Cholera Outbreak in Bridgwater in 1849

Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by eating food or drinking water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholerae.  It affects both adults and children. Most people infected with the bacterium do not have any symptoms but the bacteria are present in their faeces for up to 10 days after infection, potentially infecting other people.  A minority of people who are infected develop acute watery diarrhoea with severe dehydration. This can lead to death if left untreated.  

Cholera was common in Asia and reached Europe in 1829. The first death from cholera in England was in Sunderland in October 1831.  There were outbreaks in many other towns and cities in Scotland and England in the following months until the end of 1832. 

There was a second epidemic of cholera in Britain, which started in Edinburgh in 1848 and lasted until the end of 1849, by which time it had killed more than 53,000 people in England and Wales. There was third epidemic of cholera in Britain 1853-54 and smaller outbreaks in 1865 and 1893.

In 1849 a cholera outbreak in Bridgwater killed more than 200 people. 88 of the dead lived in the Eastover area of the town and they were buried in a mass grave in the graveyard of the church of St John the Baptist. The site of the grave is marked by an original (now broken and almost illegible) headstone and a modern replacement.  The wording is as follows:

In Memory of the decease of 88 persons from cholera, 1849.                                                    From plague, pestilence and sudden death, Good Lord deliver us.

Original headstone

Replacement headstone

The Development and Production of Penicillin in Clevedon

Antibiotics are compounds produced by bacteria and fungi, which are capable of killing or inhibiting the growth of other microbial species. Before their introduction as medicines, there was no effective treatment for infections such as pneumonia, meningitis or rheumatic fever.

In 1928 Alexander Fleming, who was a Scottish bacteriologist working in London, first noticed that the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus wouldn’t grow in the parts of a culture, which had accidentally been contaminated by the green mould Penicillium notatum.  He conducted research on the mould and discovered that it produced a substance capable of killing many of the common bacteria, which cause infections in humans.  However he was unable to produce a purified form, which was also stable.

Further research was carried out in the late 1930s by British biochemist Ernst Boris Chain, Australian pathologist Howard Florey and others at Oxford University to produce penicillin in a form that could be used as a human medicine. By 1941 they had developed an injectable form of the drug, which was available for use in humans. During the Second World War development of large scale production of penicillin took place in the United States.  However it was also produced in Clevedon.

In September 1939 the Royal Naval College Medical School, which was working on the production of vaccines against cholera and typhoid, was evacuated from Greenwich to Barrow Gurney Hospital.  However, the site at Barrow Gurney didn't have adequate water, gas and electric supplies, so they moved to White House in Highdale Road, Clevedon.  

When the Royal Naval Medical School also began to produce penicillin in Clevedon in 1943, they needed more space than they had at the White House, so they moved to the house that is now 5 Elton Road, although at this time it was No 4 and was called Eastington House.  The rooms in the house were used for research and assay laboratories.  The penicillin was produced in a factory built on land behind the house. 

Penicillin was produced by growing the Penicillium notatum mould on a culture medium at a controlled temperature.  This was done in sterilised milk bottles.  40,000 were used at Clevedon, as each one only produced a very small amount of antibiotic.  Many local people were employed in the laboratories, in addition to the Royal Navy staff.  The freeze dried powder was packed and distributed to the armed forces and a few civilian establishments.  When reconstituted with sterilised water, it became injectable.

After the end of the Second World War the Royal Navy sold the Clevedon factory to Distillers Company Ltd.  They moved in at the beginning of 1947.  They worked on developing new antibiotics but in 1949 the research station was transferred to the Medical Research Council.  They continued research in to antibiotic alternatives to penicillin and also manufactured other drugs.  The Clevedon site closed in 1961 when their work was transferred to Porton Down.

Further Reading:

Clevedon Places and Faces: Rob Cambell (editor). Matador, 2010

Clevedon's Social and Industrial Heritage: Further studies in the history of Clevedon: Clevedon Civic Society, 1998

5 Elton Road, Clevedon

Plaque outside 5 Elton Road, Clevedon

Plague victims in East Coker

Between June and September 1645 seventy villagers in East Coker, including Archdeacon Helyar and the Vicar, died of plague. They were buried in a communal grave just outside the churchyard in East Coker.  In 2003 a gravestone was erected in their memory.

Memorial to the plague victims of East Coker

Plague burial site and memorial