An Illustrated History of Old Sutton in St.Helens
Part 19 (of 58) - Health and Sanitary Conditions in Sutton
a) Fevers and Sewers in Sutton | b) Industrial Health and Injuries
c) Mental Health | d) Medical Practitioners | e) Cottage Hospital & Sanatorium
c) Mental Health | d) Medical Practitioners | e) Cottage Hospital & Sanatorium
Header image: The St.Helens Cottage Hospital in Marshalls Cross Road, Peasley Cross
a) Fevers and Sewers in Sutton
This was in spite of a high death rate in Sutton and in the other three townships (Parr, Eccleston & Windle) that would comprise the future St.Helens borough. A combination of unhealthy work conditions, factory discharges into Sutton's 'Stinky' Brook, unsanitary living conditions and excessive drinking led to sickness and shortened lives.
In 1885 John Spear was commissioned to report on the prevalence of 'zymotic' diseases such as typhoid fever in St.Helens and he commented that:
...the pollution of the atmosphere by chemical fumes and coal smoke is, as is well known considerable. 
John Spear's report was scathing of the lack of a proper sewage system in St.Helens and he commented how waste discharges into the town's brooks from the various chemical, copper and glass works would often disguise the presence of raw sewage and the associated health risks:
The main sewer of St.Helens is the town's brook...reduced sometimes in dry weather to little more than crude sewage...It receives, beside's ordinary town's sewage, the various drainage matters from the factories, and from special manufacturing products. These practically hide from sight and smell the more common kind of sewage pollution. 
The residents of Watery Lane weren't connected to the sewers and the
health hazards worsened when Sutton Brook flooded, as in this picture
Where sewers had been provided in Sutton, the owners of houses were not always compelled to connect their house drains and this was the case for tenants in Watery Lane and Herbert Street. The report stated that nine thousand houses in St.Helens were still scavenged under the 'midden' system:
The privy-middens are of the most objectionable construction...they are usually wet and very foul... [excrement is] carried out by wheelbarrow or basket for some distance to the streets where the matter is often again deposited before its removal. This operation is performed by scavengers in the employ of the Corporation. 
St.Helens Corporation was slow to implement improvements. Dr. Robert McNicoll had become the town's first Medical Officer in 1873 and had pleaded in his annual reports for sanitary improvements. He was specially keen for a trunk sewer to replace the open brooks, which had been promised as far back as 1855. The construction only began in 1889 after the council had been embarrassed by six guests at a mayoral banquet contracting typhoid, of which two died.
On January 21st 1891 at a meeting of the Corporation's paving, highway and sewering committee it was agreed to spend £2121.10s for sewering and drainage of the Sutton district. Of this Rolling Mill Lane would cost £262 and Hill's Moss Road £156. However, the scattered nature of Sutton's population meant that implementation had its limitations and the 'Stinky' Brook continued to live up to its epithet.
At a Council meeting in 1895, Councillor Charles Walsh - the representative for East Sutton who ran a draper's shop in Peckers Hill Road - took to task Councillor Forster, the chairman of the borough's Health Committee. Cllr. Walsh complained about the state of Sutton Brook around Junction Lane which he claimed was nothing short of an "open sewer". It was causing a"serious crisis" in the district with many reported cases of typhoid and other fevers:
I am informed that the Medical Officer is thoroughly conversant with the fever breeding tendencies of this brook. Perhaps nowhere in the borough, in so small an area and in so short a time, have there been so many cases of fever reported. In fact, fever never seems, to leave the neighbourhood, and at this very moment there are several cases. 
The Spear's Report on the 'Continued Prevalence of Fever'
From the middle of November 1895, St.Anne's schools were closed for six weeks to prevent the spread of scarlet fever. There was so much concern of disease that when Sutton Library opened in early 1897, a placard was put up banning book borrowers who lived in houses where there was scarlet fever. The bacteria in untreated milk was a prime means of transmitting it and other disease and so Cllr. Bates was keen for milk to be sterilised. In April 1899 he visited Fecamp in Normandy as a member of a fact-finding delegation. They were informed how sterilising milk had significantly reduced infant mortality in the French town. Consequently St.Helens became the first borough in England to possess a municipal supply of sterilised milk, which was supplied to the populace at a specially low rate.
In recent times, the notorious 'Stinky Brook', which factories have spewed waste into for many years, has improved. However, complaints are still made about the waterway that connects to the St.Helens Canal and Cllr. John Beirne made his opinions known in the St.Helens Star of April 6th, 2006:
The smells are absolutely disgusting and make you feel sick. People in the area have got used to it, but in 2006, why should they? Over the last six months the smells from chemicals in the brook have got really bad. What harm could it be doing to our lungs and our health? 
Also see: Sutton Brook; The Day That Sutton Brook Caught Fire!;
Download John Spear's 'Continued Prevalence of Fever' report (3mb)
Download John Spear's 'Continued Prevalence of Fever' report (3mb)
b) Industrial Health & Injuries
This website's mineworking page demonstrates the hazards of employment in Sutton's pits and those who worked in the chemical and glass factories were similarly poor prospects for life insurance salesmen. They endured shortened lives through exposure to noxious fumes and by liver damage through drinking excessive amounts of beer. The chemicals rotted away all their teeth, and so they existed on 'pobs', a mixture of bread and milk plus copious quantities of beer. Many men drank because they could not eat and to cope with the horrendous conditions.An intake of 100 pints a week was not unknown, and employers weren't too concerned as long as workers could still do their job. Action would be taken, however, if employees became incapacitated. On December 11th 1876, James Barke, a watchman at Kurtz Chemicals, found Owen McKee of Sutton "very drunk and unable to perform his work", according to the Prescot Reporter's account (23/12/1876). On being spoken to by Barke, McKee became abusive and violent, threatening to "lance the watchman inside out". He was prosecuted and fined 5 shillings for being drunk and 10 shillings for assault and ordered to keep the peace.
Working very long hours was also not conducive to good health. The average working week in 1870 was 70 hours and children aged between 8 and 13 were allowed to work a 6½ hour day on condition that they received ten hours of schooling per week. Working conditions were poor and accidents were frequent and even by 1916, long shifts in factories were not uncommon. In August of 1916, sixteen-year-old Harold Taylor of Waterdale Crescent was killed at the Sutton Glassworks in Lancots Lane by a crane that toppled over. Forty-two-year-old crane driver William Chadwick admitted at the inquest to having worked a shift of over fifteen hours. When County Coroner Sam Brighouse quizzed him on this, he insisted that he wasn't fatigued and had previously worked much longer hours.
Dr. Knowles wrote to Crone and Taylor to enquire whether they would pay for his services but they refused. In their reply, the 'Bone Crushers and Manufacturers of Blood & Bone Manures' said that they were "in no way responsible... we leave him in the hands of the hospital authorities". Biddulph was dead within days from anthrax poisoning as a direct result of his work. The St.Helens Reporter of 22nd January, 1895 reported that the Coroner at his inquest had commented that the conduct of the firm had been"quite extraordinary", although it was not uncommon.
c) Mental Health in Sutton
She had recently been a patient at Providence Hospital but had been so "annoying" to other patients that she was discharged. Sutton GP Edward Casey certified Margaret as an imbecile and wanted her committed to Rainhill Asylum, although the magistrates were unimpressed. "Surely an asylum is no place for a child like this?", queried the chairman of the bench and eventually Margaret was sent to the workhouse. There seemed little evidence to justify her treatment, despite signs of "mental derangement" when she was eight. Could she have been suffering from attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder?
When it came to adults, alcohol was often blamed as the cause of their 'madness'. On November 15th, 1900, the Liverpool Mercury reported that Ellen Sheridan of Herbert Street had spent a fortnight "wandering about in terror", believing that people were going to murder her. She was clearly paranoid although paranoia was not Dr. Casey's diagnosis when he gave evidence to the St.Helens magistrates. Instead he said the cause was drink and the cure was 14 days in the workhouse. Alcohol was often the scapegoat for many forms of strange behaviour which these days we are more likely to consider a symptom that might worsen their condition, rather than cause it.
This was often the case with depressed individuals who committed suicide. 70-years-old butcher Thomas Johnson was clearly depressed when on April 13th, 1871 he hung himself from a beam in his outhouse by Sutton Oak station. The Liverpool Mercury report said that he had been drinking heavily of late and had become temporarily insane as a result. This was a common inquest verdict, such as on February 20th, 1895 when farmer Thomas Ireland Lowe of Micklehead Farm, Lea Green, who'd previously worked Maypole Farm in Bold, poisoned himself with carbolic acid on the train to Manchester.
If you were working-class and depressed you were expected to "pull yourself together". However, if you had some money and were suffering from a "nervous affection", you could avail yourself of specialists like Dr. Wilkinson who, for a while, was based at Brook House in Sutton. His advert in the Liverpool Mercury of August 7th, 1855 invited "unhappy" folk to visit him for a consultation. The "nervous and diffident" could also send him a guinea (£1 1 shilling) and would receive in return a letter and some medicine. A guinea was the equivalent of around £60 in today's money and well out of the reach of the poor, whereas the alternative 'pull yourself together' treatment cost nothing, apart from some lives.
d) Sutton's Medical Practitioners
In fact John Spear reports 23,262 births and 12,170 deaths (including 3,501 children under 1 year) registered between 1872 and 1881. In the 1881 census the St.Helens population was 57,234 (11,000 in 1845 and 89,000 by 1900). Sutton's medical practitioners through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who did much to improve people's lives, were the aforementioned Dr. Edward Casey (practised in Sutton c.1882 - c.1908), Dr. Thomas Pennington (? - 1891), Dr. Henry Baker-Bates (1891 - 1906), Dr. Frederick William Kerr Tough (c.1907 - c.1921), Dr. Cook (in 1911 census at 43/45 Peckershill Road and Dr. Fox.
Children had a saying about the various Sutton medics: "Dr. Casey set baits (Dr. Bates) to catch a fox (Dr. Fox). He is going to cook (Dr. Cook) him but will find it tough (Dr. Tough)."
94-year-old Catherine Williams vividly described in the St.Helens Star of October 6th 1983 how Irish medical practitioner, Dr. Casey of 1 Junction Lane would pull out aching teeth as well as treat patients' other ills. He'd charge sixpence for each painful extraction, although if a child didn't cry or shout, he'd generously give them back their tanner! Catherine wrote that he was a character of "unusual rarity":
Many doctors then acted as dentists...and he wasa Godsend to the many-starved children of those days.
Dr. Baker Bates arrived in Sutton ten years after Casey and did sterling work as chairman of St.Helens Corporation's Health Committee. The medical man, whose practice was at 24/26 Junction Lane, is believed to have owned the first motor car in Sutton and became four-times Mayor of St.Helens during the first world war. Dubbed the “uncrowned king of Sutton”, Dr. Bates did much to improve the health of the people of St.Helens.
A Dr. Campbell lived and had his surgery at Phoenix House in Peckershill Road for many years during the mid-twentieth century. This used to be the house of Phoenix Brewery. More recent medics during the 1960s and '70s include Dr. Sullivan, Dr. Lennon and Dr. Sutton. Some gave the latter the nickname of "sick note Sutton" and Dr. Sullivan became Bold Colliery's doctor.
Mention must also be made of Nurse Barbara Lacey (Brown) who was born and bred in Sutton at 8, Ditch Hillock. She was a familiar figure for some twenty years, pedalling in her nurse's uniform round the district from her home in Irwin Road. All that cycling was clearly good for her as she was ninety-six years of age when she died in 1985. Then there was Nurse Smith, a midwife who brought many Sutton babies into the world and who married a coal dealer in Peckershill Road. Her father survived the Titanic disaster, only to drown in 1915 when his ship was sunk by a German U-boat.
If you couldn't be saved by Sutton's medical practitioners, you were likely to meet undertaker and blacksmith Isaac Ashton who had premises at 21 Fisher Street - his adverts bore the strap 'Funerals furnished throughout on the shortest notice'
Also see articles: Death Under Chloroform; The Three Heroic Sutton Nurses;
History of the Rainbow Medical Centre Appeal in Can You Help? page
History of the Rainbow Medical Centre Appeal in Can You Help? page
e) St.Helens Cottage Hospital & Borough Sanatorium
The work of health practitioners plus pressure from trade unions, concerned citizens and politicians led to improved living conditions and sanitary disposal and a gradual improvement in the populace's health. The creation of what we now call St.Helens Hospital in Marshalls Cross Road in Peasley Cross, then part of Sutton, also played a crucial role in improving health.
St.Helens Cottage Hospital in Marshalls Cross Road, Peasley Cross - contributed by Sutton Historic Society
St.Helens Cottage Hospital opened in January 1873 after copper smelter Fenwick Allen leased part of a house from Sutton landowner Michael Hughes for £20 per year. St.Helens industrialist and Wigan MP Peter Greenall had called for an infirmary during the early 1840s, although it took thirty years to make it a reality. Part of the chosen property in Peasley Cross was occupied but the vacant section had been untenanted for some time. It required large-scale renovation to make it fit for purpose, which cost Hughes £462. There were only three furnished rooms which accommodated nine beds in total.
A. G. Kurtz of the alkali works provided funding for the hospital and each patient had to pay a shilling a day, unless enrolled in the 'penny-a-week' scheme. Although the cottage hospital received some funding from donations and legacies, its main revenue was the weekly pennies that were deducted from staff wages by employers. Martha Walker, a Quaker lady who had served in a hospital camp during the American Civil War, became the first Matron. She was assisted by three young orphans from Whiston workhouse. One girl was only seven and the other two were just eight years of age.
Another view of St.Helens Hospital in Peasley Cross - contributed by Sutton Historic Society
By 1894 the number of beds had increased to fifty, which was now run by matron Annie Stocks. By this time the extensive improvements and extensions belied its cottage hospital description. So in 1896 it changed its name to St.Helens Hospital. In 1898 Miss Ann Garton's bequest of £28,675 gave the hospital some financial security.
The first resident medical officer, Dr. Patrick Murnane, was appointed in 1919. Until then GPs referred their patients to the hospital and treated them themselves. During 1922, the hospital treated 860 men, 344 women and 315 children. Colliery workers and their dependants comprised the lion's share with 853 admissions.
In 1926 a maternity ward was opened and in 1929 the penny-a-week scheme became penny in the pound, as contributions became linked to earnings. So if an employee earned £2 per week, they paid twopence and threepence per week if they earned £3.
St.Helens Borough Sanatorium aka the Fever or Infectious Diseases hospital - contributed by Sutton Historic Society
This was also known at various times as the Borough Sanatorium, Fever Hospital or Isolation Hospital. The latter was an appropriate name as there was little treatment available for many conditions in the hospital's early days. So isolating an infected person from society to prevent contagion was its main raison d'être. In fact a Mrs. Pearce and her daughter, with no medical training, were charged initially with looking after the patients. At St.Helens Corporation's monthly council meeting held on December 1st, 1886, a long discussion took place at to whether a trained nurse should be employed instead. It went to a vote and health chief Dr. Gaskell won the argument for a medical presence at the Infectious Diseases infirmary. The council meeting also considered an application from the St. Helens Tramway Company to use steam traction trams instead of horses. Progress was coming to St. Helens!
However, the new hospital didn't do a lot of business at first, partly because patients were initially charged a shilling a day for their bed. Between 1886-7 only twelve people were admitted, eleven of whom had typhoid fever. However as revealed in the 'Fevers and Sewers in Sutton' article at the top of this page, scarlet fever was highly prevalent in Sutton during the 1890s. Councillor Charles Walsh, representative for East Sutton, reported to a St.Helens Town Council meeting on September 7th, 1892 that there was an "epidemic of fever" in the Sutton district adding that:
The streets were in an abominable condition, and a more insanitary spot could not be found in St.Helens. The only steps that people could see being taken were the fever van removing patients to the hospital or taking their bodies to the cemetery when they were dead. 
Notice in the Lantern newspaper of October 18th, 1889 - Courtesy St.Helens Local History & Archives Library
The census conducted on March 31st, 1901 provides a snapshot of the types of patients at both infirmaries at that time. Of the 29 male patients over 12 years of age in the main hospital, twelve were mineworkers (11 hewers), five glassworkers and three chemical workers, underlining the dangers of such employment. The remaining nine male patients included six children just seven years or younger.
The matron then was Harriet Oates, who had seven nurses under her, along with six ward, laundry, house and kitchen maids plus a cook and porter. There were fourteen female patients, of which half were under 16. The fever hospital, as the sanatorium was often described, could easily have been described as a children's hospital. Of its 58 male and female patients in 1901, astonishingly only three were over 14. In 1911 the matron was Miss Burgess.
St. Helens Hospital was said to have its own ghost! Catherine Williams, mentioned earlier on this page, described in the St.Helens Star in 1983 how a Sutton woman who'd died there regularly haunted the laundry rooms. New nurses at the hospital were warned of what to expect when entering the laundry.
The unveiling of the spectacular new £100 million hospital in 2008 with its purple, yellow, red, orange and green zones ended an important link with the past. I wonder how many readers of this page have been grateful for the care that they have received from the doctors and nurses in the old Rennie, Gamble, Garton, Hammill, Pilkington, Kurtz and Bishop wards and clinics? These were named after benefactors and medical practitioners at the Hospital who helped to improve and save lives in St.Helens. Their eponymous wards have now gone but hopefully their contributions will long be remembered.
A History of St Helens Hospital by Pauline Hurst
A new A5 book by Pauline Hurst with 200 pages packed with both black and white and colour photographs that charts the growth of the Cottage Hospital into an ultra modern hospital in 2008. Previously unpublished photographs of all the old wards have been used and this book provides an excellent account of life at the hospital.Copyright Notice / Factual Accuracy Statement
Sutton Beauty & Heritage strives for factual accuracy at all times. Please do also get in touch if you believe that there are any errors, with details of any corrections contained within the site's update history page, which also details the regular updates. Many individuals from all over the world have kindly contributed Sutton information and photographs. If you would like to participate in this project, I would be delighted to hear from you and this website always credits any assistance given. Do also consider contributing any recollections of old Sutton that you might have for the Sutton Memories pages, which are proving very popular. I respond quickly to emails and if you haven't received a response within 12 hours, do check your junk mail folder or send your message again. Thank you! SRW
