This new book is to be published by Westgate Publishing of Guisborough.  In the meantime, chapters will appear at intervals on this website.

The book is dedicated
to the memory of Dr Geoffrey Stout and Miss Grace Dixon
to whom I owe many thanks for early encouragement and support.

The original research into the Hutton Rudby cholera outbreak of 1832 was done by Dr Stout.  He and I then collaborated on further work, which we wrote up for the Teesside and North Yorkshire Archives, but never published.  After his death, I presented our findings to the Hutton Rudby History Society in a talk in his memory.  Margaret Brabin of the Society urged me to write up the information - but first I thought I should complete the research.  This took several years longer than I had expected and led to many unexpected discoveries.

I would like to thank the many people who helped me on the way.  I was particularly well-served by the many sources now available on the internet and by the help of several librarians - particularly Nigel Prince and the staff of the Northallerton County Library, Jenny Parker of the Middlesbrough Reference Library, Penny Rudkin of the Southampton Reference Library, and Michele Lefevre of the Leeds Local Studies Library, who in response to my request for copies of items in the Leeds newspapers relating to the cholera in October 1832 found the letter written by Mr Barlow to the Leeds Mercury. The Borthwick Institute and the Cambridge University Library were also most helpful.  I owe a great deal of information to Jacky Quarmby's work on the Brigham family and to a most fruitful collaboration with her over this interesting episode.

Many thanks to Kate Milburn and Julia Weeks for their helpful comments over the years, and lastly to my proof-readers Margaret Brabin, Shirley Storey and above all Lynda McPhie.

I have not attempted to give modern equivalents of the money of the day, but rather to place it in context to give an idea of value.  

It was generally estimated at this time that a yearly income of £150 was the bare minimum for middle-class life, and that a family needed £300 to live respectably in a town, where expenses were higher.  A good urban artisan's wage in 1835 was round about a pound a week.  An income of £1,000 put a man at the top end of the middle class. 

For those unfamiliar with pre-decimal coinage:-

12 pence (12d)  =  1 shilling  (1s. or 1/-)
20 shillings  (20s. or 20/-)  =  £1
One pound and one shilling  (£1-1s or £1/1/0)  =  1 guinea (1 gn.)

The penny was subdivided:-

One-quarter of a penny  (¼d)  =  1 farthing
Half a penny  (½d)  =  one halfpenny (pronounced "haypny" and sometimes written "ha'penny")

Pronunciation:  the suffix "-pence" is now usually pronounced as it is spelt.  This practice only began after decimalisation, when for a time "pence" was usually prefixed by "new".
Previously, "-pence" (in compound words) was always shortened to something nearer "pnce".
For example, in "threepence", the ee and e were pronounced short ("thrupnce" or "threhpnce").