Public Health in Litton In 1850 the state of water supply and sewerage in the pretty village of Litton was causing a major scandal and William Lee was sent to make an official investigation. Here are some extracts from his report: The village of Litton contains about 400 inhabitants, which is nearly half the population of the township. On the 25th of October,1848, an epidemic fever broke out, and in 11 months carried off 27 persons, most of them young. Of these, 15 died during the first 11 weeks, and 22 within 6 months. In order that the Board may judge of this great mortality comparatively, I have calculated it in the usual ratio, and find that there died in first 11 weeks 37˝ to a thousand; during the 6 months, 55 to a thousand; and in 11 months, 67˝ to a thousand. Mr Baker says, in his evidence, - “The water supply in Litton is wretchedly bad – lamentable. In summer the ponds are generally in a low condition, and not very clean: I have known them dry. I have also known them empty in winter during long-continued frost. I have not considered these ponds offensive, but I have never used the water in my house, nor recommended it to others. I have seen people fetching water from them, and supposed it to be for cleansing purposes, but not for food, because I did not consider it fit for food. When the ponds are cleaned out, the refuse and mud are somewhat offensive. I do not expect that it will be so much so in future. Only about four or five people in Litton have water all the year round. I believe that for years back we have not had water for more than three or four months out of the twelve. During the remainder of the year it has to be fetched from a part of Tideswell 1˝ miles distant. Some of it is brought in barrels or hogsheads, and the people buy it at one halfpenny for six gallons. Those who purchase a hogshead pay 9d. A cottager with a family of six persons would use about twelve gallons per day, making the cost about 7d per week. The people economise water to the greatest possible extent, on account of its cost. In harvest-time there is some difficulty on obtaining water even from Tideswell, in consequence of horses and men being engaged with the crops. The inhabitants of Litton go in the evening and at night to Tideswell, and carry the water in large cans on their heads. They are sometimes so engaged until midnight. They also go for half a mile or more round the village, to the meres or small basins made in the fields for watering cattle. That is done in the night for fear of detection. I never detect them going to my mere, but I find the water goes. I avoid seeing them, out of compassion for their destitute condition. I think the water from these meres quite unfit for food.” Several poor persons present said, that they had not only fetched it from these places, but had been compelled to use it, and the water from Mosley Lake, for food. Bad construction of privies. – Many of the places used as necessaries in Litton do not deserve the name of privy. There is nothing private about them. They are utterly indecent and uncivilized. A great number have no seats, but only a stone set on edge. A still larger number are without doors, and many without any roof; the whole fabric consisting merely of a rubble wall about 6 feet high, erected about 4 feet distance from another wall, or from the end of a house. It is not necessary to particularise instances. It will of course be understood that I am speaking of the accommodation to cottages. Persons in better circumstances have comparatively superior arrangements. A cottage belonging to Lord Scarsdale, occupied by Matthew Hurt, has no privy. There is a small court-yard at the end of the house. It contains a manure-place with a low wall, and the people stand on the wall. At Messrs Bagshaw and others’ property, which consists of a long row of cottages with a narrow court or passage in front, five houses drain into an open privy cesspool close to two of them. The privy was in a most disgusting condition, so much so that people must stand upon the seat, and the cesspool reeking with semifluid ordure. One of the cottagers, William Marshall, says – “I have seen it drain out and overflow, and it has laid in a pool in front of my door, and has actually moved with maggots. The smell is very bad. I have lived here about three years. We have not had much sickness in the house.” The cesspool occupies a narrow opening between the privy and other out-building, so that the wind, from nearly half the compass in the prevalent direction, would blow the effluvium in a concentrated column upon the house adjoining to the above, and occupied by James Sheldon. His wife says, - “We smell that privy very disagreeable. We have lived here 8 years. The doctor complained of it when he attended my children. We had fever in the house last November but one, and lost three children in less than a month.” The Board will judge of the necessity for some adequate authority from the condition in which I found the place 13 months after these poor people had suffered so awful a clamity. J H Moore, Esq., is the medical officer of the union for Litton, and his attention was called two months before my visit to the condition of what is called, by a strange delusion, Mosley Lake, but which he very properly designates a cesspool. The following is a copy of his certificate:- “This is to certify that it is my opinion that the cesspool in Litton is prejudicial to the health of the inhabitants. (Signed) “J H Moore, Surgeon “Tideswell, Oct. 16, 1849.” During the same month, Thomas Fentem, esq., surgeon, of Eyam, gave the following testimony as to the condition of the place:- “Having been requested to give my opinion as to the present state of the village of Litton, I beg to state that I do not know a more filthy or unwholesome place in any part of this country. I have frequently been called in to attend aggravated cases to fever, which I have always attributed to the stagnant pools of water, and the collections of feculent matter in the centre of the village, and also to the scanty supply of pure water. (Signed) “Thomas Fentem, Surgeon “Eyam, Oct. 24, 1849” Mr Samuel Baker, framework-knitter, gave evidence and said, - “My mother, and a brother 29 years old, both had the fever and died. My brother lived in a house that was not fit for a pig to live in. He took the fever and then came to live with me: he died in my house. My mother lived with him, and caught the fever of him: she died in a week. There were 11 persons living in that house, which contained two low rooms and two chambers. I caught the fever myself, but recovered.” DRAINAGE OF THE VILLAGE – In the inspection I commenced in the upper part of the village, and found a manure-heap belonging to Mr Edward Grant; during rain and fluid and fertilizing parts of the manure are washed out and run down the towngate or street. Mr George Dicken’s stable has a surface-drainage, which flows across the road, and takes the same course. Mr F Warris has a manure-place with a privy emptying into it, both adjoining the road. The manure had been recently removed, but when full the fluid runs as before described. A cottage, occupied by William Hibbert, has an underground drain for a short distance, and then the whole of the refuse of the house flows into the same surface-channel on the road. The late John Bowden’s representatives have a foul drainage from the farm-yard into the same surface-channel on the public road. This surface-channel, after receiving the abominations above enumerated, is in dry weather the only feeder of a pond in the centre of the village, called Mosley Lake. It is place mentioned by Mr Moore, surgeon, as prejudicial to the health of the inhabitants, and I shall have to show that they are compelled to use the stinking fluid as water. During rain it receives in addition the washings of the roads, which tend to purify it. The Towngate is a wide open road, having a carriageway along the centre, with beaten footways adjoining the buildings on each side. Between these footways and the carriage-way are two strips of greensward, or what ought to be such, were it not for the refuse thrown out of the buildings. Besides the filth spread over these plots, there were, until recently, open gutters to convey the refuse from the courts, stables, &c., to the same common surface-channels on the road-side; but since the petition for the Public Health Act was presented, the greensward has been applied to a new purpose, being made to contain numerous small covered cesspools, with which short drains from the buildings communicate. These drains are very little below the surface, and the cesspools have no outlets. They are intended to be opened and emptied when necessary. Mr Samuel Hill belongs to four cottages, from whence the refuse goes into the pond, after making the surface of the ground very offensive. Joseph Walker lives in one of the houses, and his wife says, - “We have a drain under the house, but when we empty the refuse into it there is a stench, and so we throw everything out of doors.” The other houses have no drains, and are therefore compelled to throw their refuse out. Mr Robert Howe is the owner of five houses on the opposite side of the road. Two of them drain into the road, where the refuse becomes stagnant and offensive. Mr Howe said they had no need to turn it on the road, and pointed out a small open cesspool in a garden 6 yards from the houses. He says it ought to be taken there. He carries it out of this cesspool in cans, and uses it on his land. Mary Wilson, living in one of the houses, said they had never been discharged from throwing it out, because there was nowhere else but the road where it would run to from the sink-stone. At Mr John Wager’s property there is a privy without a seat, and almost without roof; an open cesspool for the slops within 12 feet of the houses, and the refuse is ladled out with cans and put on the garden close by. Taken from the Report to the General Board of Health on the Township of Litton by William Lee. 1850