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Social History of Medicine Advance Access originally published online on July 10, 2007
Social History of Medicine 2007 20(2):281-296; doi:10.1093/shm/hkm041
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. All rights reserved

The Uppingham Typhoid Outbreaks of 1875–1877: A Rural Case-Study in Public Health Reform

Nigel Richardson*

* The Perse School, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 8QF, UK. E-mail: NPVRichardson{at}ntlworld.com


  Abstract

Uppingham, a small market town in the East Midlands, suffered repeated typhoid outbreaks in 1875–6, centred on its famous boarding school. A fierce battle developed between the school doctor and the local medical officer of health (MoH), with the Local Government Board (LGB) struggling to satisfy the various parties, many of which had a vested interest in controlling rate increases. Faced with ruin if nothing were done, the headmaster, Edward Thring, removed the school to the Welsh coast for an entire year. The town's shopkeepers, heavily dependent on the school, forced the Rural Sanitary Authority (RSA) to implement better drainage, while Thring and others set up a private company to supply water to the town. Writers such as Hamlin, Hennock and Wohl have already pointed to the formidable obstacles to public health reform facing authorities in urban areas. Uppingham's experience, unusually well documented for a small community, suggests that in rural areas these difficulties were equally great, and that local leaders were hopelessly ill-equipped for the task they faced.

Keywords: typhoid; local government; Rural Sanitary Authority; guardians; Local Government Board; Public Health Acts; Medical Officer of Health; rates; ratepayers


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