Burial ground that is key to a tragedy

BURIAL grounds, especially those from the 19th century, combined with archive records, are an invaluable historical resource on life as well as on death

The Old Burial Ground in Melbourne is a good example of this, but the uncomfortable proximity of 19th century life to tragedy is revealed with every enquiry I’m sure that many will be familiar with one gravestone in particular which illustrates far too well the devastating circumstances that followed a simple beginning It is propped against the north wall of the cemetery and visible from Castle Street

Samuel Matthews was born in 1818 in Elmdon, Warwickshire, and Sarah Manning a year earlier in Nobottle, Northamptonshire They met during the 1840s when he was a labourer and she was in service

They were married at the newly built St Alkmund’s Church in Derby on August 21, 1847, just one year after building was complete, and lived at Kedleston Street, Derby

The church was situated between Bridge Gate and Queen Street but no longer exists after redevelopment in 1968

Soon after marriage the couple moved to Woodhouses which, according to diarist John Joseph Briggs, was a little hamlet and usually considered a ‘healthy place’ Samuel was employed as gamekeeper on the Melbourne Estate and in 1849 their first child, Sarah, was born By 1859 the couple had four more children – William, Emma, Edward, and Elizabeth

The spring of 1859 was unseasonably warm as recorded by Briggs, but he later noted of the previous season that ‘a milder winter perhaps never occurred and one never more productive of sickness and death’

Samuel and Sarah and their family survived the winter, but March was the last month that they would spend together

Melbourne’s Paul Brooks tells of a “Circumstance of Character Recently Occurred” that tells the sad story behind a local gravestone

ABOVE: Great Brington Church, where Samuel was buried in an unmarked grave in 1882.

TOP LEFT: The children’s gravestone in Melbourne’s Old Burial Ground ing zero by the 1890s in most parts of the country population, or even within the same family, and treatment was rudimentary to the extent that survival was more a matter of chance than medical intervention Such proved to be the case for the Matthews children, who were short of good fortune

Samuel and Sarah left Melbourne shortly after the tragedy and the 1861 census finds them living in Cold Overton, Leicestershire, some 40 miles from Melbourne They were still in Overton, although not at the same address, for the 1871 census Samuel’s occupation is recorded as gamekeeper/rural labourer although whether he actually had employment during this time is unknown They had no more children

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On April 5 William Matthews died aged eight months Two days later both Elizabeth aged seven and Edward aged four died, and the following day five-year-old Emma succumbed Sarah was the last to die on April 9, the eldest at nine years All children were buried soon after death in the Old Burial Ground with a single engraved headstone

On April 8 Briggs made reference to ‘a circumstance of an affecting character ’ in the town It is reasonable to rely on his observations but not on his interpretation of the tragedy, which upon supposition ‘by some persons’, was attributed to the warm weather, a quantity of putrid meat which Samuel had collected for his dogs, and manure situated near the house – all of which ‘generated in the immediate locality an unhealthy state of the atmosphere and caused the death of the family’ The idea of miasmas or noxious vapours was popular at the time until the true agents of disease were identified

The Matthews children died from scarlatina or scarlet fever as it is now more commonly known, untreatable and frequently fatal to children until the discovery of antibiotics

Physicians of the day could characterise and identify the disease, but it was several decades before a bacterial cause was confirmed The onset of symptoms could progress very quickly and children in the 19th century were known to succumb within as few as 48 hours Spread of the disease was generally through contact, but a common source of the bacteria in historical outbreaks was reportedly unpasteurised milk handled by infected dairy workers Symptoms could vary widely within the

Samuel and Sarah were not alone in losing all of their children to infectious disease Briggs remarked on another example in 1861 that ‘a new disease called diphtheria is very rife At the village of Milton, near Repton, a family named Somers lost four children of it’ Measles and whooping cough (pertussis) also claimed victims among infants and children in Melbourne

By contrast deaths from smallpox were falling nationally as a direct consequence of medical science and public health measures such that childhood mortality, formerly significant for smallpox deaths, was approach-

Sarah Matthews died in 1880 aged 63, the registration documenting that she died at Woodhouses, Melbourne, although there is no suggestion that the couple moved back there since the 1871 census

Any wish that Sarah may have had to be buried with her children could not be granted since the Old Burial Ground closed to new burials in 1860 She is interred in the new cemetery in Packhorse Road (then Cemetery Road) Her grave is not marked in any way but it is possible to precisely locate the plot based on excellent burial records and adjacent marked graves

After Sarah’s death Samuel lived with the family of his nephew, William Dunkley (Sarah’s side of the family), in Great Brington, Northamptonshire From an additional census descriptor it would be reasonable to infer that he had advanced dementia

Samuel died in 1882 at Great Brington aged 65 and is buried in the churchyard there, also in an unmarked grave

That Samuel and Sarah were both interred without a headstone reflects their poor status and probably that of their relatives That the grave of their children was marked by a slate headstone engraved by Dunicliff, engravers par excellence of the day, suggests that others funded the memorial

The devastation for Samuel and Sarah Matthews following the loss of all five of their children in as many days is unimaginable

That the family was ultimately unable to rest together in the same place would have been reason for additional sadness had they not been beyond the reach of further grief