Friday 17th October, 2008
Infant Mortality
This poignant inscription on a small table tomb in St. John's churchyard, Pemberton, graphically illustrates the tragedy of infant mortality experienced in Wigan in the 1840s.
It reads:
"Sacred
To the memory of James the infant Son of William and Sarah Stewart who Departed This Life On the 29th Day of September 1846 Aged 7 days.
Also
To the Memory of Elenor Twin Sister To the above James Stewart who Departed This life on the 6th Day of October 1846 aged 14 days"
It is difficult to imagine the grief experienced by parents whose newly born twins had died within a week of each other; but infant mortality was a grim fact of life in Victorian Wigan.
In the years 1840-41, the percentage of deaths under 5 to registered births in Scholes was 44 – a shocking statistic. Those born in Market Street, a better area of town, fared a little better - there, the percentage was 35.
In Great Britain as a whole, one quarter of children died before their fifth birthday - considerably less than in even the better areas of Wigan.
Why was infant mortality so high in Wigan at the time?
One reason was the lack of drainage and provision for sewage disposal in the poorer areas of the town.
Eckersley, a former mayor, stated that, although the main streets had private sewers, there were many areas which were unpaved and undrained and there were many "stagnant pools" and "open ditches".
He continued:
"The smells arising from overflowing middens and decomposing refuse in the courts were offensive in the extreme; and the filthy state of the cottages showed still more strikingly the great necessity for better drainage."
The first address of "The Committee of Wigan Working Classes' Public Health Association" makes the valid point that sickly children were often the result of impoverished mothers being unable to suckle their babies successfully "on account of weakness". They also deplored the practice of bearing "a feeble, sickly child every year, instead of a healthy, strong child every two, three or four years", thus causing “many bad diseases".
It is strange that the above committee did not cite infectious disease as a cause of infant mortality. Surprisingly, they said that smallpox and “fevers” were almost a thing of the past.
This is not supported by contemporary statistics, which stated that 1 in 103 of the population of Scholes died annually “from epidemics”.
I can't leave this subject without mentioning the extensive use of opium in the treatment of sick children. It was mixed with sugar and water and administered in the form of a cordial. It posed under various euphemisms such as "quiet", "sleeping stuff" and "cordial".
Even worse, this dangerous mixture was routinely applied to healthy children to keep them quiet while their mothers were at work.
I'll write about something more pleasant next time.
