Too Sick to Pray

... Sheffield Cholera Monument

This monument stands overlooking the City Centre. Best seen LARGE

The Asiatic Cholera epidemic arrived in Sheffield in July 1832. Initially the victims were buried in approved churchyards around town, but because of limited space and public unease about living near a burial site, an alternative had to be found.
By November when the disease was finally under control, 1347 people had been infected. Of these 402 had died, 339 of whom are buried within Cholera Monument Grounds. Most of the dead were buried hastily and without ceremony. Regular rotations of clergymen were necessary to keep up with the rate of burials. People who contracted the disease were urged to go to the Cholera Hospital at Kelham Island, but rumours of patients being smothered by nurses and the bodies being sold for medical research meant many were reluctant to chance it. Others reverted to more normal treatments for the time; the dispensary at Sheffield University gave out over 3,500 leeches when normally it would only be a few hundred.
There was a presumption at the time that cholera was a disease of the 'drunk and the idle'. This view changed when John Blake, the Master Cutler at the time, contracted it and died at the age of 49. His death lead to important reforms in the way the state dealt with matters of public health.
Two years later construction began on a monument to commemmorate the dead. It cost £300 and was financed from the money left in the fund set up to fight the disease, a donation from the Duke of Norfolk and money raised by selling wooden carvings showing a depiction of the monument.

I asked Mr M to stand at the bottom of the monument to show the height of the structure itself.. And he says, because of that, the title of this journal should have been THE SURVIVOR. Haha!

Went to Meadowhall afterwards, it was Meadow-HELL!!! Forgot it was a Saturday.. Parking was impossible and inside was a lot worse! Had a quick lunch, looked for a pair of boots ordered by one of Mr M's niece, and hastily made a retreat. Whew!