1941: On this day, 814 20-year-old city girls responded to their call-up papers - although some forgot their registration card! Many of the girls had come with their mothers, while others had their boyfriends for company. Some are described as arriving 'with an army escort on either side'. Quite a few perambulators are also recorded as being parked outside the building. (Gray, David, Peterborough at War 1939-1945, David Gray, 2011)
Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was born in May 1689, the eldest child of the future 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull. She married, against her father's wishes, Sir Edward Wortley Montagu, who was later twice MP for Peterborough. Lady Mary is today chiefly remembered for her letters, particularly her letters from travels to the Ottoman Empire, when her husband was the British ambassador to Turkey. These witty and well observed missives, as well as her other writings demonstrate that she deserves to be better known as a great writer.
Aside from her writing, Lady Mary is also known for introducing and championing smallpox inoculation (variolation) to Britain, which she had seen demonstrated during her time in Turkey. She had a great interest in the disease as she herself had suffered from it and was left badly scarred, and her brother died from it. Innoculation remained controversial and in later years was replaced by Edward Jenner's much safer technique of vaccination using cowpox rather than smallpox itself.
Lady Mary died on 21st August 1762 of breast cancer having recently returned from Venice to London. Edward Wortley Montague had died the year before. Their names are remembered in the Wortley Arms, originally the Wortley Almshouse.
Reference:
http://blog.wellcomelibrary.org/2016/05/lady-montagu-and-the-introduction-of-inoculation/
Founded before 1125, St Leonard's Hospital was a leper (or lazar) house supported through almsgiving by Peterborough Abbey. Leprosy was particularly prevalent at this time though such houses also provided for other categories of ill and destitute people. St Leonard’s became known as “The Spital”,Spital was a Middle English term used to describe a hospital or its endowed land.
It was still in existence in the 16th century and is assumed to have closed at the time of the dissolution of the monastery.
It was probably located close to the northern end of Peterborough railway station with its own cemetery to the west which is likely to have housed some of those who died from the plague. It gave its name to St Leonard’s Street which was the section of Bourges Boulevard which now runs past the station.
Associated with the hospital was a healing spring or well which was still documented in the mid 17th century.
The Black Death (or the Great Pestilence as it was known then) hit Peterborough in 1349. This terrible disease, now called bubonic plague after the enlarged lymph nodes (buboes) resulting from the infection, is caused by an organism called Yersinia pestis carried by the fleas on black rats, though at the time it was thought to have been caused by bad air known as 'miasma'.
Approximately a third of the townspeople and 32 of the 64 monks at the monastery perished in a matter of weeks, and many of those who died were buried in mass burial pits to the west of the town and in the burial ground of the leper hospital of St Leonard. A higher proportion of monks died perhaps because they were helping tend to the sick.
The plague returned to Peterborough on many occasions causing a great deal of death and suffering until the last outbreak in 1665.
The image shows the Triumph of Death by P. Bruegal (1562) inspired by the Plague.
Wothorpe Priory was situated in Wothorpe, near to Stamford. It was home to a small group of nuns who lived on the highest point of the Soke of Peterborough. Records show that the priory existed in the thirteenth and fourteenth century, but the Black Death of 1349 spelt the end of the priory. All of the nuns had either died or moved away, leaving the priory in dire straights. So in 1353-4 the priory, with only one remaining nun named Agnes Bowes, was united with St. Michael's nunnery of Stamford.
The land was given to Richard Cecil of Burghley House during the reformation. His grandson Thomas Cecil later built Wothorpe Towers upon the land. Considerable features remain in the surrounding fields which may be buildings from the priory, but the area is scheduled and in private hands.
Reference: 'Houses of Benedictine nuns: The priory of Wothorpe', in A History of the County of Northampton: Volume 2, ed. R M Serjeantson and W R D Adkins (London, 1906), p. 101. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.... [accessed 14 November 2018].
Said to have been founded at the gates of Peterborough monastery, the Hospital of St Thomas the Martyr was originally named St Thomas of Canterbury. It was founded by Abbot William of Waterville (1155-75) and provided a hospital for the poor. Abbot Benedict completed the building between 1177 and 1194 and Abbot Acharius granted money from the chapel of St Thomas the Martyr (a huge draw to pilgrims and therefore a good source of income) to pay for the nuns who cared for the patients and to provide provisions for the sick. Many of the pilgrims visiting the abbey at this time would have been unwell, so this was a rather clever plan to use pilgrims' money to pay for the sick.
References:
'Hospitals: St Leonard & St Thomas Martyr, Peterborough', in A History of the County of Northampton: Volume 2, ed. R M Serjeantson and W R D Adkins (London, 1906), p. 162. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.... [accessed 12 July 2019].
A Peterborough Cathedral Timeline https://www.peterborough-cathedral.org.uk/history.aspx [accessed 12 July 2019]
A List of the Abbots of Peterborough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbot_of_Peterborough [accessed 12 July 2019]
The 1918 influenza pandemic also known as Spanish flu, was a deadly influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza virus. It infected 500 million people around the world killing 50 million but possibly as many as 100 million people. It was one of the deadliest epidemics in human history. Where it originated is unclear but it certainly spread to Britain from France with returning soldiers, with Peterborough suffering as much as the rest of the country.
The name Spanish flu arose because Spain, being neutral in the First World War, did not censor the news to maintain wartime morale, so the epidemic’s effects were freely reported, falsely making it appear that Spain was particularly hard hit.
This particular pandemic had a very high mortality rate because of several factors including malnutrition due to the war, overcrowding in hospitals, lack of hygiene and the movement of troops all around the world. The pandemic also came in 2 waves, the first in the spring of 1918 producing a more usual ‘Three Day Fever’ followed by recovery except in the very vulnerable, the very old and very young, but the second wave, peaking in October 1918, was more virulent and targeted particularly young adults; nearly half of all deaths were people aged between twenty and forty years.
By the summer of 1919, the flu pandemic came to an end, as those that were infected either died or developed immunity.
References:
Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed The World, Spinney, Laura. Vintage 2017
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
Images (in the Public Domain)
A chart of deaths in major cities, showing a peak in October and November 1918
St Peter's Isolation Hospital (also known as Peterborough Fever Hospital) opened in 1901 near Potters Way in Fengate. It was opened in response to widespread outbreaks of infectious diseases like Diphtheria and Scarlet Fever. It closed in 1981.
References:
https://historic-hospitals.com/english-hospitals-rchme-survey/cambridgeshire/
https://www.peterboroughimages.co.uk/st-peters-isolation-hospital-fengate/
Image:
Peterborough Images Archive
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was born in May 1689, the eldest child of the…
Wothorpe Priory was situated in Wothorpe, near to Stamford. It was home…
Said to have been founded at the gates of Peterborough monastery, the Ho…
St Peter's Isolation Hospital (also known as Peterborough Fever Hospital…