"Plan Shewing the Ascertained Deaths from Cholera in part of the Parishes of St. James, Westminster, and St. Anne, Soho, during the Summer and Autumn of 1854"

(July 1855)Copy of the Board of Health Map, with the addition of a circle denoting cholera area, plus colored lines indicating recent sewer construction.

[This map was included in the introduction to the Cholera Inquiry Committee's Report to the Vestry.]

This Map is the same as that which illustrates the Report of Messrs. Fraser, Ludlow and Hughes on the Cholera outbreak in this district. It is founded on the Map published in Mr. Cooper's Report to the Commissioners of Sewers; but St. Anne's Court and the neighbourhood have been added to it, and the fatal attacks which occurred in the district throughout the whole epidemic have been inserted in their respective localities where these could be accurately determined. Further explanations are given on the Map. {Page containing table of contents for the Report.]

[The next extract describes how the map was constructed:]

. . . the [Cholera Inquiry] Committee obtained from the office of the Registrar-General a Return of the House-population in the districts of Golden Square and Berwick Street, according to the Census of 1851; and from the local Registers, through Mr. Buzzard the Vestry Clerk, [iv/v] as well as from various Hospitals, documents to aid in forming an estimate of the extent and severity of the epidemic.

An early application was also made to Sir B. Hall, the President of the General Board of Health, for such information as might be at his disposal, relating to the Cholera outbreak in this Parish, but, principally on the ground that investigations of this kind were more valuable when independent, the President did not comply with this request.

More recently, in conjunction with Messrs. Fraser and Ludlow, two of the local Inspectors appointed by the Board, a deputation from the Committee endeavoured to construct as correct a chart of the deaths in the affected districts as could be made. By permission of the Board, the Committee has been enabled to obtain from the Lithographers some impressions of this map to illustrate the present Report.

[This extract explains why the Cholera Inquiry Committee decided to add a circle to the Board of Health map:]

The "Cholera area," as it may be called, of St. James's parish, may be variously described. Reference to map prefixed to this Report will render the description easily understood. . . . [16/17] . . . It has been shewn by Mr. Whitehead [in The Cholera in Berwick Street (October 1854)] that the limits of the Cholera district are also very accurately defined within an irregular four-sided figure, the north and south angles of which are placed respectively near the middle of Poland Street and at the south end of Little Windmill Street, whilst the west and east points are at the north-west corner of King Street and the east end of St. Anne's Court. The included space is rather longer from east to west than from north to south. The centre of this figure falls at the junction of Cambridge Street with Broad Street, and it has been remarked by Mr. Whitehead, as may be shewn with compasses upon the map, that a circle, having a radius of 210 yards, struck from the north-west angle of Cambridge Street includes almost the entire area, except St. Anne's Court. . . .

Image courtesy of the National Library of Medicine

[Detailed quadrants of the map are pending]