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"London's dreadful visitation" So the Great Plague was titled in the Bills of Mortality for the tragic year of 1665. On June 6th the parish of St Bride's was officially notified of the appearance of plague within its boundaries. It was know as "the Poore's Plague" and the parish suffered terribly because of the large number of manual workers. The Royal Court, lawyers, merchants and doctors all fled but St Bride's vicar, the Rev. Richard Peirson, remained and witnessed the devastation to his parish community including the deaths of his churchwardens.
"Searchers of the Dead", often old women, were paid to go out and inspect a corpse to determine cause of death. They were often bribed to misdiagnose plague as the entire household of a plague victim was locked in for 40 days which normally resulted in all their deaths. Dogs-killers culled dogs which were believed to spread the pestilence and the corpses were carried away by the "raker". The rats remained and profilerated. The parish distributed relief to stricken families. Watchmen were paid to guard locked houses and attend to the wants of those within. Nurses were dispatched to attend the sick. Two "bearers" were paid to carry corpses to the Plague Pits as well as constables and gravediggers. The cost of all of this was partly reclaimed by the "brokers of the dead" who seized the property left in infected houses. So much was gathered that St Bride's had to rent a storehouse. In all the Plague cost some £581 but the human cost was far worse: 2,111 people died in the parish in that fateful year. However, the City of London was to face even greater devastation just one year later. |
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