Saying goodbye to Dudley

With more research, I discovered why the Davis family decided to move back to Wales after just a few years in Dudley, Worcestershire County, England. I was fortunate to glean the following information from a FamilyTreeMaker.com site devoted to the ancestors of Clark Jay Holloway:

Mr. William Lee, a government investigator, made a survey of the town of Dudley, Worcestershire, in connection with the Public Health Act of 1848. When the Health Act was passed, Dudley was a center of English industrial activity. In the preceding ten years the population had increased from 30,000 to 40,000, but the health of the people was appalling, for scarcely a year passed without some fearful epidemic occurring. For instance, in 1832, six hundred people were killed by cholera alone and, in 1847 the town was swept by Typhus, to be followed in 1849 by another outbreak of cholera.

Throughout these epidemics there is no evidence that the local authority ever took any preventive action and the public Health Act of 1848 was completely ignored. The greatest defects of Dudley were the lack of proper drainage system and the inadequate supply of water. The disposal of refuse was very simple. The more respectable people had a cesspit, but the less respectable people kept a bucket in the house and this they emptied into the roadway during the night, hoping the wind, rain or roving pigs would have removed the contents by morning. The large mass of the people, however, made ‘privies’ of every unoccupied corner of the town.

The report also dealt with the inadequate water supply and compared the health statistics of Dudley with other industrial areas. The average age of death was a very rough indication of the health of a community. In 1853 (after the Davis family had left) the life expectancy for the village of Dudley was sixteen years.

Now I understand why they left! To have a life expectancy in Dudley that low, the majority of children must have been dying before their sixteen birthday.