Watnall's smallpox hospital and the revolutionary pox-scarred beauty

In 1902 with a resurgent smallpox epidemic underway in England, Watnall almost became the location for an isolation hospital for victims of the highly-infectious disease. Smallpox had a high mortality rate, especially in children and even if you did survive, it left sufferers with terrible scars. It was at the time, in health terms, public enemy number one.

The County Council had arranged to lease "2-4 acres" of one of Luke Lilley's fields at Eel House Farm just outside Watnall on the road towards Hucknall. The hospital was to serve a wide area.. "for Urban Districts of Arnold, Beeston, Carlton & Hucknall Torkard & Rural Districts of Basford & Stapleford? Small pox epidemic has come upon..."

Smallpox blisters on a baker during an 1896 epidemic in Gloucester
He died 8 days after admission

Local health concerns

There was understandable concern for the hospital's effect on the health of Watnall's population as expressed in the Eastwood Advertiser... "500 men and boys pass twice a day along that railway, and moreover that 700 men & boys work in the New Watnall Colliery which is near by, assuming that the wind passes over the proposed hospital, the men & boys in that mine will be dependent upon the same current for the ventilation of the working places..."

Councillor's letters stored in the archive show the rising level of alarm over the epidemic... "G.B. Wray to WG. I have just heard from the County Medical Officer that a case exists in Carlton which is practically in our midst. If necessary may we enter into possession at any time? What, about, will be the tenant's Compensation?"

However, at the last minute, when all arrangements were in seemingly place and the lease had been paid, they decided to use a site at Bulwell Forest instead.

1904 - Smallpox isolation hospital, Bestwood Road, Bulwell Forest
When isolation really meant isolation.
It could be the set of a horror movie!

The local smallpox outbreak lasted for over a year but a more widespread acceptance of vaccinations played a significant role limiting its effects. The British Medical Journal reported on it in May 1903...

"In Nottinghamshire, Nottingham and Mansfield both show fresh cases, but at Hucknall Torkard it is reported that the epidemic has ceased. In this place 1,000 persons have been vaccinated since the first outbreak, 200 of them for the first time. If this represents the average extent to which the population is protected, it is not remarkable that this small town has found it difficult to rid itself of the disease."

The Nottingham lass and the first smallpox "cure"

An early local champion of smallpox inoculations was society beauty Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (left) of Holme Pierrepont Hall in Nottingham. In 1712 she married the British ambassador to the Ottomon Empire (today's Turkey) and lived with her husband in Constantinople (today's Istanbul) where she witnessed the practice of variolation which she called "engrafting". Variolation used live smallpox virus in the pus taken from a mild smallpox blister and introduced it into scratched skin on the arm or leg of a previously uninfected person to promote immunity to the disease.

Lady Mary's brother died of smallpox in 1713, and although she recovered from the disease in 1715, it left her with a disfigured face.

Lady Mary was eager to protect her children from the ravages of smallpox so in March 1718 she had her four-year-old son, Edward, inoculated in Constantinople with the help of the Embassy surgeon Charles Maitland. In fact, her son was the "first English person to undergo the operation." In a letter to a friend in England, Montagu wrote, "There is a set of old women [here], who make it their business to perform the operation, every autumn...when then great heat is abated...thousands undergo this operation...[and there] is not one example of anyone that has died in it."

Lady Mary is rightly celebrated as the first person to introduce and advocate using smallpox inoculation in Britain after her return from Turkey as her memorial tomb below testifies..