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Esholt: A suitable case for treatment! |
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a trip back in time! |
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In
the first of a series in which West Yorkshire people look back at
the county's hidden history, we report on research by Bradford College
student Breedge Garnett who has been proving
the truth of the old Yorkshire saying: "Where there's muck, there's
brass!" |
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Where
there's people there's sewage, and Bradford was no exception,
but muck was eventually to provide the city's council with some
surprising by-products and a very healthy profit.
The
city's population grew from 13,500 in 1801 to over 103,000 by
1851. Immigrants were attracted to Bradford by the expanding textile
industry but economic prosperity brought its own problems.
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Bradford
Canal Basin in Victorian times
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People,
particularly in the poorer districts, lived nowhere near as long
as we do today. There was little or no control over what could
be built and no public provision of sewerage or piped, clean water.
Consequently infant mortality rates were incredibly high - one
in five children could not expect to live beyond their first birthday.
Diseases such as typhus, scarlet fever and smallpox were endemic.
Water-borne infections such as typhoid and cholera also claimed
lives.
The
main source of the problem was the absence of a decent drainage
system. Most human waste, as well as that from the booming mills,
was dumped into Bradford Beck where it drained into the canal basin,
and ultimately the River Aire.
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