Does history repeat itself? At the moment, everyone in the country is being affected by government rules and regulations put in place because of the pandemic caused by the coronavirus. In the United Kingdom, as in many other countries around the world, leaders have ordered people, apart from essential “key workers”, to stay at home. This is sometimes called “lockdown” and is an important way of stopping the disease spreading so quickly because someone with the virus can infect (or pass on the illness) to many others, whether or not they feel ill themselves. “Social distancing” (not going too close to other people we are not living with even when leaving the house is absolutely necessary) also means that the virus will not spread so easily. One definition of “lockdown” is that people are not allowed to enter or leave a building or area freely because of an emergency [https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/lockdown] and this fits quite well with what we are experiencing at the moment in the United Kingdom. Rules at the moment are not quite as strict as this and we are allowed to go out to shop and for exercise. Until a little while ago rules in Spain were even more strict – children were not allowed out of their homes at all! People over seventy years old and some others have been recommended to “self- isolate” – to stay indoors all the time to help avoid contact with anyone who may pass on the virus to them. It is called “self”-isolation because it is not a government order, but a strong recommendation and people have to make up their own minds about what is the best thing for them to do. Throughout history there have been epidemics and pandemics which have killed many tens of thousands of people. It is said that we should learn from history, so it is interesting to look back at the past to see what lessons may be learned and to think about how people coped in the past. Coronavirus is a pandemic – many countries across the world in all continents are being affected by it. You may be surprised to learn that in many of those countries (including USA, Canada and France, newspapers and television news stories are being reported about a small village in Derbyshire, called Eyam, just forty miles away from our school. Eyam is famous the world over as “the plague village” and, when you know the history of the village, you will understand why the story of what happened there over 350 years ago is relevant to our current situation. The following pages are adapted for you from newspaper and other articles that have been recently published together with resources from the Eyam Museum. 1 WJS/GJ Apr 2020 After reading the information, please try answering these questions. (There are other tasks at the end of the document.) 1a) List some similarities and differences between the plague and coronavirus. 1b) Next list some similarities and differences between the way people reacted to the plague and how people have responded to coronavirus. 2) It has been suggested that self-isolation is not so difficult for people now as it would have been in the 17th century. What different reasons could people give for this view? 3) If Rev’d William Mompesson had foreseen coronavirus coming and had written a letter to us in the 21st century, what do you think he would say? 4) If you could send something back in time to the people of 17th century Eyam, would you choose to send a mobile phone, some PPE, a message saying that their sacrifice and success is still remembered in 2020, or something else? Explain your choice. So… The year was 1665. Just over a hundred years after the reign of King Henry VIII. A terrible illness, now called the bubonic plague, was killing thousands of people in London and people were very fearful that it would spread as it had in the 1300s when it killed about half the population of the whole country [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death_in_England]. This second bubonic plague pandemic had affected many countries. (It is regarded as starting in China in 1331 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Plague_of_London] and outbreaks affected different parts of the world from time to time between then and until it seemed to end in the 1750s.) There had been serious outbreaks in England in 1603, 1625 and 1636 but the epidemic starting in 1665 (now known as the Great Plague) seemed more significant and brought fear to every corner of the country. Everyone had heard terrible stories of how Londoners were being devastated by the plague and there were rumours that it was beginning to spread about the country. Then, to their horror, first one person, then a whole family showed symptoms and quickly died of the disease. The plague had come to Eyam and the people had to decide what to do. The following text is adapted for children from “Remembering the selfless Derbyshire villagers who self-isolated during the plague” by Paul Fry and published on DerbyshireLive by the Derby Telegraph. Source: https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/news/health/eyam-derbyshire- bubonic-plague-quarantine-3948082 and from Eyam plague: The village of the damned by David McKenna, BBC News, 5 November 2016 Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35064071 2 WJS/GJ Apr 2020 Because of the coronavirus, many countries are cutting themselves off from the rest of the world to help stop the infection’s spread. Eyam, a small hamlet in the Derbyshire Dales, could be seen to have set the model for such an approach during Britain’s Bubonic Plague crisis in the 17th century. The village dates from the Roman era, though evidence of even earlier settlements has been found. Local people made their living from lead mining and the last pit at Ladywash only closed as recently as 1979. But Eyam’s fame comes not from mining but from how many of its villagers gave their lives to save countless others during the Great Plague of 1665 and 1666, when England, and London in particular, was ravaged by a ‘Black Death’ – the bubonic plague, a deadly disease carried by fleas transported by black rats. This occurred during the centuries-long pandemic – a long period of occasional but catastrophic epidemics which began in Europe in 1347 and lasted until 1750. The Great Plague killed about 100,000 people, roughly 15 per cent of London’s population at that time. This is the story of Eyam: In the early summer of 1665, with the terrible disease spreading north from London, an Eyam tailor called Alexander Hadfield ordered a bale of cloth from London to make into clothes for the villagers. When it arrived, the tailor’s assistant, George Viccars, had opened the roll of cloth but found it “damp and smelling foul’’, so he put it near the fire to dry. But the warmth from the fire caused fleas contained in the cloth to settle on him. He was dead within seven days, followed soon after by his two stepsons, a next-door neighbour – and then the tailor himself. Within a few weeks, in September, five people from the village died. In October, 23 perished altogether. People were dropping, all seemingly at random. It was clear the much- Figure 1 The village of Eyam sealed itself off during the Plague to stop the feared plague had disease spreading (Image: Tamworth Herald) reached the village. The disease swept through the village. Between September and December 1665, 42 villagers died and by the spring of 1666, many were on the verge of fleeing their homes and livelihoods to save themselves. 3 WJS/GJ Apr 2020 It was at this point that the newly appointed rector [the minister of the village church, Rev’d] William Mompesson, intervened. Mompesson suggested that they should all agree to quarantine themselves, allowing nobody to enter or leave the village – fully knowing that many would not survive. Most of the people had wanted to go to Sheffield, the nearest big city, or the nearby town of Bakewell but he persuaded them that to do so would be to risk countless more lives when the north had not suffered as London and its surrounding area had. They reluctantly agreed. Figure 2 William Mompesson convinced the remaining villagers to stay He ordered families to bury their dead in their own plots of land, not the church burial ground. Later he even stopped people going to church for services so that they were not crowded together – instead he only held services and meetings in the open-air where people could spread themselves out. In the weeks and months that followed, things were tough – it was a struggle to survive. The villagers were given food by those who lived outside the village. People brought donations of food and left them at large stones that marked the boundary of Eyam village. The villagers, in turn, left money in a water trough filled with vinegar to sterilise the coins. The Boundary Stone can still be seen. One can only imagine how the villagers tackled each day. For many, of course, there would be the task of nursing a sick loved one. There were no modern medicines or PPE in those days. For the dying, there was awful suffering, but thankfully only for a few days; for the dead, there could not even be a proper funeral service. August 1666 saw the highest number of victims, reaching a peak of five or six deaths a day.