Newsletter
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Newsletter no. 118 for August 2010
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New Society name
“Wrekin Historical Group”
It was agreed at the last Annual General Meeting that the Society would appear under a new name, but the wording and planning for this are proving complex and a brief special general meeting will have to be held before our October meeting to consider another resolution.
Although we early received advice from the Charity Commissioners that nothing was needed for a name change beyond a letter to them informing them of the change, we have doubts about it being so easy, and in order to avoid legal complications, and especially the chaos likely to arise from a change of name at the Bank, it is suggested that we take our new name on an informal “trading as” or “working name” basis. We intend to register the new name with the Bank so that hopefully cheques in our favour can be made out to either name. The Bank has a simple change-of-name form.
IGMT general knowledge quiz Sat. 4 December.
This inter-society challenge quiz is to be hosted by the Freinds of the Ironbridge Gorge Museums, the quizmaster being Richard Bifield. Last year 15 teams entered. Teams are to meet in the Glass Meeting room of the Museum offices at Coalbrookdale at 7.30 p.m. Entry £10 for teams of 4 or 5 persons. Supper included but bring your own bottle. Contact our chairman Brian Savage to take part. (Tel. 613331).
September meeting
“Transport history of Ketley”
Our September meeting will be an own-cars visit to Ketley to consider roads and canals, guided by Neil Clarke, on Saturday 11th September at 2.00 p.m. Meet in car park of the
White Lion, opposite the old school.
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PRISON CHARITIES
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COUNTY OF SALOP
Report of the state of Subscription for PRISON CHARITIES, For the year ending at Midsummer 1806, which was established for the following purposes:
I. To enable debtors to gain a livelihood while in Confinement; to reward their industry and good behaviour while there; and to furnish them with some implements and materials on quitting prison, the better to support themselves and their families on their return to society.
II To encourage industry, penitence and orderly behaviour in criminal prisoners, and to furnish with clothes and implements those, who on quitting prison receive a certificate of their good behaviour.
III To provide all those who are dismissed with a small sum for immediate maintenance, to prevent the great temptation of committing a crime for that purpose.
‡‡‡ To those who are desirous of a more particular detail of the application of this fund, the book kept in the Committee Room of the gaol is open for inspection
Shrewsbury Chronicle, July 11, 1806
Readers will recall the case of the father of Little Doritt, who in Dickens’ story, spent a considerable time in debtor’s prison in London. A firm distinction was made between debtors and criminal prisoners.
The symptoms of Cholera
“giddiness, sick stomach, nervous agitation, light, intermittent, slow, or small pulse, cramps, beginning at the tips of the fingers and toes, and rapidly approaching the trunk, give the first warning. Vomiting, or purging, or both these evacuations of a liquid like rice water or whey, or barley water, come on; the features become sharp and contracted, the look is expressive of terror and wildness; the lips, neck, face, hands, and feet, and soon after the thighs, arms and whole surface assume a leaden, blue, purple, black, or deep brown tint, according to the complexion of the individual, varying in shade with the intensity of the attack. The fingers and toes are reduced in size, the skin and soft parts covering them are wrinkled, shrivelled and folded; the nails put on a bluish pearly white; the larger superficial veins are marked by flat lines of a deeper black; the pulse becomes either small as a thread, and scarcely vibrating, or else totally extinct. The skin is deadly cold and often damp, the tongue always moist, often white and loaded, but flabby and chilled like a piece of dead flesh. The voice is nearly gone; the respiration quick, irregular, and imperfectly performed. The patient speaks in a whisper. He struggles for breath; and often lays his hand on his heart to point out the seat of his distress. Sometimes there are rigid spasms of the legs, thighs, and loins. The secretion of urine is totally suspended; vomiting and purgings which are far from the most dangerous symptoms, and which, in a very great number of cases of the disease, have not been profuse, or have been arrested by medicine early in the attack, succeed.”
London Gazette, 21 October 1831
This dreadful disease is in the news again as the most serious of the water-borne diseases currently threatening the Indus valley. Historically, cholera came to Great aaBritain in 1831/2 and again in 1849 and 1853. It was also a severe additional problem in the Crimean war. In 1831 two British doctors were sent to St Petersburg, as were doctors from Prussia and Austria, to report on the impending disease, then advancing slowly across northern Europe towards Britain, and in the course of their findings they described the symptoms.
Cholera in Russia had a very poor survival rate, only about a third of cases recovering. In 1832 four Edinburgh doctors published a treatment, which seems to have got the survival rate up to about 60%. The disease was caused by human faecal contamination of drinking water, and so was rife in the urban slums.
Anges Jones
A remarkable case has come to light which illustrates the importance of lateral research in family history. Agnes Jones was born in a military family in 1832 and was a pioneer nurse, a contemporary and trainee of Florence Nightingale. She had a brother, Fred, born in Donegal. Agnes became the Superintendant of Browlow Hill workhouse in Liverpool, one of the largest in the country, in 1865, through the influence Miss Nightingale and of the Liverpool philanthropist, William Rathbone. She died there of fever in 1868. After a documentary was made of her life, descendants of her brother came to light in New Zealand, with an unknown letter of condolence written to her mother by Florence Nightingale.
Inf. Ex E Bygott