plague in bolton?
We looked more closely at some historical 'facts' about Bolton, and found unexpected answers.
Here's one often-repeated statement: 'Bolton was visited by plague in 1623'. Now this is to be expected, for the 1600s. Plague was endemic and someone, somewhere was probably suffering with throughout the century.
The conclusion that plague visited Lancashire in 1623 was based on a noticeable increase in burials in that year, discovered by historians in the 19th century trawling through parish record books, and it is a feature seen in both Lancashire and Cumbria parishes. It simply seemed a 'smoking gun' that pointed at plague being responsible. In Bolton alone, 500 people were buried in 1623, compared with about 50 in a normal year. Something was obviously not right, but was it the plague?
Dr Susan Scott of Liverpool University re-examined the data and discovered that the ages of the people recorded in '1623 event' aren't consistent with an epidemic, but contain unusually large numbers of babies and small children. She also discovered that the peak in deaths coincided with a sharp increase in wheat prices, and a sharp decline in wool prices. This disastrous economic situation had been going on for about 3-4 years.
Susan Scott concluded that the unusually high number of child deaths was due to malnutrition, both of children and of mothers, over a number of years. So years of slow but steady 'going without' and going hungry led to foetal malnourishment, and to small children being unable to shake off routine illnesses. Not an outbreak of plague, but an economic famine.
Here's Dr. Scott's full text: http://www.localpopulationstudies.org.uk/pdf/lps58/lps58_1997_14-25.pdf
Here's one often-repeated statement: 'Bolton was visited by plague in 1623'. Now this is to be expected, for the 1600s. Plague was endemic and someone, somewhere was probably suffering with throughout the century.
The conclusion that plague visited Lancashire in 1623 was based on a noticeable increase in burials in that year, discovered by historians in the 19th century trawling through parish record books, and it is a feature seen in both Lancashire and Cumbria parishes. It simply seemed a 'smoking gun' that pointed at plague being responsible. In Bolton alone, 500 people were buried in 1623, compared with about 50 in a normal year. Something was obviously not right, but was it the plague?
Dr Susan Scott of Liverpool University re-examined the data and discovered that the ages of the people recorded in '1623 event' aren't consistent with an epidemic, but contain unusually large numbers of babies and small children. She also discovered that the peak in deaths coincided with a sharp increase in wheat prices, and a sharp decline in wool prices. This disastrous economic situation had been going on for about 3-4 years.
Susan Scott concluded that the unusually high number of child deaths was due to malnutrition, both of children and of mothers, over a number of years. So years of slow but steady 'going without' and going hungry led to foetal malnourishment, and to small children being unable to shake off routine illnesses. Not an outbreak of plague, but an economic famine.
Here's Dr. Scott's full text: http://www.localpopulationstudies.org.uk/pdf/lps58/lps58_1997_14-25.pdf
So what caused the high wheat prices?
The simple answer appears to be bad weather. The price of wheat went up and down regularly in response to good and bad harvests, and the 1620s saw wet summers and long winters leading to a series of bad harvests. This wasn't in itself disastrous - we had worse harvests - but in the '1623 event' wheat prices rocketed at a time when wool prices were at a record low.
Source of climate data: 'Demography and Nutrition: Evidence from Historical and Contemporary Populations' by S.Scott 2002, pages 29 and 34
...and why were wool prices so low?
The Thirty Years War broke out in 1618, reducing European cloth consumption suddenly. This came on top of a 1614 law that had been pressed for by the merchant weavers guilds, namely a ban on exporting raw wool fleeces. They believed that denying our excellent English wool to foreign competitors would bring 'em to their knees......it didn't. But it did bring hardship for wool-growers. Without anything like the pre-ban markets, the price of fleeces plummeted. Whole communities that depended on selling fleeces, yarn or cloth suddenly had no livelihood. And so they couldn't afford wheat, and potatoes weren't grown in Lancashire in 1623, which is a crying shame as they would have prevented this local disaster.
The simple answer appears to be bad weather. The price of wheat went up and down regularly in response to good and bad harvests, and the 1620s saw wet summers and long winters leading to a series of bad harvests. This wasn't in itself disastrous - we had worse harvests - but in the '1623 event' wheat prices rocketed at a time when wool prices were at a record low.
Source of climate data: 'Demography and Nutrition: Evidence from Historical and Contemporary Populations' by S.Scott 2002, pages 29 and 34
...and why were wool prices so low?
The Thirty Years War broke out in 1618, reducing European cloth consumption suddenly. This came on top of a 1614 law that had been pressed for by the merchant weavers guilds, namely a ban on exporting raw wool fleeces. They believed that denying our excellent English wool to foreign competitors would bring 'em to their knees......it didn't. But it did bring hardship for wool-growers. Without anything like the pre-ban markets, the price of fleeces plummeted. Whole communities that depended on selling fleeces, yarn or cloth suddenly had no livelihood. And so they couldn't afford wheat, and potatoes weren't grown in Lancashire in 1623, which is a crying shame as they would have prevented this local disaster.