A new local history book has been launched at Nantwich Museum.
The book, called “Cholera in Nineteenth Century Nantwich” by Keith Lawrence and Graham Dodd, was inspired by historian James Hall.
In 1883, Hall referred to the cholera outbreak in Nantwich “as the greatest crisis in the history of the town in modern times”.
He went on to say “for since the cholera visitation a spirit of improvement and progress have been infused into the inhabitants which cannot be traced in times prior to that event”.
Authors of the new book, who have donated the first print to the museum, would like to see it as a memorial to that major event.
The 118-page book details how the disease was understood at the time of the outbreak in 1849 and describes life in the town in the early 19th century.
The epidemic came at a time of increasing concern for public hygiene in towns and increasing scepticism of the existing theories of disease.
In Nantwich, Rector Andrew Fuller Chater took the lead in dealing with the epidemic.
In particular he petitioned for the establishment of a local Board of Health, establishing the first representative local government in the town.
The book is on sale in the museum shop price £9.99 and is essential reading for those interested in 19th century history relating to the locality, the epidemiology of disease and Andrew Fuller Chater’s story.
Contact Nantwich Museum on [email protected], call 01270 627104, visit www.nantwichmuseum.org.uk
(Pix above: Left to right, Nick Dyer, Graham Dodd, Denise Courcoux and Keith Lawrence, local history book – photo courtesy of Paul Topham)
WHAT IS THE NAME OF A NEW BOOK OF NANTWICH WRITEN BY A LADY WHO,S NAME I FORGET BUT IS PRICED AT 10.99.