The Black Death, the Plague
and Churchyard

Nicholas, prior of the Holy Trinity within Aldgate, sold one toft (the ground upon which one house stands) of ground near unto East Smithfield, during the Black Death.

Richard and Thomas Pymme, along with their heirs, their two sisters, Alice and Sara and her daughter, Alice, died from the Black Death (1348) and John and Peter Coleman, their cousins, inherited their estate.

See Problems with the Churchyard

In 1617 it had been decided that in future there would be chosen in every hamlet 'two fit aged women to search and vew the bodies of everie one deceasing for the prevention of infection'. The searchers were to receive two pence for every body they viewed and searched.

The Plague of 1625

By July 1625 the order passed in April regarding burials in the churchyard had to be rescinded. Mary Oswell and Elizabeth Scott of Ratcliffe and Joane Hassam and Rose Write of Limehouse were chosen to be searchers of dead bodies 'in case & feare of Contagion of sicknes now suspected'. They would receive fourpence apiece for every body they viewed and searched.

It was another plague year and 3000 would be buried in the already over full and noxious churchyard.

By July a further 623 had been buried and on the 24th the vestry decreed that the sexton could bury wherever he wanted provided if was not within 7 yards of the church wall.

In August, the worst month, 1282 burials of persons who died from the dreaded disease, took place. The conditions for those living close to the churchyard cannot be imagined.

The vestry on 7 August was appalled that 'whereas certaine (persons) dwelling about Stepney take up on them to be common bearers of such as died of the pestilence and other diseases, and that without order and deputation and further do exact cruelly of men for the bearing of the dead to the ground, such summes of mony as are no wayes sufferable'. The vestry allowed them to continue removing bodies but set the charges which they had to be content with. In addition so that 'thay may be knowne to be common bearers of those who die of the plague, they shall go without cloakes and cary red wands in theire hands that every one may take notice of them'. The sexton was to provide and to deliver the red wands.

In the September 800 died but the colder weather saw the plague coming to an end but it remained a recurring nightmare which was to repeat itself over and over again for no one knew the cause or the cure.

The churchyard was now truly full and a new one was now essential and by 1626 it had been chosen. The Mercers Company offered to pay the cost of enclosing it and filling up the pond and work was completed in 1627.

Problems in 1626

Robert Bell was the subject under discussion at the April 30 1626 vestry. He was the churchwarden for Ratcliffe and had taken in money for Church duties which had been charged to help pay for the cost of the re-earthing of the churchyard. Because he would not part with the money the work had to stop. The parish would have to bear the cost of presenting a suit against him at the High Commission Court and Robert had to leave the parish with all his goods and moved to Rotherhythe.

1636 and 1640

1636 was another plague year when 900 persons died and in 1640 a further 1100 fell victim to the scourge.

The vestry made special arrangements to help those in need of relief. Whatever the cost Ratcliffe was to pay three parts, Limehouse two parts, Mile End two parts and Poplar one part.

In 1640 a further 1100 fell victim to the plague. Perhaps the vestry was too busy trying to deal with this as no vestry appears to have met.

The Plague of 1664/65

The Plague (bubonic plague caused by bites from the fleas of infected rats), which had been raging on the Continent, finally reached England near the end of 1664. It is believed it started in London near Long Acre in December 1664 when 3 men died and this was followed by a lull of 6 weeks.

Not all cases of Plague were reported and bribery of nurses and doctors often took place to persuade them to look the other way. Five cases of Plague were recorded in 1664 and three of them were in Whitechapel.

Daniel Defoe was only 5 years old at the time but much of what he wrote some years later is taken for a fair description of conditions at the time. He based 'A Journal of the Plague Year' on various writings of the time or soon after and on the evidence of people who lived through it.

Whole streets of houses were closed up to the West and in the city, the inhabitants having packed their valuables and fled. The broad main street in Whitechapel was thronged with the rich, their wives, their families and servants, fleeing the capital, according to Defoe. Gates were erected at each end of London Bridge to control access to and from the City and prevent the movement of those who could possibly carry the disease.

The Plague appeared to move in waves. Starting gradually with just a few dying, then taking several, then abating, then killing many and only by July had it worked its way across to the east to where Stepney lay.

People in the east, so far unaffected by the Plague, would bring their goods near to the city gate and to sell their wares from there.

In the early days the sound of people lamenting their dead was heart breaking but as more and more died people had to harden their hearts and look to their own safety. It was a bad time to be ill from some other cause because everyone automatically thought it was the Plague.

Those houses where someone appeared to have the Plague, (and often they died within a couple of hours of the symptoms appearing) were padlocked and guarded to prevent anyone leaving the premises.

Adding to the horror were the plague carts full of London dead which were sometimes abandoned on the outskirts and on occasion the horses bolted and the bodies were scattered about.

Great pits 40 feet long, 16 feet across and 20 feet deep were dug to take the hundreds who were dying daily. One plague pit was dug in Gower's Walk (off what is not Commercial Road) and human remains were found, without coffins, in 1893.

The streets became empty as more and more people died and the rest were either confined to their houses or just stayed at home for fear of bringing the Plague back with them on their return. Shops were shut and the areas where the Plague had struck became silent. Due to lack of use grass started growing on the road where none had grown before.

Those who had the courage to leave their homes often feared returning and taking the Plague back to their loved ones. The City of London became a hellhole and sufferers sometimes went mad and wandered the streets bringing fear to the healthy who were brave enough to go out on the streets.

People bringing food into London were taken on special routes to prevent them seeing the full horror of what was taking place and to ensure their return with more food.

The lightermen of Ware, Hertfordshire were the only bargemen to continue to carry goods and supplies into London during the Plague and were later rewarded, by the City of London, with special privileges on the river.

Eventually, during the Plague, country folk brought their goods to places such as Spitalfields and carried out their business at a distance from the city dwellers. The money to pay for the food was placed in a jar of vinegar or water in the belief this would safeguard those receiving it from catching the illness.

Friends of those living in unaffected areas were often reluctant to receive letters from them for fear of catching the Plague.

The year 1665 saw this terrible disease cause more deaths in Stepney than in any other parish in London with 6583 dying. Between 8 and 22 August 470 died in Stepney. It was noted that the deaths in the Stepney parish were generally where the parish joined Shoreditch, the area called Spitalfields.

Defoe wrote: 'where the parish of Stepney comes up to the very wall of Shoreditch Churchyard and the plague at this time was abated at St Giles-in-the-Fields, and raged most violently in Cripplegate, Bishopsgate and Shoreditch parishes; but there were not ten people a week that died of it in all that part of Stepney parish which takes in Limehouse, Ratcliffe Highway, and which are now the parishes of Shadwell and Wapping, even to St Catherine's by the Tower, till after the whole month of August was expired. But they paid for it afterwards....' This,' he continued 'made the people of Redriff (Rotherhythe) and Wapping, Ratcliffe and Limehouse, so secure, and flatter themselves so much with the plague's going off without reaching them, that they took no care either to fly into the country or shut themselves up'. Instead they invited in friends and relations from the city and many took sanctuary in that part because they thought it would not be visited by the plague. So it was that they were surprised and not ready when it arrived amongst them with violence in September and October.

Some fled from the district and were later found starved to death because no-one was prepared to help them for fear of becoming infected. Many fled into ships only to find they had no provisions and no one to fetch them. The poor used smaller boats such as lighters and smacks. The watermen preferred to live in their own boats and would sometimes get provisions but often they became infected and would die in their anchored boat only to be discovered many days later.

Over 1000 died in Stepney and Whitechapel in one week at the end of September. When St Dunstans graveyard became full a pit was dug at the corner of Mile End Rd and (now) Cambridge Heath Rd. One such pit in Stepney received 1114 corpses.

The Stepney river trade, despite being blamed for bringing the Plague, continued to bring in the much needed food and goods. There was plenty of food because it was a good year for corn making bread cheap, and as it had not been a good year for grass and hay meat was also cheap. Defoe reported that hay in the Market at Whitechapel was sold at 4 pounds a load. Because it had also been a good year for fruit it was also cheap and the poor ate a lot of it and this often brought on 'fluxes, griping of the guts, surfeits, and the like, which often precipitated them into the plague'.

Because the graveyards became full new areas had to be found to bury the dead. Defoe again 'Stepney parish, extending itself from the east part of London to the north, even to the very edge of Shoreditch Churchyard, had a piece of ground taken in to bury their dead close to the said churchyard, and which for that very reason was left open, and is since, I suppose, taken into the same churchyard. And they had also two other burying-places in Spitalfields, one where since a chapel or tabernacle has been built for ease to this great parish, and another in Petticoat Lane.

There were no less than five other grounds made use of for the parish of Stepney at that time. One where now stands the parish church of St Paul, Shadwell, and another where now stands the parish church of St John's at Wapping, both of which had not the names of parishes at that time, but were belonging to Stepney parish.'

The last person to die of the plague was Widow Cooper of Shadwell, in December 1665.