Middleton Road is by no means in the ‘middle of town’. At the time it was built, ‘by the 1890s’ (1), it would have been on Salisbury’s outskirts.

It could be that ‘Middleton’ is the name of the one of . . . → Read More: Middleton Road, Salisbury]]> Middleton Road is on the northern side of Salisbury, close to Saint Paul’s Church.

Middleton Road is by no means in the ‘middle of town’. At the time it was built, ‘by the 1890s’ (¹), it would have been on Salisbury’s outskirts.

It could be that ‘Middleton’ is the name of the one of the developers of the area – roads in the same development are seemingly random forenames (or possibly surnames) – for example Sidney Street, George Street and James Street.

I would prefer to think, though, that the naming of Middleton Road was, and is, a tribute to Dr Andrew Middleton.

Doctor Middleton and the 1849 Salisbury cholera epidemic

The epidemic – ‘the sickness pervades the whole city’

The sad story of the 1849 cholera epidemic is best told by Ruth Newman in:

• the book ‘Salisbury Past‘, co-written with J Howells (²)
• the article ‘Salisbury in the time of Cholera’ in Sarum Chronicle, Issue 6 (³)

Much of the material presented on this page is used by kind permission of Mrs Newman.

192 people died in the epidemic. At the time this was roughly 1 in every 45 of the population of Salisbury.

It’s perhaps worth considering the numbers. In today’s larger Salisbury schools this death rate would equate to two kids dying of cholera in every year group.

The London Times reported that:

the sickness … pervades the whole city. Deaths have occurred in nearly every street.(⁴)

Salisbury Cholera Deaths Road by Road

A subsequent Board of Health report listed the deaths in each street (⁵):

31 people died in Castle Street, Salisbury, in the Cholera Epidemic

The cholera epidemic has come up now and again whilst I’ve been researching Salisbury’s road names. A couple of examples:

• the economist John Maynard Keynes’ grandfather’s first wife ‘died in a cholera epidemic’(⁶)
• the Godolphin School moved out of Salisbury up onto Milford Hill ‘to escape the cholera epidemic in the city’(⁷)
• Mrs Louisa Caswell, wife of the Edward Caswell, who was a writer, and curate at Stratford-sub-Castle died of the cholera(⁸)

Disagreements and the Salisbury Journal’s censorship

Dr Middleton argued that the unsanitary living conditions in Salisbury were spreading the disease. He argued that the system of water channels throughout the town were a significant part of the problem. He organized a petition for a Board of Health enquiry.

The city council, with some popular support, opposed Middleton. A petition against an enquiry was organized, and gained a greater number of signatures.

The Salisbury Journal remained silent about the outbreak, ostensibly because it didn’t want to scare its readers. The Journal was forced to break its silence when letters appeared in the London Times. The Times specifically attacked the Journal for its suppression of the story.

Why were the council and many of the people opposed to an enquiry?

It’s not easy to say.

Lack of scientific knowledge was a factor – the cholera bacillus wasn’t discovered until 1854(⁹) and cholera itself had been unknown in Britain until 1829. The dominant theory at the time was that cholera, and other diseases, were spread by ‘bad air’ or miasma(¹⁰)

Perhaps the idea that the sanitary conditions were to blame ran contrary to ‘common sense’. The channels and the courts had been there for hundreds of years ‘without doing anyone any harm’. Nobody had suggested that the watercourses played a role in other epidemics, such as the Plague. In a time before the different ways in which diseases are transmitted was understood perhaps it was more ‘sensible’ to attribute the epidemic to bad luck?

Perhaps also it was easier to blame ‘bad luck’ rather than to admit that the 192 deaths could have been prevented?

On the other hand, there may have been a degree of self interest involved. The members of the council would have been some the landlords who would have to bear much of the financial brunt of sanitary reform.

The disagreement was particularly heated on the subject of the water channels. A City medical officer, John Winzar stated that:

‘Neither nature nor art could possibly have formed channels better adapted for effectually carrying away the sewage of the city’. (¹¹)

There were stories of trout being discovered in channels in the middle of the city – ‘proving’ how healthy and clean they were (¹²).

Despite the local opposition, the Board of Health sent Thomas Rammel, who reported in 1851. (¹³)

Thomas Rammel’s report

Rammel found that (¹⁴) :

• the water channels were no use for removing sewage. Rammel pointed out that 114 deaths were in streets with open channels, 47 in streets with closed channels and 29 in streets with no channel.(¹⁵)
• the courts, in the centres of the chequers, were ‘indescribably filthy’ (¹⁶)
• the wells were contaminated by seepage from toilets and graveyards

Sanitation – a ‘New Sarum’

The town council was forced to adopt the 1848 Public Health Act, and to start filling in the water channels. Over the next few years (¹⁷):

• a water works was built to the north of the city
• deep sewers were built, to which households were gradually connected
• land for new cemeteries was purchased on the Devizes Road and at Bishopdown

Middleton wrote:

I shall always be happy to plead guilty to the charge of having caused the destruction of the ‘English Venice’ since by that destruction a ‘New Salisbury’ has been created, and very many hundreds of human beings saved from an untimely death (¹⁸)

Middleton Road and the honouring of Andrew Middleton

Was Middleton Road named after Dr Andrew Middleton?

I don’t yet know for sure.

In retrospect the campaign waged by Middleton and others did indeed save many in Salisbury from an untimely death, but I don’t know whether this would have been recognized by the time of the building and naming of Middleton Road.

Cholera today

People still die from cholera today.

In 2005, 2272 deaths were reported to the World Health Organisation, across 52 countries.

It’s a highly preventable disease – the fact that there were no further outbreaks in Salisbury after 1849 shows this. However the WHO says:

There is clear trend that cholera is re-emerging in parallel
with the ever-increasing proportion of vulnerable
populations who live in unsanitary conditions. Cholera
remains a global threat and one of the key indicators of
social development. While the disease no longer poses a
threat to countries where minimum standards of hygiene
are met, it remains a challenge in those countries
where access to safe water and adequate sanitation cannot
be guaranteed for all. (¹⁹)

Wateraid

One charity that is working to provide access to safe water and adequate sanitation is WaterAid.

WaterAid is working in 17 countries to provide water and sanitation to people that need it.

As the Salisbury experience shows, it’s an easily preventable disease.

If you would like to continue the fight against cholera and other water-borne diseases please visit the WaterAid website, sign up to their newsletter and perhaps consider a donation.

Footnotes

1. Salisbury – The expansion of the city; Milford | British History Online
2. Newman, R. and Howells, J.: Salisbury Past (Chichester: Phillimore, 2001), pages 84-85.
3. Sarum Chronicle, Issue 6. Hobnob Press October 2006, 64-page illustrated paperback, price £4.50, ISBN10 0-946418-54-3; ISBN13 978-0-946418-54-1
4. Sarum Chronicle, Issue 6. pages 11-19. Hobnob Press October 2006, 64-page illustrated paperback, price £4.50, ISBN10 0-946418-54-3; ISBN13 978-0-946418-54-1
5. Newman, R. and Howells, J.: ‘Salisbury Past ‘ ,Chichester: Phillimore, 2001, pages 85.
6. ECONOMISTS PAPERS Series Two: John Neville Keynes
7. Wiltshire Council – Wiltshire Community History Get School Information
8. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Edward Caswall – Wikisource
9. Who first discovered cholera?
10. 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
11. From: ‘Salisbury: City government since 1836′, A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 6 (1962), pp. 113-117. URL: Salisbury – City government since 1836 | British History Online Date accessed: 24 September 2009.
12. ‘Salisbury in the time of Cholera’ in Sarum Chronicle, Issue 6. Hobnob Press October 2006, price £4.50, ISBN10 0-946418-54-3; ISBN13 978-0-946418-54-1
13. From: ‘Salisbury: City government since 1836′, A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 6 (1962), pp. 113-117. URL: Salisbury – City government since 1836 | British History Online Date accessed: 24 September 2009.
14. From: ‘Salisbury: City government since 1836′, A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 6 (1962), pp. 113-117. URL: Salisbury – City government since 1836 | British History Online Date accessed: 25 September 2009.
15. Newman, R. and Howells, J.: ‘Salisbury Past‘ ,Chichester: Phillimore, 2001, pages 85.
16. quote from the Victoria County History
17. From: ‘Salisbury: City government since 1836′, A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 6 (1962), pp. 113-117. URL: Salisbury – City government since 1836 | British History Online Date accessed: 25 September 2009.
18. ‘Salisbury in the time of Cholera’ in Sarum Chronicle, Issue 6. Hobnob Press October 2006, 64-page illustrated paperback, price £4.50, ISBN10 0-946418-54-3; ISBN13 978-0-946418-54-1
19. WEEKLY EPIDEMIOLOGICAL RECORD, NO. 31, 4 AUGUST 2006, World Health Organisation

Most of the roads on the Churchfields estate are named after scientists or enigineers, of varying levels of fame (e.g. Smeaton Road, Watt Road and Telford Road).

I’m not entirely sure who Mitchell Road is named after. . . . → Read More: Mitchell Road, Salisbury]]> Mitchell Road is on the Churchfields Industrial Estate, which is to the West of the centre of Salisbury.

Most of the roads on the Churchfields estate are named after scientists or enigineers, of varying levels of fame (e.g. Smeaton Road, Watt Road and Telford Road).

I’m not entirely sure who Mitchell Road is named after. There are perhaps four or five possibilities.

• Wesley Clair Mitchell, an economist
• Edgar Mitchell, the astronaut
• Maria Mitchell, the astronomer and scientist
• Alexander Mitchell, the engineer and astronomer
• somebody else!

Wesley Clair Mitchell

Wesley Clair Mitchell was an economist who lived from 1874 until 1948.

He is chiefly known for his work on business cycles and for his economic research.

He seems to me to be too obscure to have had Mitchell Road named after him, paricularly in comparison to other economists that might have been chosen such as Keynes, or Adam Smith, or even Karl Marx.

Edgar Mitchell

Edgar Mitchell is a scientist and astronaut. He was on the Apollo 14 mission to the moon in 1971, and he was the sixth man to walk on the moon ¹.

Edgar Mitchell, too, seems too obscure to have had Mitchell Road named after him. You would probably expect to see roads named for the other ‘moonwalkers’ as well as Mitchell, if he was the inspiration for the road name.

The only caveat to that might be that the building of Mitchell Road could have been at about the same time as Apollo 14, but, still, you would expect to see Edgar Mitchell’s colleagues on the mission (Alan Shepard and Stuart Roosa ²) similarly honoured.

Maria Mitchell

Maria Mitchell was a 19th century American astronomer who was the first person to find a ‘telescopic comet’ – a comet visible through a telescope, but not with the naked eye ³

Again, I think she is not the derivation of the name of Mitchell Road – there are more famous astronomers.

Alexander Mitchell

Alexander Mitchell was an astronomer and an engineer.

In 1828 he invented the “Mitchell Screw Pile and Mooring”, which allowed for the construction of lighthouses in areas where they could not have been constructed before.

The screw pile was used in the construction of:

• the Maplin Sands lighthouse
• the Portland breakwater
• the Madras pier
• the Belfast Lough lighthouse

He was elected an associate of the Institute of Civil Engineers in 1837, and was awarded the Telford medal in 1848.

I think there is a good chance that Alexander Mitchell was the man whom Mitchell Road is named after.

Mitchell Road – named after somebody else?

Of the above I think only Alexander Mitchell is the only likely candidate for the derivation of Mitchell Road’s name. He was British – in that he was an Irishman at a time when the Republic was still part of Britain, and he honoured in Britain.

He is not as well known as Watt, Telford and Newton, but he is perhaps no less well known than the other engineer and lighthouse builder John Smeaton, after whom Smeaton Road seems to be named.

It could however be that Mitchell Road is named after some other scientist or engineer, or somebody unconnected with these fields – I don’t know.

Staying overnight in Salisbury?

For accommodation, see the Hotels in Salisbury page.

Footnotes

1. Ed Mitchell
2. Apollo 14 – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
3. Maria Mitchell – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have no idea why it’s called Napier Crescent. This is particularly irritating . . . → Read More: Napier Crescent, Laverstock]]> Napier Crescent is in Laverstock, which is a village a mile to the west of Salisbury city centre. It’s on an estate built by a developer called Ford, or perhaps Fforde, in about 1964. It’s often referred to as ‘the pebbledash estate’.

I have no idea why it’s called Napier Crescent. This is particularly irritating because I grew up in Napier Crescent.

There are at least two people in history possibly prominent enough to have had the road named after them:

• General Sir Charles James Napier, who was a one of Wellington’s generals in the Napoleonic Wars
• John Napier, the inventor of logarithms

The word Napier is quite interesting. I think it derives from the same root as ‘napkin’ and ‘nappy’. It means something like ‘linen keeper’, from the old French ‘nappe meaning ‘table cloth’. ¹

Footnotes

1. ???

Sir Isaac Newton

According to the . . . → Read More: Newton Road, Salisbury]]>

Sir Isaac Newton

• Smeaton Road
• Watt Road

According to the Dictionary of National Biography,

There has never since been a time when Newton was not considered either the greatest scientist who ever lived or one of a tiny handful of the greatest.¹

Wikipedia says that he was

one of the most influential men in human history.²

Chronology

⁵

Newton and Parliament’s windows

Incidentally, Wikipedia says that

Newton was also a member of the Parliament of England from 1689 to 1690 and in 1701, but according to some accounts his only comments were to complain about a cold draught in the chamber and request that the window be closed.⁶

I heard almost exactly the same story about Sir Michael Hamilton, who was Member of Parliament for Salisbury until probably the 1979 election, except in Sir Michael’s case the temperature was too hot he asked for the windows to be opened. ⁷

Newton’s religious views

There is a good discussion of Newton’s religious views at The Galilean Library.

The page I’ve linked to is an interview with Stephen David Snobelen, who is (or was at the time of the interview) Assistant Professor in the History of Science and Technology at University of King’s College, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Newton’s views were heretical – potentially dangerously so. Mr Sobelen outlines three areas of heresy in Newton’s thought:

• Newton’s denial of the Trinity. The orthodoxy was, and is, that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are of the same substance – all ‘very God of very God’. Newton did not see any support for this in the bible.
• Newton did not believe in the immortality of the soul – he believed that the bodies of the dead will be resurrected
• Newton rejected the idea of the Devil as an actual entity

Mr Sobelen says that Newton is opposing a what he might have seen as a Hellenistic influence on Christianity.

My limited understanding of this is that Plato believed in that there exists an ideal ‘type’ of any actual thing. So any actual, physical table is merely an instantiation of the ‘ideal type’ of table – an imitation of the essence of ‘tableness’. This concept of ‘essence’ of ‘ideal type’ is, for me, clearly reflected in the Devil as an essence of evil and in the immortal soul as the essence of humanity. I’d struggle a bit more with the Trinity being a Greek or Platonic construct, but I’m sure that’s my fault.

Anyway, for me there’s an interesting parallel between Newton rejecting what can be seen as a ancient Greek influence on religion and something of a rejection of the teachings of Aristotle when he was an undergraduate – a page on the Newton Project website tells us that Newton devoted himself

to private studies in mathematics and optics, largely ignoring the official university curriculum of classics, Euclidean geometry and Aristotelian philosophy. ⁸

As regards the danger inherent in Newton’s views, Mr Sobelen explains that somebody had been burnt at the stake for denying the Trinity as late as 1612, and that Newton’s successor as Lucasian professor lost their job for doing the same thing. For this reason, Newton kept his more radical religious views to himself.

Budget rooms in Salisbury?

For accommodation, see the Hotels in Salisbury page.

Footnotes

1. Richard S. Westfall, ?Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727)?, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Jan 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20059, accessed 18 May 2009]
2. Isaac Newton – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
3. Isaac Newton’s Life
4. Isaac Newton’s Life
5. All of the facts in the chronology, except where individually referenced come from either: Wikipedia, the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica on Newton or the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
6. Isaac Newton – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
7. Something I heard many years ago – probably totally unreliable!
8. Isaac Newton’s Life and Legacy at a Glance | Newton Project

Smeaton Road is named, as are most of the roads on the Churchfields Estate, after a famous engineer. John Smeaton (1724-1792) designed Eddystone Lighthouse, Aberdeen bridge and Charlestown Harbour in St Austell.

Update: There is podcast (downloadable MP3) of a lecture about John Smeaton called ‘Surveying the scene, engineering the . . . → Read More: Smeaton Road SP2]]>

Bust of John Smeaton

Smeaton Road is named, as are most of the roads on the Churchfields Estate, after a famous engineer. John Smeaton (1724-1792) designed Eddystone Lighthouse, Aberdeen bridge and Charlestown Harbour in St Austell.

Update: There is podcast (downloadable MP3) of a lecture about John Smeaton called ‘Surveying the scene, engineering the machine: the drawings of John Smeaton” on the website of the Royal Society. Although the lecture is obviously aimed at a spcialized audience, it is interesting enough. One of the stories recounted is that, as a child, Smeaton made a water pump. He tested it on the garden pond, and pumped it dry, sadly, killing all the fish.

The Royal Society podcast page is here: Podcasts of Library events
The Smeaton MP3 is here: Smeaton.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)

Further Update: I took the picture on my mobile phone when I was at the Institute of Chartered Engineers at One George Street, London.

The new town of Telford was named after Thomas Telford.