1770 Deaths in Leigh, Lancashire

[anneraw]

I have found four children in one family in my ancestry who all died in August 1770 in Leigh, Lancashire. The children's ages ranged from 1 to 13. I am assuming there was some kind of infectious illness and wonder if anyone has any info from other families or from history of the area. Thanks!

[Maiden Stone]

That's gloomy topic for a first post. Welcome to RootsChat.
Have you looked at parish burials register to see if similar was happening in other families or if there were more deaths than normal that year?

[Radcliff]

Poor mother must have been bereft,
Esther on the 16th
Barbery and Ellen on the 21st,
Betty on the 27th

[anneraw]

They did have several other children but I agree, the Cleworth family must have been devastated to have lost 4 children so close together.
There does seem to be an increase in deaths in the parish around this time compared to previous and subsequent year groupings but I haven't the tools to analyse the data further.

[Radcliff]

measles, Flu,it could have been anything, in that era there was nothing anyone could do but hope and pray their child survived what ever illness they contracted,and I agree there was a fair number of children buried in Leigh in August and September

[Maiden Stone]

Taking the Cleworth family out of the equation, number of deaths of Tyldesley residents in July and August that year seems to be average, on a cursory comparison of other months of 1770 and for 1769 & 1771.
I noticed that William Baxter of Bedford had 3 of his children buried on 26th March 1770.

As Radcliff said, sometimes it didn't take much for children to succumb. 2 little sons of my ancestors in another Lancashire town were buried on same day in 1760s.

There was a plague (not "The Plague")  in Cockerham, further North in Lancashire in 1650s. I think about 60 people died from it. Some burials were of parent(s) & children on same day.

Local historians are the ones who would know. 

[Maiden Stone]

Similar enquiry for Stanhoe, Norfolk, with link to historical reports of epidemics.

[sallyyorks]

Smallpox, Scarlatina, Dysentry and Typhus were around at the time.

Also this was at the start of industrialisation and so disease due to overcrowding might have played a part, so called 'Jail Fever' (Typhus) for example. Going by the descriptions 'Jail Fever' type of Typhus was extremely unpleasant

If there had been unusual weather causing food prices to rise, then malnutrition could have made a family more susceptable to illness and excess deaths might be seen in the registers. The years 1795/6 for example.

It could even be that all the children in this case had an undetected/unknown inherited condition.

Not as likely, but I have seen an account of two brothers who dropped dead within weeks of each other, who had both died of exhaustion. They had been working in a cotton mill in the West Riding. That was in the 1830's. It is even harder to imagine what life was like for children in the manufacturing districts 50 years earlier