Charles ll issued an edict in 1665 that every parish should identify a shed, a tent or a house to accommodate those identified with the plague. Alison Wall looks at the role of such isolation in times of pandemic.
Pest houses Tothill Fields, Westminster, London, lithograph 1840, Wellcome Collection
Plague, pest or pestilence houses – the terms can be used interchangeably – were buildings set apart as places to isolate those suffering plague and smallpox. It seems that there was often a favourable outcome and people survived.
There were five pest houses in London, accommodating about 600 sufferers, and there are houses still standing across the country, some Grade ll listed.
Was there a degree of restraint for those confined to the pest house? There may well have been if we look at Samuel Pepys’s comments, in his diary of 1665: “A mayde having run away was taken back to the pest house in the pest coach.”
What was the pest coach? It was a special sedan chair painted black, with black curtains, so it was clear what its function was.
Then and now, the most important difference between the 21st and the 17th centuries was the realisation in the 17th century it was wrong to admit plague and smallpox sufferers into the general hospitals or hospitiums, as they were initially called. The latter were there to serve the poor and suffering and give general shelter and care.
Charles II looked back in history and understood the importance of isolation and care in the pest houses. Sadly, our equivalent Nightingale hospitals were erected in a very reactive and uncoordinated fashion. In our time, how many people were admitted into the general hospitals with some acute or chronic condition, unrelated to Covid but caught Covid in hospital and died? Many health professionals also died in the early days of Covid.
Another, if less significant contrast, is that in the time of the Great Plague in 1665, thousands of stray cats and dogs were slaughtered, as people believed they carried dirt and fleas. The cat population could have helped reduce the numbers of black rats that were carrying the plague carrying fleas. Conversely, during the Covid lockdown many people homed cats and dogs for companionship.
The spread of Covid across the world has had a massive impact. The isolation that plague victims must have experienced – and sometimes tried to escape – has echoes in that endured during lockdown in the period of Covid. Isolation causes huge psychological and emotional impacts, with greater understanding of this post Covid.
Inevitably there will be future pandemics. We need to reflect and plan for the future, remembering the value of those parish pest houses.
Alison Wall is a retired nurse, midwife and health visitor. She is the author of “Plague Houses and Pandemics”. Before her retirement she worked in Camden and Islington as a public health strategist.
Alison Ward with a figure wearing plague masque
References and further reading
- https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/great-plague/
- Byrne, J. Encyclopedia of the Black Death. Bloomsbury. 2024. p.217
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/nuf.12001
- Latham, R.C. & Matthews, W. (ed) 1885. The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Vol. Vl. p.120
- Boyd, D. Plagues and Pandemics. Pen and Sword. 2021. p. 67