Sanatory inquiry-towns in Scotland. Report on the sanatory condition and general economy of the town of Tranent, and the neighbouring district in Haddingtonshire / Made to the Poor Law Commissioners.

  • Alison, S. Scott (Somerville Scott), 1813-1877.
Date:
[1841]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sanatory inquiry-towns in Scotland. Report on the sanatory condition and general economy of the town of Tranent, and the neighbouring district in Haddingtonshire / Made to the Poor Law Commissioners. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    8/40 (page 8)
    External economy. External economy of the houses of colliers. No drains in houses of the labouring classes. Supply of water in Tranent. washed; and every few days the whole wooden furniture in the house1 is subjected to thorough cleansing with sand and warm water. The various articles of furniture, and the different household utensils, are kept in places allotted to them ; and the earthenware and china, well cleaned, are neatly arranged, and made to serve as ornaments to the apartment. The metal spoons/candlesticks, and pitchers for containing milk and water, are well burnished. The milk taken from the cow may be seen set apart in vessels kept in the nicest order; and beside them lie the churning-barrel and strainer. A tire sheds its cheerful influ¬ ence over the scene ; the kettle never wants hot water ; and the honest, frugal housewife is ever discharging some household duty in a spirit of placid contentment, attending to her partner when present, or preparing his meals against his return from the fields. The external economy of the houses of the hinds is on the whole very good. The ground in front of the cottages is kept clean and free of impurities. The little garden, which is almost invariably connected with the cottage, is kept in good order, and is in general well cultivated. The external economy of the houses of the day-labouring population is on the whole much inferior. The external economy of the houses of the colliers is on the whole most intolerably filthy and unwholesome. Heaps of putrid materials are collected in front of the cottages and houses; and the gardens which are attached to many of the cottages inhabited by these people are overrun with weeds, and are altogether very much neglected. The houses of the labouring population are not usually supplied with drains. Where they inhabit houses of a superior order but in a dilapidated condition, which they sometimes do, they may have the ad¬ vantage of drains. The land around the dwellings of the labouring population is in general well drained, being in general let to farmers of wealth and intelligence. .... I do not believe there is a house in Tranent into which water is conducted by pipes. There existed great difficulty on many occa¬ sions in getting water at all. During the seven years I lived there, the village was, on the whole, extremely ill supplied with water: it was usual for it to be occasionally absent from Tranent altogether. Last summer the supply of water was stopped for several months. The inhabitants suffered the greatest inconvenience from this cause: they could not get sufficient water to maintain cleanliness of person and clothes. It was even difficult for labouring people to get enough to cook their victuals ; and I know that many of the poor were, in consequence, reduced to the practice of using impure and unwhole¬ some water. On these occasions water was carried from a considerable distance from the village. Some went the distance of a mile: some used barrels drawn on carriages: some employed children to bring it in small vessels ; and, I doubt not, many went without it, when it was highly necessary, from inability or infirmity to go themselves, and from want of funds to employ another for the purpose. Since the above was written I have learned from a lady, previously resident in Tranent, that, when cholera prevailed in that district, some of the patients suffered very much indeed from want of water, and that so great was the privation, that on that calamitous occasion people went into the ploughed fields and gathered the rain-water which collected in depressions in the ground, and actually in the prints made by horses’ feet. ' Tranent was formerly well supplied with water of excellent quality by a spring above the village which flows through a sand-bed. The water flows into Tranent at its head, or highest quarter, and is received into about ten wells distributed throughout the village.