The Plague Village: Eyam, Derbyshire

In the summer of 1665, the last and one of the worst plague epidemics struck London. In all, the Great Plague of London killed around 100,000 people, almost one fourth of the population. Those who could, especially royalty, the aristocracy and the wealthy, fled to the countryside in hopes of escaping infection. Others continued their usual businesses, which often involved traveling around the country. 

Those who left the city risked spreading the disease, and sometimes they did. Other cities and towns, including Colchester, Norwich, Lincoln, and Peterborough, had major epidemics in 1665-66. So did a small, isolated Derbyshire village. 

Tucked away in the rural beauty of the Peak District, Eyam (pronounced "Eem") must have seemed as safe a place as one could be. 

Indeed, none of the surrounding villages or towns was visited by the dreaded disease on this occasion. 

One can imagine then Eyam's shock when George Viccars, a visitor who had come to help the local tailor, died of plague on 7 September. The source of his infection seems to have lurked in a flea-infested bale of cloth that had arrived from London the previous week. The story goes that Viccars had opened the bale and hung it in front of the fireplace to dry, thus unwittingly exposing himself to aroused and hungry fleas. (Below: The Tailor's House)

The role of fleas in spreading plague was then unknown, and would not become accepted until more than 200 years later. Today, epidemiologists have determined that plague can also be spread by human to human contact, through coughing and sneezing. This explains how the disease could sometimes spread with great rapidity.

Five more people died before the end of September, but the epidemic had barely begun. By the end of the year the death toll was 42, and it got worse. Before it ended 14 months later, the village's population had been reduced by hundreds of souls. 

The exact number of deaths is uncertain, as is the population of Eyam at the time. The parish register lists 260 plague deaths, but some deaths may have gone unrecorded. Population estimates for Eyam in 1665 range from 350 to 800, with the latter figure including people who lived in nearby hamlets and farms.

Some families lost nearly all their members. Twelve people named Frith died, thirteen named Talbot. Elizabeth Hancock lost her husband and six of her children within eight days in August 1666. She buried them herself, while people from a nearby village looked on, fearing to become infected if they helped. The gravesite is now protected by the National Trust. 

What singles out Eyam, however, is not its death toll or remoteness. It is the courageous decision the villagers made early in 1666: they agreed to quarantine themselves from the outside world. Many of them had been thinking about fleeing, but in the end only a handful of people left, among them the local aristocratic family.
   
The idea of remaining and isolating themselves came from the parish rector, William Mompesson. Urging people to stay and risk death to save lives elsewhere would have been difficult for anyone, but Mompesson had a special handicap. Most of the villagers didn't like or trust him. (Image: William Mompesson)

Mompesson was a newcomer, having arrived in Eyam only the year before. Worse, he had replaced a popular rector, Thomas Stanley. During the Civil War (1642-49) and the Republic or Commonwealth (1649-1660), Stanley had supported the Puritans and Oliver Cromwell. So had most of Eyam's people. 

After the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II in 1660, Parliament passed an act that required the use of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in the churches. The Puritan Stanley refused to to conform and was ejected from his position and house. When the plague broke out he was living as a recluse on the edge of the village. 

As the death toll from plague mounted, Mompesson reached out to the man he had replaced. Stanley agreed to promote the quarantine plan among the villagers. Most accepted it, however grudgingly, but the wealthiest family in the village left. 

The Earl of Devonshire, who lived at nearby Chatsworth, agreed to supply Eyam with food and other necessities during the period of isolation, as did others in the surrounding villages. 

Various markers, often large stones, were placed around the perimeter of the village to mark a boundary which no one from outside should enter and no one from Eyam should pass. The stone below is today called the Boundary Stone. The holes were drilled to hold coins. Eyam's villagers would put coins into them to pay for things people from other villages brought to them. They poured vinegar in the holes as well, believing it would disinfect the coins. (Image: Boundary Stone)

Mompesson's Well (below) as it is known today, was another place where villagers left coins to pay for food and medicines.   

Eyam's St. Lawrence's Church was closed for the duration of the plague. Religious services were held in a natural amphitheatre called Cucklett Delf. There, the residents could stand far apart from one another in hopes of stemming the infection.  

Cucklett Delf.

The precaution was reasonable, but the deaths continued to mount. August 1666 was the deadliest month, with 78 deaths, among them  Mompesson's wife Catherine, aged 27. She is buried in the village churchyard. Mompesson had the memorial below built for her.  

The disease finally receded in the autumn of 1666. It had probably burned itself out, having infected nearly everybody. The last victim died on November 1. 

The courageous decision to quarantine the village probably increased the death toll in Eyam, but it prevented the plague spreading to surrounding areas and killing far more. 

Stanley and Mompesson survived the ordeal. Stanley remained in Eyam until his death in 1670. Mompesson moved to another parish in 1669, where he was ostracised for a time by the residents, who had heard about the plague in Eyam and feared he might infect them. 


Further reading: Geraldine Brooks, Year of Wonders (2001). Novel about the plague in Eyam. Names have been changed and some incidents invented, but the novel provides a good sense of what the Eyam plague must have been like from the villagers' perspective.

The Zong Massacre: Inspiration for Turner's "Slave Ship" Painting

In 1840, British artist J.M.W. Turner produced the painting shown for the International Conference on Abolition of Slavery. The conference was organized by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, which had campaigned for an end to the slave trade (1807) and slavery in the empire (1833). 

The painting shows people drowning in the sea near a ship as a storm approaches. Turner entitled it "Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying, Typhoon Coming On." 

He was inspired in part by reading about the horrors of the slave ship Zong, in Thomas Clarkson's History and Abolition of the Slave Trade. The story is variously known as the Zong Incident, the Zong Case, or, more recently and accurately, as the Zong Massacre.

The ship was carrying a "cargo" of 442 Africans from Ghana to  Jamaica. It was grossly overloaded, poorly maintained, and inadequately crewed. The Zong overshot Jamaica by more than 300 miles due to a navigational error. It was running low on water. Some 62 Africans had already died from disease. Many others were ill. 

The crew threw at least 132 living Africans into the sea, allegedly to save the rest. A key point in their decision was that the slaves were insured against "loss at sea" but not against death by "natural causes." Humanity did not enter into the equation, only profit. 

The Zong made it to Jamaica, where the surviving slaves were sold.
The ship's owners applied for the insurance money for the "lost" slaves. The insurance company's underwriters denied the claim and the case went to court in London. 

A jury ruled against the underwriters and ordered them to pay. Two months later, the underwriters appealed the case to one of the high courts, the King's Bench. 

No record of the first trial has survived, but at the second trial, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield summed up the verdict of the first. The jury, he said, had believed the crew's action was justified.  "They had no doubt (though it shocks one very much) that the case of slaves was the same as if horses had been thrown overboard." 

At the second trial, the counsel for the owners went further and claimed that it was just like throwing a load of wood into the sea.
(Image: Lord Mansfield) 

The underwriters argued, with ample evidence, that the entire voyage had been badly mismanaged. They also argued that the crew should be prosecuted for murder. Granville Sharp, an active campaigner against the slave trade, probably suggested the latter strategy. A former slave, Olaudah Equiano, had brought Sharp's attention to the Zong Case. (Images: Sharp and Equiano)

Mansfield ruled in favor of the underwriters' contention that poor management was responsible for the loss of the slaves. The Zong's investors received no compensation for the dead (murdered) Africans. 

No murder charges were brought against the crew. Nevertheless, the horrors revealed by the Zong Case helped galvanize opponents of the slave trade. Led by men like Sharp, Equiano, William Wilberforce, and Thomas Clarkson, they mounted a mass movement to end it. Parliament finally abolished the trade in 1807. Abolition of slavery itself in the British Empire followed in 1833.

Turner's iconic painting is now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA.

Further Reading: James Walvin, The Zong: A Masssacre, the Law, and the End of Slavery. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011.

Henry Laurens and the Unfinished "Peace" Painting by Benjamin West, 1782

On October 19, 1781, British general Lord Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington and the French at Yorktown, Virginia. It was the last major battle of the American War for Independence. 

A few months later, in April 1782, American and British delegations began meeting in Paris to negotiate an end to the war. Congress had appointed four men to the America delegation: John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, John Jay of New York, and Henry Laurens of South Carolina. 

The British delegation was led by Richard Oswald, who had made a vast fortune in the African slave trade (Below: Oswald and Hartley)

Negotiations dragged on into November. As they drew near their close, artist Benjamin West went to Paris to paint the delegations. (Below: Self portrait by West)

The American born West had moved from his native Pennsylvania to England well before the war, to pursue his artistic career. He had earned recognition as a painter of historic subjects, such as "The Death of General Wolfe" (1770). 

More than thirty years later, West painted the "Death of Nelson" (1806). Clearly, West had a thing about death scenes! But his aim in Paris was to commemorate peace between his native and adoptive countries.

After West began the painting of the delegations, he ran into problems. Henry Laurens of South Carolina came to Paris only a day before the preliminary treaty was to be signed. Laurens had been imprisoned in the Tower of London for more than a year, until December 1781. After his release, he pled ill health and remained in England, spending some time in the health spa at Bath, "taking the waters." 

In November 1782, Laurens received a letter from Adams informing him that his son John had been killed in a minor skirmish with British foragers at Combahee, South Carolina in August. It was a senseless death, because the war was effectively over. Adams pleaded for Laurens to come to Paris immediately, which he now did. Adams was probably concerned that the delegation had no representative from a Southern state. 

Laurens may have thought that as well. On his arrival, he added a clause to the treaty, requiring the British to return thousands of runaway slaves to their American masters. Oswald conceded it, perhaps because he and Laurens were old business partners in the slave trade. 

One problem with this was that the British commander in America, General Sir Henry Clinton, had promised freedom to all runaways who came over to their lines. (In the end, the British refused to hand over the runaways, which soured relations with the US for many years.)

Laurens' late arrival explains why his portrait is only partly complete in the West painting. Laurens is the figure in red standing at the back. To his right are Franklin, Adams, and Jay. The man to Laurens' left is William Temple Franklin, Ben Franklin's grandson and the Americans' secretary.

West would most likely have finished Laurens' portrait despite his tardiness, if he had not faced a much bigger problem. The British delegates refused to sit for the painting. West gave up and left the right side of the painting blank. 

The unfinished painting ended up in Adams' possession. It remained in the Adams family for many years. It currently hangs in the Winterthur Museum in Delaware.

In 1816 West would paint one of the Americans again: a famous tribute to his fellow Pennsylvanian, Benjamin Franklin.

Francis Barber: the Slave who became Samuel Johnson's Heir

Samuel Johnson  (1709-1784), often referred to as Dr. Johnson, is best known for his Dictionary of the English Language (1755), and the classic biography of him by his friend James Boswell, The Life of Dr. Johnson. (Below: Portrait of Johnson by Joshua Reynolds)

Among Johnson's many other writings is a long essay, Taxation No Tyranny: An Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress  (1775). As the title indicates, Johnson rejects the American colonists' complaint that they were being oppressed by taxes levied by the British parliament. 

Among other things, Johnson argued that the Americans' claim that there should be "No Taxation without Representation" was unfounded. The colonists had voluntarily resigned the power of voting in British elections by leaving Britain, but retained "virtual representation" in Parliament, as did British people who had no right to vote. If the colonists wanted to take part in British politics, he suggested, they could move to England and buy an estate. 

This argument was unconvincing then and hasn't improved with time. Taxation No Tyranny has contributed to the common view of Johnson as an arch Tory. In some respects he was, but the reality is more complicated, and far more interesting. Another of Johnson's arguments is far more powerful -- and liberal. It may be summed up in the line "How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?" 

Here Johnson hit the colonial argument for liberty at its most vulnerable point. The colonists claimed that the British government was trying to enslave them while holding hundreds of thousands of people in the most oppressive form of bondage. 

Johnson, unlike most influential Britons in the 1770s, considered slavery an abomination. He once proposed a toast to "the next rebellion of the negroes in the West Indies." He also argued that if the Africans were freed and given some land, they would likely prove better citizens than their masters.

Johnson did more than talk the talk. Years before he essentially adopted a former Jamaican slave, Francis Barber, and educated him. Barber entered Johnson's household as a boy in 1752. Johnson's wife Elizabeth had just died, plunging Johnson into a deep depression. Barber's owner sent Barber to serve as Johnson's valet. 

Barber  (1742/3-1801), originally named Quashey, was still a slave at that time, but his owner freed him two years later. After gaining his freedom, he worked for an apothecary, briefly as a sailor in the Navy, and then as Johnson's assistant. Barber married Elizabeth Ball, a white woman with whom he had two children. In his will, Johnson left Barber a substantial legacy in money along with his books and papers, and a gold watch. 

The portrait above, which some art experts attribute to Johnson's friend Joshua Reynolds, hangs in Johnson's house today. Whether it is a portrait of Barber or not is disputed. Some experts think it is a portrait of Reynolds' manservant. 

Johnson's house, just off Fleet Street in Gough Square, is open to the public daily. It is well worth visiting to learn more about Johnson and Barber.

Further Reading: Michael Bundock, The Fortunes of Francis Barber: The True Story of the Jamaican Slave who Became Samuel Johnson's Heir (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2015)

Oh, those Witty Georgians

The Georgian Age in Britain, roughly the 18th and early 19th centuries, is renowned for its often cutting wit. It shows up in many writings and sayings in the form of epigrams, epitaphs, and repartee. 

The following example of repartee is attributed to English politican John Wilkes (1725-1797).

Middlesex voter to Wilkes: "I'd rather vote for the Devil."

Wilkes, running for Parliament from Middlesex: "Naturally. But if your friend decides not to run, may I hope for your support?"

Below: a portrait of Wilkes and an engraving by William Hogarth, "Wilkes and Liberty." Yes, Wilkes was cross-eyed.

The author of the mock epitaph below is unknown, and different versions exist. 

"Here lies Fred, 

Who was alive and is dead.

Had it been his father,

I had much rather.

Had it been his brother,

Still better than another.

Had it been his sister,

No one would have missed her.

Had it been the whole generation,

Still better for the nation.

But since t'is only Fred,

Who was alive, and is dead,

There is no more to be said."

Epitaph to Frederick, Prince of Wales, 1707-1751, father of George III, version quoted in W. M. Thackeray's Four Georges. (Image: Frederick, Prince of Wales)

The next epitaph was written for Sir John Vanbrugh, an architect who designed some very large buildings including Blenheim Palace, the ponderous home of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, and Castle Howard, the massive seat of the Howard family. 

"Lie heavily on him earth! For he

Laid many heavy loads on thee."

Dr. Abel Evans, epitaph on the architect of Blenheim Palace, Sir John Vanbrugh (1664-1726), pictured below. 

Next is a burial request from Charles Lee (1732-82) rather than an epitaph, but it is definitely funny.

“I desire most earnestly that I not be buried in any church, or churchyard, or within a mile of any Presbyterian or Anabaptist meeting house, for since I have resided in this country, I have had so much bad company while living that I do not choose to continue it when dead.” 

Lee (pictured below) was an English army officer who moved to America shortly before the War for Independence and served as a general in the Continental Army. 

Below is a contemporary quip by an unknown wit  about John Gay's mock opera The Beggar's Opera, ancestor of the musical comedy.

"It made Gay rich and Rich gay." 

John Rich, a theatre manager, produced Gay's play in London in 1728. The saying reflected the enormous financial success of the work. The word "gay" then meant happy. 

Images: John Gay (1685-1732) and John Rich (1692-1761)

The final example is often attributed to Quaker physician John Coakley Lettsom (1744-1815), though whether he actually wrote it is questionable. It certainly isn't a resounding recommendation for his medical skill!

"I, John Lettsome, 

Blisters, bleeds and sweats 'em

And after that, if they please to die, 

I, John Lettsome."

Images: Lettsome and the Lettsome family.

A British Admiral is Executed for Cowardice, 1757

Voltaire's satrical novella, Candide (1759) contains an episode in which the hero, Candide, arrives in Portsmouth, England on a Dutch ship. As they enter the harbor, he witnesses a naval officer being executed by firing squad on board a nearby ship.  

Candide asks others present what the officer had done to deserve such a fate. They tell him that he is an admiral, and is being killed for not killing enough of the enemy. He had given battle to a French admiral, but had not come close enough to his enemy to engage him properly. 

Candide points out that the same was true of the French admiral. The others agree but declare that "in this country it is found good, from time to time, to shoot an admiral now and then to encourage the others." Candide tells the Dutch captain to take him away from such a horrible country.            

The episode, like many in Candide, is based on a real event. It took place in 1757. Britain was at war with France, the Seven Years' War.  The admiral was John Byng. 

In 1756, the Admiralty had sent Byng with a fleet to the Balearic island of Minorca, then under British control. His task was to relieve the British garrison on the island, which was under threat from a French attack. 

After fighting an inconclusive engagement with a French fleet near the island, he decided to return to Gibraltar to repair his ships, some of which were in poor condition. The French captured Minorca. The public was outraged. 

Byng was recalled to Britain, where he was court-martialled for failing to do "his utmost" to prevent the loss of the island. The court found him guilty. Under the Articles of War, the conviction carried an automatic sentence of death.  

Public opinion shifted after the verdict. People in and out of government and the Navy who had previously demanded his punishment now campaigned to get his sentence commuted on the grounds that it was unduly harsh. Some suspected that the Admiralty had used Byng as a scapegoat for its own failures to maintain the Navy's ships and crews properly in recent years. 

But under existing law only King George II could pardon Byng. George refused, even when urged to do so by Prime Minister William Pitt the Elder. It didn't help Byng that the King intensely disliked Pitt, who had been highly critical of George and his ministers.

On 14 March, 1757 the sentence of death by firing squad was carried out on board HMS Monarque in Portsmouth harbor. A contemporary print portrayed the event. 

Byng was the last British admiral to be punished by execution. In 1779 the Articles of War were revised to allow lesser punishments for failures like Byng's.

In 2007 Byng's family petitioned for a pardon for their ancestor. The Ministry of Defence refused. The family and a group in his home village of Southill, Bedfordshire continue to seek a pardon.

Did Byng's execution "encourage the others" to do "their utmost" to engage the enemy? The British Navy performed at a much higher level in the later stages of the Seven Years War, but that may have been due as much to improvements in the design and maintaining of ships and in training crews as to fear of being "Bynged."

Soap, Imperialism, and Racism

Soap: an innocent item of everyday life, one would think. The Victorians proclaimed "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." Soap and water were the keys to cleanliness. Today, most of the world's people are fortunate enough to have access to them. That hasn't always been the case. During the Victorian Age, water was increasingly supplied to houses in the industrializing West, and people could buy manufactured soap. Keeping clean became easier for much of the population. Western cleanliness, however, had a dark side. It became a sign or symbol of racial and imperial superiority.

During this time, western states were not only industrializing and urbanizing. They were also colonizing less developed regions of the globe. Imperialists justified their territorial acquisitions as a civilizing mission, or the "White Man's Burden," the title of Rudyard Kipling's popular poem of 1899. The British company that began making Pears' Soap in 1807 seems to have been the first to exploit that idea. The company promoted its product as possessing a "civilizing influence." Soap and civilization, Pears' ads declared, marched hand in hand. 

Soap lightened the White Man's Burden, by "brightening the dark corners of the earth." That translated here as cleaning up the dirty natives. The ads also complimented the advanced (white) civilizations for using soap. In the Pears' ad below, American Admiral Dewey, victor of the Battle of Manila Bay (1898), is pictured using the "ideal soap" while civilizers are bringing it to the people sitting in darkness.

Advertising in newspapers, magazines, and billboards boomed as never before in the late 19th century. Ads became larger and colorized, making them hard to miss. Soap companies, like many other businesses, were quick to take advantage of the latest in advertising technology and styles. Many soap ads were innocent enough, such as this undeniably cute one:

But even apparently innocent ads often emphasized how the soap helped preserve one's "white and beautiful" complexion.

Intentionally or not, they encouraged the idea that skin that deviated from pure whiteness was inferior. 

Many soap ads were overtly racist. Besides claiming that dark skin was less desirable than white skin, they implied that it was unclean. The ads promoted the "whitening" quality of the soap by showing it being used to wash the color off black or brown skin. 

The intention of such ads was not to claim that the soap really could turn dark skin white but to highlight the pure complexion it could ensure for white folk, as in this thoroughly racist one for Cook's "Lightning" Soap. 

The ad below illustrates the same intention in another way. The immaculate white child asks the ragged, dirty little black girl "Why Doesn't Your Mamma Wash You With Fairy Soap?"

Below is an ad that seems at first to imply that blacks might benefit by using Pears' Soap. In fact, it ridicules black people. The key is the contrast between the testimonial of Sambo with that of Adelina Patti in the upper right corner. Patti was a famous late 19th century opera singer. Sambo was a common derogatory term for a black man.

Ads sometimes juxtaposed white and black folk in more "realistic" situations that emphasized the "whitening" quality of the soap. In this American ad, the speech pattern of the porter, "chocolate custard" Sam (short for "Sambo"?) reinforces the white-black gulf. The very name of the soap, "Ivory," highlights its "white purity."

The history of soap highlights how even ordinary items of daily life can take on a broader and sometimes sinister connotation.