote to the Poor Law Board twice. His first letter, written in March, was referred back to the Basford Guardians, who gave him a month’s worth of bread, but then in May, ‘I was compelled to aply (having no work) on Friday last, & the Relieving officer has given me an order for the House which I consider unreasonable at my time of life’ (MH12/9248/17853).

Eighty-five year old Mary Chester also felt that the elderly had earned the right to be treated reasonably. In June 1862, she wrote expressing moral outrage at the way she had been treated by the Basford Poor Law Union:

Left a widow in the year 1830 with a family of five children with hard labour and hard living I Brought them up in an honest way without any Assistance from the parish I Am now worn out with old age and quite infirm not able to labour [I] have applied to the Board of guardians Basford for Relief but they refused – Gentlemen My days cannot be many have lived among my family to age of three score and fifteen and now to be parted from my children to die in a Union perhaps not one Relative to close My Aged Eyes would … quickly bring My Grey locks with Sorrow to the grave I have 4 children living but neither of them have the Means of Keeping Me without Relief my family are labourers with families (MH12/9248/23894).

Mary Chester’s Letter

In April 1866, another elderly man, James Pickett, also thought ‘it hard to be forst to go in the workhouse’, as ‘I Ham A very old man’.  Echoing the modern-day lament, he explained that he had ‘Paid Rate and Taskes’ and quoted his service at sea as an able seaman in ‘his ma nav’ (His Majesty’s Navy) on the ‘Bellephlion’ (HMS Bellerophon?), and the ‘ARey C H Ne’ (HMS Arachne?) (MH12/6879/37356). Both Chester and Pickett implied that  their treatment was not only unfair, but also morally unjust, both having contributed as citizens by paying taxes, serving in the armed forces or, in Chester’s case, bringing up future citizens under extremely challenging circumstances.

Timothy Hoyle of the Keighley Union asked the Central Authority to intervene on his behalf, not on grounds of age, but of ill-heath, explaining, ‘I have now been out of employment a long time through want of work and in consequence I have been employed by the Guardians … at Out Door Labour’. He went on to explain that ‘I am now in an emaciated and broken up state of health … [but] The Board have lately employed me in Breaking stones on the Highway and I find that unless I can Secure a change of employment I shall very soon be unable to work at anything’ (MH12/15161/25542). The annotations on his letter indicate that the central authorities were not anxious to intervene. Typically, a copy of a pauper’s letter was sent to the guardians ‘for their observations’, but their response to  Ellis suggests that this was likely to be a fruitless exercise: ‘It rests with the Gs to decide in what way relief shall be given – & … the Bd cannot further interfere’ (MH12/9248/17853). The same response is often annotated on letters from paupers.

It is notable that much of this correspondence comes from individuals who were supposed to have been protected under the New Poor Law. The workhouse system was intended to be a deterrent to the able-bodied, prohibiting (in theory at least) outdoor relief being given to them in the community.  As Edward Twisleton, an Assistant Commissioner, explained in a letter of 24 April 1841 which was quoted in the 7th Annual Report of the Poor Law Commissioners, ‘The chief object of our exertions is to diminish (without harshness to the aged and infirm) the evil of pauperism among the labouring classes.’ George Ellis, Mary Chester, James Pickett and Timothy Hoyle  were all either aged or infirm, and on first sight it does indeed seem harsh treatment to have forced them into the workhouse or to break stones when they became destitute.

On first reading, these writers present themselves as supplicants: ‘The Petition of Timothy Hoyle, a Pauper belonging to Keighley … Humbly Sheweth that your Petitioner is a very poor man’ (MH12/15161/25542). They open and close politely: ‘I humbly Beg I shall incur your displeasure taking the liberty of Soliciting you it is necessity urges me’,  and ‘Gentlemen if you will Condescend to intercede with the guardians of Basford for out door Relief for the Aged widow’ (MH12/9248/23894). But on closer inspection it is clear that they are not the pleas of people who are ready to accept their fate quietly. These are all individuals who have already sought justice from the Guardians and who, failing to find it, have felt compelled to take their complaints further. They explain why they deserve, or have earned, better treatment (‘I Brought [my children] up in an honest way without any Assistance from the parish’, and ‘I consider [the workhouse] unreasonable at my time of life’). Their letters are carefully worded to elicit sympathy, certainly, but also to persuade the Commissioners to do what is morally right. Hoyle closes: ‘I therefore trust you will have the Kindness to make inquiry into my distressing case … By doing this you would confer a lasting benefit upon your Petitioner’; while  Pickett emphasises that, ‘I ham vere Pore … Gentleman I Ham A very old man’. Most poetically of all, Mary Chester pleads that, ’now to be parted from my children to die in a Union … would … quickly bring My Grey locks with Sorrow to the grave’. 

The authors of these letters were not campaigners or whistleblowers. There is no indication that they wanted to change the system. They were simply ordinary people who considered that they had a right to be treated according to the precepts of natural justice, and they were prepared to demand that right.

“Drunk, Drunk, Drunken Bich”: The Crime (and occasional merits) of Anonymity

Illustrated London News, 1842

In a previous post (‘Holding Power to Account, Pauper Style’), we talked about the potential hazards to paupers of complaining openly about their treatment under the New Poor Law, particularly those who were resident in the workhouse. They could be – and, they claimed, often were – subject to severe reprisals for bringing injustices, cruelty and misdemeanours to light. In fact, it is a constant source of amazement to us that so many wrote to the Poor Law Commission under their own names, given the fact that they were, by definition, economically dependent on the very officials they sought to bring to account. The vast majority of the letters from paupers that we’ve found in the MH12 collection carried their own names, and many workhouse inmates wrote again and again to highlight poor treatment and injustice, very often giving details into the bargain of the physical and material cost to themselves of doing so.

One of the problems for pauper letter-writers was that the Commissioners in London quickly decided, after 1834, that they would not respond to anonymous letters – presumably in order to discourage criticism of the system without accountability. When such letters arrived, they were quickly annotated by officials with comments like “Anonymous, and not worth noticing” (MH12/6847, original ref. 25188/1856), or “I presume that as the communication is anonymous nothing further need be done” (MH12/3408, original ref. 46590/1869). This meant that, in order for their concerns to be taken seriously, paupers knew that they simply had to identify themselves; and, given that the first response of the Commissioners was to forward a copy of the letter to the local guardians for their comments, it is easy to see how this system could be abused.

As all this suggests, however, a minority of letters were sent anonymously, and there are reasons why this should be so above and beyond the threat of reprisals. Sometimes, the subject of a complaint was so serious that paupers – and particularly workhouse inmates – simply did not feel that the risk of identifying themselves was worth taking. In 1866, for example, a letter was sent to Sir George Gray, the Home Secretary, from an inmate at Bethnal Green urging “an inquest on Mrs. Follett who was starved to death in my Ward”. The unnamed author noted that “We sent a Letter the other day to the Police Station, but she is took away and no inquest”, and concluded, darkly: “but it will come out” (MH12/6852, original ref. 13543/1866). On other occasions, anonymity allowed paupers to dispense with the usual niceties and give vent to their frustration in the most uncompromising terms. So it was that an unnamed inmate of Basford workhouse, in Nottinghamshire, wrote to inform the Poor Law Board that “misis Johnson [the Matron is] allways drunk She puts a Botle in her Pockit She gets drunk and falls doun stears [and] makes her Self a Black eyes”. The writer went on to threten that “if thear is not sumthink dun sune we shall Write to the house of lords”, and finished with a flourish: “drunk drunk drunk”, he (or she) wrote with gusto, “drunk drunken Bich” (MH12/9248, original ref. 31594/1862).

Letters like this demonstrate the kind of visceral language that is more familiar from anonymous threatening letters in the 18th and 19th centuries than from the usual petitionary appeals we’re used to in MH12. It is part threat, part cathartic outpouring; and it is difficult to know which of these functions gave the writer the most satisfaction. The element of catharsis is clearly evident, too, in a series of letters that were sent from the workhouse in Cardiff, in 1855. Their target was the new master and matron, Mr and Mrs John, and the first letter was pithy and to the point: “take [heed] John”, it stated, “there his a bullet redy for you and the old chair man and…your wife[.] one of you shall die” (MH12/16250, original ref. 47409/1855). Seven further letters were sent to gentlemen in the town, appealing for them to look into the master’s conduct, and each threatened some form of violent revenge if nothing was done. “We broke one window yesterday”, read one, “and by my God if there is no alteration before this week is out the old house and they shall be burned in their beds”; “Our hearts is trembling within our bodies”, read another, “for to burn or poison the set” (MH12/18250,original ref. 48915/1855).

From Punch, 1843

The precise grievances of the writer(s) are less important to us here than the form and tone of these letters (in fact, the general accusation was that the pauper inmates were starved while the master and his family lived in luxury). In particular, they are very reminiscent of the threatening letters that were sent during the Rebecca Riots in rural Wales between 1839 and 1843. Although Rebecca is generally described as a movement against turnpike tolls, it also led to protests against many other things, including, significantly, the treatment of the poor. As the Guardians pointed out in relation to the letters sent at Cardiff, there was very little apprehension that the writer(s) would actually carry out their threats. Nonetheless, they took them seriously enough to request that a police officer be sent from London to discover the author(s), so that they might be “punished as an example to others” (MH12/18250, original ref. 47409/1855). At least in part, this may have been because they felt Rebecca’s breath on their shoulder when they read them.

The one thing letters like this demonstrate is that, despite the general tone of respectability and conventional politeness that characterises most pauper letters in MH12, when they donned the cloak of anonymity paupers were also quite prepared to drop the mantle of compliance and subservience. Sometimes, when direct action was not an option, epistolary anonymity, and the consequent disregard of the authorities, seems to have been a price worth paying for the opportunity to vent all that simmering frustration and anger directly. I wonder if we haven’t all felt that impulse from time to time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“REPTILE THIS IS TO GIVE YOU WARNING”: Anti-Vaccination Sentiment, 19th Century-Style

Anonymous letter sent to the Keighley Vaccination Officer, John Gott, in 1882 (TNA MH 12/15177)

This month, ITOW project member Dr Sue Hawkins takes the long view on a subject hitting the headlines at the Conservative Party Conference: compulsory vaccination, and the strength of opposition to it.

At the recent Conservative Party Conference, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced he was “looking very seriously” at making vaccination compulsory for state school pupils. In the last year the UK and several other European countries have lost their measles-free status and public health officials blame ‘anti-vaxxers’ for the declining vaccination rate, which has allowed measles once again to regain a foothold.  The anti-vaxxers spread their message through social media, urging parents to boycott vaccination of their children using, in extreme cases, aggressive and even frightening language. As one American anti-vaxxer tweeted recently:

If some sick psycho hated kids he might stick razor blades in Halloween candy. If he wanted to go big with spreading his ‘catalogue of horrors’ around he could stick needles with MMR into babies on the threshold of life.

In the US, the anti-vaccination movement has been so successful that public health bodies are once more in fear of measles epidemics, and since summer 2018 the MMR vaccine has been made compulsory in all states for enrollment of children in public (state) schools.

The anti-vaccination movement is not a new phenomenon. It is as old as the practice of vaccination itself, which began in a systematic way in the UK with the Vaccination Act of 1840. Following a major epidemic of smallpox in the late 1830s, the government was forced into action, passing the Act which established a system of free public vaccination against smallpox, to be administered by the Poor Law authorities and funded through the Poor Rate.[i] Although the scheme was open to all, it is unlikely that the better-off deigned to make use of it due to the stigma attached to the Poor Law, opting instead to pay their own medical practitioners to do the deed.

The public were suspicious and the level of vaccination uptake was disappointing. Many Boards of Guardians ignored the order, and many poor people refused to bring their children forward for vaccination. By 1853, after further outbreaks of the disease, it was decided that the only way to ensure all children were vaccinated was to make vaccination compulsory, and a new Act, the 1853 Vaccination Extension Act, was passed. This made it a legal requirement for all children to be vaccinated within three or four months of birth. It also mandated that each vaccinated child should return to the medical officer within eight days of the operation, for inspection and confirmation of the procedure’s success.

Although some recalcitrant parents were paraded through the courts and fined anything up to 20/- for their refusal to co-operate, the law had no real teeth and was often ignored, even by the authorities who were supposed to implement it. An extension to the Act in 1867 made provision for parents to be repeatedly fined for continuing to refuse to have their children “poisoned” in this way, and also provided incentives (by means of threats) for the authorities, who, through laziness or deliberate action, refused to comply with their obligations. By the end of the 1860s, the anti-vaccinators were organising into leagues and committees in order to fight the law, including the influential Anti-Vaccination League founded in Leicester in 1869.

Keighley, a small town in West Yorkshire, had a reputation for being vehemently anti-vaccination. In the mid-1870s seven of its guardians had been sent to gaol for a month for refusing to prosecute parents whose children were not vaccinated, and it was described in the newspapers as “one of the worst vaccinated towns in the UK” (Bradford Daily Telegraph, 2 February 1882). In the same year, an inspector was sent to Keighley to investigate the state of vaccination there. What he found appalled him, and he was particularly shocked by the letter above, which had been sent anonymously to the town’s Vaccination Officer, John Gott. It was just one example, he reported, of the type of “hate mail” John Gott had been receiving.

It is impossible to say who sent the letter. It was written in block capitals, probably to disguise the handwriting, which suggests it could have been a well-known member of the community whose hand would have been recognised. It could even have been one of the Guardians themselves: in addition to being gaoled, at least one had been before the magistrates charged with refusing to have his own children vaccinated. The spelling and vocabulary suggest it was sent by a reasonably literate person, while the scattering of colons and stops (which sometimes seem to indicate sentence breaks but sometimes do not) give the letter a feeling of barely suppressed anger. The language, however, makes that anger very clear.  The writer described Gott as a “reptile” and “a mean venomous, skulking toad”, who should be “shot for a nuisance when your flesh drops off your bones”. The writer was prepared to inflict that horrible death him or herself:  “You have been nearer your death than you imagine … There is a lot of us that have taken an oath to do for you”.

The letter alluded to several of the common prejudices which existed against vaccination. The references to “blood sucking vampires” and “wading through the blood of innocent children” might refer to the practice of taking fresh lymph from the pustules of vaccinated children for use in future vaccinations, which some parents found objectionable. The letter-writer also cited religious objections, demanding: “Do you think that God almighty has sent us into a world in an unfinished state”.  Echoing modern-day anti-vaxxers, who accuse ‘Big Pharma’ of making huge profits from vaccination, the writer accused Gott of doing his job solely for the money: “I hope that every pound you get will sink you a thousand miles farther into hell and heat it ten thousand times hotter”. In fact, Gott earned only £20 a year for his trouble. The letter is delightfully illustrated with images of vile death by several means (a pile of dynamite, a pistol and a dagger), a coffin with Gott’s name on it and finally a medicine bottle containing, presumably, the same “poison” he injected into his child victims. The message is clear!

There is an irony in Gott’s position, though. An Inspector from the Local Government Board interviewed Gott and reported back that his views “as to the necessity of vaccination are apparently not very pronounced … he regards the advantages of the operation from a very lukewarm standpoint”; and in fact his doubts must have been public knowledge as the letter-writer accused Gott of hypocrisy: “You do not believe the cursed system any more than I do”. This is an unusual position for an official whose only purpose was to enforce the law and, curiously, both his predecessors were also described as “violent anti-vaccinators”. The Inspector acknowledged that Gott was labouring under “overwhelming difficulties”, but he was hardly complimentary, describing Gott’s physical appearance as “being of defective physique with a narrow chest”, and as suffering from some pulmonary complaint. Perhaps it is not surprising to find that John Gott, under such stress and abuse, and already ill, died of bronchitis two years later (in 1884) at the relatively young age of 48. An obituary in the Bradford Telegraph described him as “a much-abused official” who was badgered by some guardians for not doing his job aggressively enough, but who was hampered from doing so by the “open hostility of the anti-vaccinators on the Board”.

Strangely, despite the volume of correspondence between Keighley Union officials and the central authorities about the “Vaccination Question”, as it came to be known (you can almost hear the sigh as it was introduced on agendas), there was no contribution from the poor whose children were (or were not) being vaccinated. No complaints of compulsion, or of difficulties in getting their children vaccinated, have been found in the central correspondence files or in any local newspapers. Given the very high numbers of unvaccinated children in Keighley it seems reasonable to assume that the poor joined in the revolt, taking the lead from their social superiors and simply refusing to comply with the law.

By 1898 the Government was relenting (slightly) and introduced “conscientious objection” as a reason for non-compliance. The compulsory element of the law was finally lifted in 1948, and vaccination against smallpox was stopped entirely in 1971, with the World Health Organisation declaring the virus completely eradicated in 1978. That journey from tentative steps towards vaccination, to the complete eradication of smallpox took nearly 150 years. A measles vaccine has been available for only 50 years, so a certain level of nervousness today about a re-emergence of measles epidemics is hardly surprising; and it is not hard to see similarities in argument between 19^th century anti-vaccination activism and the modern-day anti-vaxxer outpourings on Twitter.

Notes

• [i] It had been possible to vaccinate against small pox since the late 1700s, following William Jenner’s discovery that infection with cow pox, a mild form of the disease, could confer protection against its far more dangerous cousin. But its use was patchy and subject to great cynicism.