Up until the late 1830s, smallpox killed around 12,000 people in Britain a year; in the twentieth century, around 300 million people worldwide died from it. In its time, the disease caused the demise of no fewer than four European monarchs: Mary II, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I, Tsar Peter II and Louis XV and, even earlier, the pharaoh Ramses V.
But it was in Brighton that it last reared its ugly head on these shores.
Medical experts identified the unwitting bearer of the disease as RAF officer Flight Lieutenant Hunter, who had been serving in India, and had flown in from Karachi for Christmas to stay at 13 Kemp Street, the home of his girlfriend, 26-year-old Elsie Bath, a Post Office telephonist; her father, taxi driver Harold Bath, was the outbreak’s first victim.
Emergency vaccination centres were opened throughout the town. The cast of the panto Mother Goose at the Theatre Royal, including Beryl Reid, was quarantined and then had to queue for vaccinations, with ‘principals first’.
Unfortunately, other responses were not so calm and dignified:
Funeral directors refused to handle the bodies of the deceased; a café in Chichester put up a sign saying ‘Visitors from Brighton not welcome’ and staff on trains from Victoria shouted ‘All aboard the Plague Special’.
The all-clear was finally given on 6 February; because of the prompt response, the total number of cases had numbered only 30, with ten fatalities.
The last known case of smallpox occurred in October 1977—an unvaccinated hospital cook in Somalia. In 1980, the World Health Organisation declared that smallpox had been completely eradicated.
You can read full details about the 1951 smallpox outbreak in Brighton, Death and the City: http://deathandthecity.com/
For more information, visit http://www.rosecollis.com/death-and-the-city/
