Chapter Thirty-Six
The appointment of an official Board of Health made it possible for John Clayton to enforce his wishes upon the Select Vestry in the matter of a fresh levy for funds, and for him to appoint a paid secretary to the Board in the person of John Osbourne the Printer.
John Osbourne was a man in his mid-thirties.
Tall and very thin, his face badly pitted by old smallpox scars, and his teeth rotting in his head, Osbourne had not lived in Redditch for long.
He was a native of Gloucestershire and his speech was a rustic drawl, which caused the locals to mock him, but he was possessed of abundant energy and drive, a shrewd and acute brain, and was an educated and multi-talented man.
All these attributes aroused the antagonism of the more xenophobic of the local-born parishioners, whose loyalties were fiercely parochial, and who deeply resented the fact that a newcomer should be given powers to direct them in their conduct of affairs.
Osbourne threw himself into his new duties with tremendous zeal, working through the night in his print-shop to produce the varied forms the Government in London required to be used for its official returns and archives.
He attended each daily meeting of the newly appointed Board and kept detailed minutes of the proceedings.
He took it upon himself to become the messenger of the Board in imparting its decisions to the public at large, and to those in particular whose services it required.
He also put forward many suggestions of his own concerning the measures to be adopted to deal with the epidemic, one of which was to divide the parish into districts and for each district appoint an Inspector who was authorised to visit the houses in that district and report back to the Board of Health on whatever he found there that could be termed a danger to the public health, such as fresh cases of illness, heaps of filth and rubbish, neglected and choked privies and sewage drains, animals such as pigs kept within the rooms, etc. , etc. …
Although he had gained the confidence and trust of John Clayton, and through him of Lord Aston and the Earl of Plymouth, and was increasingly empowered by them to put his ideas into action, John Osbourne very quickly succeeded in arousing fierce resentment and antipathy among many of the town’s leading citizens.
But it was not the leading citizens of the parish who confronted John Osbourne with the first open defiance of his new-found authority.
By the first day of October Osbourne had completed his preparations to step to the forefront in the battle against the epidemic and now, at half past five o’clock on this drizzly grey Monday morning, he mustered his helpers in front of the doors of Saint Stephen’s Chapel.
There were six aged paupers borrowed from the Poorhouse at Webheath and liberally dosed with gin and brandy, every man wearing a mask of vinegar-soaked flannel over his mouth and nostrils and carrying buckets, shovels and cleansing materials.
Henry Pardoe, one of the newly appointed Inspectors, stood next to them.
Pat O’Leary was there as was Thomas Vincent, each with their respective horses and vehicles, and Joseph Cashmore and three of his Deputy Constables, armed with their staffs of office.
Standing apart from the rest, swaying visibly from the effects of too much brandy, was Lucas Royston who, ravaged by his grief for Maria Pitts, now spent all his waking hours drinking and working, with no social intercourse and seemingly with little or no interest in his own wellbeing.
John Osbourne looked over his small army with a satisfied smile, and then placed himself at their head and led them down towards their objective, Paoli’s Row.
The inhabitants of Paoli’s Row had been giving John Osbourne much cause for concern these last few days.
Since the onset of the epidemic many of them had fallen victim to the cholera, and at first they had allowed their sick to be taken to the hospital and into quarantine.
But many of those so taken had died, and now the remaining inhabitants were refusing to admit the newly appointed Inspector, Henry Pardoe, into their homes.
The various bells of the needle mills and factories were ringing out to call in their workers as the small procession went down Red Lion Street.
It was only these bells that were now permitted to be rung in the parish, the chapel bells used to toll the knells of the dead were now silenced by order of the Board of Health, it being considered that the frequency of the mourning bells were causing too much alarm and despondency among the populace.
The workers coming out of their houses in Red Lion Street and Paoli’s Row, stared at the procession with open hostility, and one man ran back under the archway at the side of the Red Lion inn, and along the length of the foetid Silver Street rousing its denizens with shouts of, ‘The Resurrectioners am acoming! The Resurrectioners am acoming!'
Joseph Cashmore could hear the shouts echoing down the narrow crooked alleyways and he frowned with worry.
He was well aware that there had been an upsurge of malicious rumour-mongering sweeping through the parish these last days concerning the Quarantine Hospital and the treatment of the cholera dead.
It was being said, and by many believed, that the doctors were deliberately allowing the patients at the hospital to die, and then selling the corpses for purposes of dissection.
Some rumours even had it that the unfortunate patients were in some cases being murdered by poisoning, and yet others that there had been cases of people being buried alive in the old Abbey Yard because of the doctors’ inefficiency.
In the short time it took the procession to traverse Red Lion Street and come up to Paoli’s Row, the inhabitants had boiled out from their mean hovels, and armed with pokers, clubs, and whatever else they could lay their hands on, they were now standing in a mob on the roadway above their homes.
Cashmore went to John Osbourne’s side. ‘I doon’t like the looks o’ this, Master Osbourne.’
The pock-marked face of the other was pale with apprehension. ‘Neither do I, Master Cashmore. But we have our duty to perform. Mayhap when I’ve explained why we’re here like this, then they’ll allow us to proceed with what we must do.’
Cashmore looked at the mass of savage faces glaring at him, and shrugged doubtfully, but only said quietly, ‘It’s best you spakes soft to ’um then, Master Osbourne. They looks to be in an ugly mood.’
Osbourne stepped towards the crowd and held up his hands placatingly. ‘We are only here for your own good,’ he began, and was instantly interrupted by Sam Millington, who pushed through to the forefront of the crowd.
‘All we wants from you, is to be let alone.’ His unshaven face was implacably hostile.
‘Now I’m telling you straight, Osbourne, and you Joe Cashmore, you anna coming into our houses.
’ He pointed at Lucas Royston, ‘And that murdering bastard can fuck off from here right now. We doon’t want any bloody doctors here. ’
‘You’d best mind your tongue, Sam Millington,’ Joseph Cashmore warned. ‘And you’d best not try and hinder us. We’em only doing our duty here.’ A howl of execrations met this statement and makeshift weapons were waved threateningly.
‘You’ll only come in here over our dead bodies, Osbourne!’ a man yelled, and was supported by a roar of approbation.
By now there were spectators hurrying from the adjoining streets and alleys to see this confrontation, and Cashmore recognised many notorious trouble-makers among their rapidly increasing numbers.
In an undertone he told John Osbourne, ‘We’ll needs tread very careful here, or we’ll have a bloody riot on our hands. ’
The other man’s face twitched nervously as he felt increasingly uncertain of how he could assert his authority in this situation.
Joseph Cashmore shared the resentment felt towards this newcomer by many of the native townspeople, and now he was torn two ways.
One part of him wished to see this self-important Johnny Newcome brought low, but the other part knew that authority must be asserted if the rule of law was to prevail.
‘I reckon you’d best let me handle this, Master Osbourne,’ he suggested, and the other man was quick to agree.
‘Yes, that might be for the best, Master Cashmore.’
The constable walked alone up to the crowd and halted face to face with Sam Millington. ‘Now then Sam, let’s you and me talk this over sensible,’ he said quietly. ‘I was a friend o’ your dad long enough for you to be able to trust me, surely?’
The young man nodded with a grudging surliness.
‘I trusts you, Master Cashmore. But not that bloody doctor, or that new-come bugger. He’s too bloody uppity by far.
He anna bin in the town five minutes and he’s atrying to tell us what to do.
Well, we anna standing for it, Master Cashmore.
We anna standing for anybody atelling us what’s to be done.
’Specially not some fuckin’ foreigner from Gloster. ’
The constable grinned bleakly, ‘I appreciates how you feels, Sam. And I’m summat in agreement wi’ you on that score. But the thing is, the Board of Health has ordered certain things to be done, and as the constable, I anna got no choice but to obey them orders.’
‘And we anna gooing to let any more of our people be took down to that bloody hospital, to be soddin’ well murdered theer,’ the young man retorted angrily, and his words brought savage growls of support from his companions.
‘How many have you got here now, who’re badly, Sam?’ Cashmore asked.
The young man scowled and shrugged, and at first would make no answer, but Cashmore pressed him, and eventually he said, ‘Theer’s a couple, and me mam is feeling badly as well this morn.
’ He shook his head angrily, ‘But I anna agooing to let no bloody murdering bastard of a doctor come nigh her. I’ll care for her meself.
And that goes for the other two as well.
No doctor shall come nigh ’um, and none of ’um are gooing to be took down to that soddin’ hospital.
They all stays here and that’s final, that is.
You’ll needs kill all on us here fust, afore you’ll take anybody from here to that hospital. ’
‘So be it, Sam,’ Cashmore nodded acceptance. ‘But ’ull you let us fumigate the rooms wheer the cholera’s bin, and clear away the muck? That wun’t hurt any o’ you, ’ull it? And it might do some on you a bit o’ good.’
The other man turned to see what reaction his companions showed, and they signified their agreement to this proposal.
‘And theer’s one more thing, Sam, which I must insist on,’ Cashmore stated very firmly.
‘Iffen I stops the Inspector from bothering you all, then in return you must all gi’ me your solemn oaths, that iffen anybody dies, you’ll let me know straight off, and let the undertaker come and take ’um for burial as soon as he can. ’
‘And ’ull you gi’ your word, Joe Cashmore, that they ’ull be buried clane and decent, and not took to Brummagem for the bloody doctors to cut up?’ a woman questioned.
Cashmore nodded emphatically, ‘I gi’ you my word on that.’
‘Fair enough.’ Sam Millington stood aside and gestured to his friends to clear a way.
‘You can send in your cleaners and muck carters then, Master Cashmore. But no doctor, and no Inspector, and not that bloody Johnny Newcome either. He’d best bugger off quick, or I might be learning him his lessons. ’
The Constable went back to John Osbourne. ‘Did you hear all that passed, Master Osbourne?’
‘I did, Master Cashmore.’ Now that the situation appeared to have eased, Osbourne had regained something of his previous bumptious confidence. ‘But I can’t say as I’m entirely happy about the agreement you’se just come to wi’ that lot o’ ruffians, Master Cashmore.’
‘Why not, Master Osbourne?’ The constable frowned dourly.
‘Well, we shanna be following the regulations properly, shall we, Master Cashmore.’
‘Bollocks to the regulations!’ Joseph Cashmore growled, and signalled to the cleansing squad.
‘Get in theer, you lot, and get to work. The rest on you can all bugger off,’ he glared at John Osbourne.
‘And that includes you as well, Master Osbourne. Because I reckon if you hangs about here much longer, then we ’ull have a riot on our hands.
They doon’t like you over well down here, Master Osbourne, so for your own sake I’d waste no time in gooing iffen I was you. ’
As the unwanted ones walked away the cleansing squad went to work in those rooms where the cholera had dwelt.
Firstly scrubbing with lye soap and boiling water.
Then lime-washing. Then fumigating by heating sulphuric acid and common salt and black oxide of manganese, and when they had used up these substances, by heating ordinary house-bricks and throwing strong vinegar on them which bubbled and steamed and filled the tainted air of the rancid rooms with its acid vapours.
Chloride of lime was poured into the grossly offensive smelling privies and drains and its acrid fumes set men and women coughing and choking and cursing.
When they complained vociferously to Joseph Cashmore, he only told them, ‘It’s making me cough me lungs up as well, arn’t it?
’ And with that they had to be satisfied.
The daylight hours passed and night fell, and once again the tar barrels were set aflame and the black clouds of acrid smoke hung over the streets of the town like a funeral pall.
In Paoli’s Row a child died, in Red Lion Street a man wept by the bedside of his stricken wife, and at the end of Evesham Street where the cottages of New End nestled at the bottom of Front Hill, another man and three women and a child began to vomit and void and scream in agony as the vicious cramps of the cholera tore through them.
But the taverns still rang with drunken song and laughter, and the Chapels resounded with hymns, and families ate their suppers, and lovers walked arm in arm through the warm darkness and took delight from each other’s flesh in secluded shadows, and a baby was dragged bloody and whimpering from its mother’s womb and its midwives crowed their delight from toothless mouths as they saw its new born perfection.