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The History and Antiquities of Eyam
By William Wood (1842, 1845 & 1860)

Note: The History & Antiquities of Eyam is now available in reprint from Country Books, of Little Longstone.
(ISBN 1-901214-34-6)  See also this Review by Julie Bunting.

'THE PLAGUE'

Let all who tread the green fields of Eyam, remember, with feelings of awe and veneration that beneath their feet repose the ashes of those moral heroes, who, with a sublime heroic, and an unparalleled resolution gave up their lives-yea! doomed themselves to pestilential death, to save the surrounding country. The immortal victors of Thermopylae and Marathon, who fought so bravely in liberty's holy cause, have no greater, no stronger claim to the admiration of succeeding generations , than the humble villagers of Eyam in the year 1666. Their magnanimous self-sacrifice, in confining themselves within a prescribed boundary during the terrible pestilence, is unequalled in the annals of the world. The plague, which would undoubtedly have spread from place to place through the neighbouring counties, and which eventually carried off five-sixths of their number , was, in the following forcible language of a celebrated writer, "here hemmed in, and, in a dreadful and desolating struggle, destroyed and buried with its victims". How exalted the sense of duty, how glorious the conduct of these children of nature who , for the salvation of the country, heroically braved the horrors of certain, immediate, and pestilential death! Tread softly, then, on the fields where their ashes are laid; let the wild flowers bloom on their wide-scattered graves. Let the ground round the village be honoured and hallowed; for there,

"The dead are everywhere! The mountain side; the plain; the woods profound; All the lone dells - the fertile and the fair, Is one vast burial ground."

- MARY HOWITT

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For some years prior to this calamity, the plague had been known to have existed, in some degree, in several adjoining places, but generally in an eastwardly direction from Eyam; at Almonbury near Huddersfield in 1363; at Rotherham in 1570; at Doncaster in 1585; at Chesterfield in 1586-7; and at Brimington, when W. Townsend, Curate of Holmsfield, died in 1609.

In the year 1625, a whole family at Bradley, in the parish of Malpas, Cheshire, were carried off by the plague, under circumstances (at least in one or two instances) without any recorded parallel. The following are extracts from the Register of that year, place and subject:-

"Thomas Jefferie, servant to Thomas Dawson of Bradley buryed the 10^th daye of August, in the night, he died of the plague."

"Richarde, the sonne of Thomas Dawson, of Bradley, (that dyed of the plague) buryed the 13^th. daye of August, in the night, 1625."

"Raffe Dawson, sonne of the aforesayed Thomas came from London about 25^th. July last past, and being sicke of the plague, died at his father's house, and soe infected the sayd house and was buryed, as is reported, near unto his father's howse."

"Thomas Dawson, of Bradley, died of the plague, and was buryed the 16^th. daye of August 1625, at 3 of clocke, after midnight."

"Elizabeth, the daughter of the aforesayed Thomas Dawson, died of the plague of pestilence, and was buryed the 20^th.daye of August."

"Anne, the wyffe of John Dawson, sonne of the aforesayed Thomas Dawson, died of the plague of pestilence, and was buryed the 20^th of August."

"Richard Dawson (brother to the above-named Thomas Dawson of Bradley) being sicke of the plague and perceyving he must die at yt tyme, arose out of his bed, and made his grave and causing his nefew, John Dawson, to cast some strawe into the grave, which was not farre from the howse, and went and layed him down in the sayd grave, and caused clothes to be layed uppon, and soe dep'ted out of this world; this he did, because he was a strong man, and heavier than his said nefew, and another wench were able to burye; he died about the 23^rd of August, 1625 - This much he did I was credibly tould."

"John Dawson, sonne of the above-named Thomas, came unto his father, when his father sent for him, being sicke, and having layd him down in a dich, died in the 29^th daye of August, 1625, in the night."

"Rose Smyth, servant of the above namedTho: Dawson, and last of yt household, died of plague, and was buryed by Wm. Cooke, the 5^th date of September near the sayd house."

* From the second of these extracts it is evident that Raffe Dawson brought the infection, which carried off the whole family in so short a time, from London to Bradley, a distance of about 170 miles. The distance from London to Eyam is 150 miles.

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The death and burial of Richard Dawson, as given in the above extracts, is of a character dreadfully interesting, history not furnishing a similar instance of an individual under the agony of an intense malady, digging his own grave, lying down therein and dying, lest his mortal remains should remain uninterred after death!*

* The "Bow Stones", Cheshire, and it said, somewhere not far distant from Disley, are stated to be memorials of some persons who died of the plague and were buried there. Of this I can learn nothing satisfactory; the indefatigable Dugdale is silent respecting them, or the circumstances which they are said to commemorate, although he mentions minutely the pestilential death of the Dawson family, Bradley, in the same county.

The small village of Curbar, about three miles south-east of Eyam, was visited by the plague in 1632, when several families of the names of Cooke, Clarke and probably a few others were all but entirely swept away. They were buried partly in what is now known as "Elliott's Piece," and other places within the precincts of the hamlet or village.

The desolation of Eyam by the plague in 1666, is marked by two peculiar circumstances; one that it was the last time the plague, properly so called, visited this island; the other, that this, its last visitation, was attended with a virulence - with a destructive and desolating effect, never before witnessed and recorded (the population of Eyam considered) in the annals of human desolation. From the latter end of 1664, to December 1665, about one-sixth of the population of London fell victim to this appalling pestilence; but at Eyam, nearly five-sixths were carried off in a few months of the summer of 1666, excepting a few who died at the close of 1665.

Though the mortality of the metropolis was very great and horrible, yet there the populace were not restrained as to flight; there, they could easily obtain medical aid; there, neighbour knew not neighbour; there, thousands might die without being intimately known to each other. But in Eyam, a little sequestered village, containing about three hundred and fifty stationary inhabitants, the death of every one would be a neighbour, if not a relative.

In Eyam, then, the plague was the concentration of all the most dreadful features of that visitation in London without its palliatives. Indeed, it seems exceedingly strange, that Eyam, a little mountain city, an isolated Zoar, secluded among the Peak mountains, and one hundred and fifty miles distant from London, should have been visited by a pestilential disease, which had scarcely ever occurred in any very destructive form, only in great and populous cities. It is, however, most positively stated, that this terrible disease was brought from London to Eyam in a box of old clothes, and some tailor's patterns in cloth, or other materials belonging to a tailor.

The plague generally manifested itself by the febrile symptoms of shivering, nausea, headache and delirium. In some, these affections were so mild as to be taken for slight indisposition. The victim in this case generally attended his avocation until a sudden faintness came on, when the macula, or plague spot, the fatal token, would soon appear on his breast, indicative of immediate death. But in most cases the pain and delirium left no room for doubt: on the second or third day, buboes, or carbuncles, arose about the groin and elsewhere; and if they could be made to suppurate, recovery was probable, but if they resisted the efforts of nature, and the skill of the physician, death was inevitable.

During the dreadful ravages of the plagues in London, it is very probable that the then inhabitants of Eyam would hear but very little concerning that calamity. Confined to their secluded village, which is surrounded by towering heath-clad hills, they were simply debarred from hearing at every turn that kind of intelligence which casts a gloom over the mind, or shocks the feelings. They were in a great measure unknown; and until the arrival of the fatal box, nothing had occurred to disturb "the even tenor of their way". Ah! up to this awful period they had lived in security and peace : attended by all the blessings of village life.

"The life which those who fret in guilt, And guilty cities never know; the life, Led by primeval ages, uncorrupt, When angels dwelt, and God himself with Man!"

- THOMSON

---

Before the arrival in Eyam of the fatal box, containing the imprisoned seeds of the plague, it may be interesting to know that the Eyam wakes of that year (1665) had only transpired a few days previously to that event: and, it is said, that this wakes was peculiarly marked by an unusual number of visitors, who were in a great degree relatives to the villagers of Eyam, had been involuntarily moved to come and take a last farewell of those who were, so very soon after, destined to be swept away by the plague. It is also said that the amusements on this occasion were more numerous and entertaining; but in what respect is not now known. Most probably, however, they would be of the usual and following character: relations and friends would assemble at the village alehouses, wishing each other, as they raised the sparkling glasses to their lips, many happy returns of the festive time; the young men and maidens would dance upon the spacious village green; and numberless other innocent and social amusements would close each gladsome merry day.*

* The Wakes or Feast was then held when it ought to be, the first Sunday after the 18th of August, St. Helen's Day. The time of holding the annual festival, or wakes, was changed to the last Sunday in August above a century ago. The cause of this change was the harvest.

It is singular that nearly all who have hitherto written on this direful calamity, have invariably represented the plague as breaking out in Eyam in the spring of 1666. This, however, was not the case, though by far the greater part of the number of the victims died in July, August and September 1666. The box, containing the tailor's patterns in cloth, and it is said some old clothes, or other materials, was sent, according to traditionary accounts, from London to a tailor who resided in a small house at the east of the Hall garden, and near the west end of the Churchyard.* The kitchen of the old house in its original state, the house-place only has been renewed.

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* This memorable dwelling was occupied some years ago by a Mr. Adam Holms, who was living in Eyam when this history was written. One one occasion Holms was examining a flue or chimney in the old kitchen, when to his astonishment he drew from a small aperture in the chimney a pair of old leathern stays of antique fashion. It was immediately conjectured that the stays had been concealed there at the time Mompesson required all the clothing of the village to be burned; and that they might, therefore, contain some invisible seeds of the dreadful pest. Holms, although he had been an active soldier during the whole of the last war with France, had, as one of the British infantry, sustained with undaunted courage the fierce and terrible charges of Napoleon's cavalry at Waterloo, where he lost his leg, felt his heart sink within him as he held in his hand these relics of female vestment. The stays were buried with hurried precipitation.

Whether the patterns and clothes were bought in London for the tailor at Eyam, or sent as a present, cannot now be ascertained. Some, however, have stated that it was a relative of the tailor at Eyam who sent them, he having procured them in London, where he resided, for a small sum, in consequence of the plague, which was then raging there at its maximum.

Before the details of the commencement of the plague, it may be well to notice a few particulars seemingly at variance with what, among the villagers of Eyam, is and always has been, patent tradition; namely that the box, containing the tailor's patterns, old clothes, or some other materials, came to a tailor, who resided in the house before described. Dr. Mead, who published his treatise on the plague, about 1721, seems to have been the first to notice, since the plague, any particulars of its occurrence at Eyam; he writes, "the plague was likewise at Eham, in the Peak of Derbyshire; being brought thither, by means of a box sent from London to a taylor in that village containing some materials relating to his trade. A servant who opened the aforesaid box complaining that the goods were damp, was ordered to dry them by the fire; but in so doing it was seized with the plague and died; the same misfortune extended itself to the rest of the family, except the taylor's wife, who alone survived. From hence the distemper spread about, and destroyed in that village and the rest of the parish, though a small one, between two and three hundred persons. But notwithstanding this so great violence of the disease, it was restrained from reaching beyond that parish by the care of the Rector; from whose son, and another worthy gentleman, I have the relation. The clergyman advised that the sick should be removed into huts or barracks, built upon the common; and procuring, by the interest of the then Earl of Devonshire, that the people should be well furnished with provisions, he took effectual care that no one should go out of the parish, and by this means he protected his neighbourhood from infection with complete success." ('Mead's Medical Works. Vol 1.' P290)

According to Dr. Mead's account, the box containing the infected materials came from London to a tailor at Eyam; and this is corroborated by the concurrent statement of the villagers of Eyam ever since the plague; and it must be observed that Mead had his relation, in part, from Mompesson's son George, who, when very young, was sent away from Eyam during the plague, and who, without doubt, had heard his father relate many times the sad particulars of the direful occurrence.

The people of Eyam have, ever since the time of pestilence, uniformly and pertinaciously insisted that the fatal box came to, and the disease broke out in, the house beforementioned, known and particularized for a long time after as "The Plague House". That the box came to the house in question, and that a tailor resided, as owner or tenant, in the said house at that time, cannot be quite satisfactorily substantiated: for from documents in the possession of the present owner of the house, it appears that an Edward Cooper purchased the house in 1662; and that he died, according to the probate of his will, in 1664. In both documents the same Edward Cooper is described as a miner. In his will he leaves his property to his two sons, Jonathan and Edward; his widow, however, having a life interest therein, for the better ordering and bringing up of the said Jonathan and Edward. The Register makes the first victim of the plague to be George Vicars, the second Edward Cooper, son of Edward Cooper, defunct; and some time after there is the burial of a Jonathan Cooper, supposed to be the eldest son of Edward Cooper, although the Register only says, "Bur. Oct. 28, 1665, Jonathan Cooper." Mead states that the first who died was a servant; but, if we can suppose a lodger was meant, it would remove the seeming perplexity. George Vicars might be a tailor, lodging and boarding with the widow of Edward Cooper; and, as the name Vicars does not occur again in the lists of those who died of the plague, he might have been a sort of stranger in Eyam. In Mead's relation,it is said that the whole of the family, where the box came to, died, except the mother; and, we find from documents connected with the said Coopers and the said house, that the widow, Mary Cooper, survived the plague, and was married a second time to a John Coe. This construction of Mead's statement, and the unvarying assertions of the inhabitants of Eyam ever since the fatal time, would reconcile all seeming disagreements as to the persons, place, and other circumstances in connection with the commencement of the plague at Eyam. It may be still further observed that all the family died except one (the mother) where the plague commenced; and this circumstance agrees with all that has ever been said or written on the subject; but as George Vicars was buried September 7, and Jonathan Cooper, October 28, 1665, it might appear that the plague, if confined solely that time in Cooper's house where it commenced, was not very malignant and destructive at first. This, however, was not the case, for between the death of George Vicars and Jonathan Cooper, the distemper had spread and carried off in the interim twenty-six other persons.

In all probability then, George Vicars opened the terrible box. In removing the contents he observed, in a sort of exclamation, how very damp they were; and he therefore hung them to the fire to dry. While Vicars was superintending them, he was seized with violent symptoms of a disease which greatly alarmed the family and neighbourhood. During his (no doubt) short illness what was afterwards considered the fatal token, a round purple place - the plague spot - appeared on his breast; he died, and was buried in the Churchyard, September the seventh 1665. Thus began in Eyam the plague - the most awful of diseases, which, after being in some measure checked, as supposed, by the following winter, spread amazingly, and eventually left the village nearly desolate.

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