242 Local History
Petworth House - small pox isolation hospital By local author & artist David Johnston A smallpox epidemic which broke out in London early in 1721 led to considerable publicity being given to inoculation. That year several condemned criminals at Newgate were inoculated as an experiment, and when these proved successful inoculation was accepted by many prominent members of society. One of the most forwardlooking men of the 18th century was the 3rd Lord Egremont of Petworth House. He was intensely interested in new developments in medicine and in him, Dr. Edward Jenner was to find an ally in support of his discovery of vaccination. By a remarkable coincidence there must have been considerable interest in smallpox inoculation in West Sussex at the time Lord Egremont was born; for there is still in existence a fascinating fragment of medical and local history, which I discovered by chance back in the 1970's. This discovery came about by way of an elderly lady (Erica Bowen) who invited me to her isolated house, high up on the ridge of Bow Hill, for tea and cakes. She was one of those rare breeds, with an insatiable passion for the arts – a wealthy eccentric, who always loved the company of artists – Andy Warhol, being one of her dearest friends. Another artist, she befriended, was my cousin, Nigel Purchase, and it was in Nigel's art gallery, where I first met this oddly bohemian lady. A couple of my own paintings were up for sale in the gallery. “Please – come to my little house on the hill for tea'” she had said. “I'll meet you, and take you up there.” And so I went – a long and bumpy ride, through deep rutted lanes in her old landrover – right to the door of Blackbush House, in Chilgrove. And there inside this house – she told us the story of the place. It had apparently been, two or three hundred years ago, an isolation hospital for small pox and there – inside on the doors, were carved the names and initials of the poor souls who had suffered this disease all those years ago. It was fascinating to see the numerous scratchings in the woodwork:“I Euen was inoculated 10th April, 1753 and Rachael Caplin was inoculated the 3rd November, 1758 these two people were like Jane Peachey (August 1753), Miss Mary Day (1753) J. Newman (1758), A. Newman (March 19th 1758) Miss Mary Peachey, Mr. Peachey, Martha Adams, Jane Wyatt, and other occupants of the
Blackbush House, Chilgrove - Engravings on the door
pest house. One gentleman who rejoiced in the unusual name of Whicher Souter is said to have come to Bow Hill, 27th October, 1758 on the same day as Richard Caplin, G. Gos was there as late as 1781 and R. Souter in 1788.” Dr. Jenner, during his work as a country doctor, had always remembered the remark of a dairymaid who had once said to him that 'nobody who had ever had cowpox ever caught smallpox.' As Jenner was later to prove there was an element of truth in what she had said, and at the end of the 18th century after years of experiment, frustration, and opposition, his inoculations with cowpox instead of smallpox proved both safe and a success. Some of the earliest of these experiments were made on the people of Petworth. In 1799, 14 of them were inoculated with smallpox in mistake for cowpox, two of them died while the rest were isolated in Petworth House itself. In the face of this disaster Lord Egremont never lost faith in Dr. Jenner. A few months later Dr. Jenner came to Petworth himself, stayed for nine days and vaccinated 200 people. As a shorter term for cowpox inoculation, a Plymouth surgeon had coined the word vaccination, and years later when Louis Pasteur discovered an inoculation for anthrax he used, a tribute to Jenner, the word vaccination for any protective inoculation. Here in West Sussex in the town of Petworth, in the splendid house of the Earls of Egremont, and in Black Bush cottage high in the Downs, we have a unique link with the people who suffered the nightmare of smallpox, and with the man who conquered it. David R.G. Johnston: Sussex author: photographer and Artist. www.davidjohnston.org.uk or email: johnston.david.rg@gmail.com
