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Liverpool and the Irish Fever

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Black ’47

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Abstract

As tragic as the deaths from starvation were, they were eclipsed, both in numbers and scale of suffering, by the consequences of the typhus epidemic of 1847. The problems that typhus posed for the authorities in Britain, particularly in the ports of arrival, far exceeded those arising from the economics and mechanics of paying outdoor poor relief. Whatever fears the ratepayers had concerning the financial consequences of the famine immigration, they soon took second place to the fear of death from what became universally known during 1847 as ‘Irish fever’. Throughout urban Britain, poor law guardians struggled with the problems of finding extra hospital beds, doctors, nurses, coffins and graves.

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Notes and References

  1. Chadwick Report (England) no 18. Summary of the Cases of Fever Admitted into the Fever Hospitals at Liverpool, 1834–39’, p. 257. The medical services in Liverpool and other large towns were severely tested by the 1832 cholera outbreak and again, in 1836 and 1837, by fever outbreaks. During 1834, 1100 fever cases were admitted in Liverpool’s fever hospital. In 1837, the number was 2448.

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  3. Hamlin, op.cit. p. 58.

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  4. Hamlin, op.cit, Section IV. Hamlin uses the Irish typhus outbreak in 1817–19 as a case study, pp. 59–62.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. European Studies Research Institute, The University of Salford, Salford, England

    Frank Neal (Professor of Economic and Social History)

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© 1998 Frank Neal

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Neal, F. (1998). Liverpool and the Irish Fever. In: Black ’47. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230372658_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230372658_5

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-39833-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-230-37265-8

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