My family of Gaywoods lived in London in the 19th Century, so I was curious as to what life was like for them. My great grandfather William Gaywood was a coachman who lived in Kensington and his father also called William Gaywood was  a coachman too and lived in Marylebone.

19th Century Living.

Diseases.
The following infectious diseases were rife in Britain during the 19th Century. This was exacerbated by the cramped and unsanitary living conditions in the inner city caused by the migration of the country folk into town in search of a dream of a better way of life. Typhus, typhoid fever, dysentery, tuberculosis, diphtheria, scarlet fever, smallpox etc. and venereal disease were some of the more prevalent diseases around during this century. How likely one was to catch these diseases was closely linked to age sex, class, adequate exercise and food and warmth.  Also to hygiene and louse infestations and exposure to poisonous effluent. Typhus for example was referred to as the poor man's disease and was linked to poverty, poor housing, destitution, overcrowding and lack of hygiene.

In London living conditions had become so overcrowded that any drinking water became highly contaminated by effluent from raw sewerage, decaying bodies from the problems of overcrowded cemeteries and rotting food and meat etc. For some poor or menial workers lack of daylight and exercise and labouring for hours at repetitive labour intensive work sometimes in unsanitary conditions, contributed to their poor health. Also lack of a good infrastructure and design of a system for transporting sewerage away from living areas. Little understanding of personal hygiene and very few facilities for bathing, and above all an ignorance in the cause and prevention associated with disease.

Several outbreaks of cholera and its subsequent fatalities in the middle of the 1800's were investigated as to their cause and evidence linking typhoid and cholera with contaminated drinking water emerged. Cholera occurred in England in 1831-32, 1848-49, 1853, and 1865-66.

Diseases of malnutrition such as rickets added to the woes of the family during these times. Lack of medical advice in the earlier part of the 19th Century, ignorance and poor infant nutrition and hygiene often resulted in high infant mortality rates which must have brought untold misery and pressures on family life. In the early 1800's it was a practice for the infant to have been pacified by administering gin or opiates and one can understand why a mother might have resorted to this method in desperation under appalling circumstances. This is horrifying to-day although more modern methods of meeting an infant or small child's incessant needs for any busy mother or father may also not be entirely for the benefit of the child. They may be readily placated with a sweetened dummy, or sweets, crisps and pop! Different wrapping but same content!

Between 1685 and 1801 the annual incidence of smallpox in London peaked at 2,355 per 100,000 population and never fell below 313 per 100,000. In a three year period in the late 1830s a smallpox epidemic killed 42,000 people in Britain.

Towards the end of the 19th Century the epidemics which had shaped and marked Victorian England - such as diphtheria, typhus, cholera, tuberculosis - began to be brought under control by a series of major sanitary reforms directed at the cities and towns of the industrial revolution.

Clean water, safe disposal of sewerage, reduction of overcrowding and gradual improvement in the nutritional status of the population eventually cut death rates from these and other major infectious diseases.

To have been born and to have survived during the 1800's was a journey of great risk. Avoiding the many infections and uncertainty of employment, taking care of large families and relying on your physical and psychological strengths to survive. None of the amenities and social structure we take for granted in the 21st century. For them it was a true survival of the fittest and maybe luckiest should be added to that. Does that therefore ensure that only the best of the Gaywood stock would have continued to procreate and contribute to our ancestry and influence our future. The weak and susceptible being left behind, maybe? I choose to think that ultimately this might well be the order of things.

Housing.
In London the population increase over the century doubled the numbers living per  acre and the ensuing condition is summed up by extracts from Kitson Clark, painting a picture of the deprivations of overcrowding he wrote:-"Suitable housing did not exist and the additional numbers were crammed into every nook and cranny from attic to cellar of old decaying property, or into cottages run up hastily in confined spaces with little or no access to light and air... Water and sanitation were often not provided at all, and where they were provided there was often a judicious mingling of cesspools and wells with an occasional overstocked graveyard or active slaughter house to add to the richness of the mixture..."
From the fact that the domestic and industrial fuel was coal Kitson Clark observed that:-
"From many towns particularly in winter, a heavy sulphurous smoke cloud was emitted to combine with other atmospheric conditions to make the fogs which were such a feature of Victorian England, and which probably slew their thousands."

Several unrelated families might share a lodging and space or privacy were not an option. The close proximity of other families would have added to the problems of maintaining a calm family environment and any infections would have been easily transmitted. One of the addresses for William was a stable but maybe that was a desirable residence compared with some of the alternatives, and the presence of the horse a source of warmth maybe, although the constant odour of continually processed horse dung would have been overwhelming. Maybe the flip side could have been the recycling of the dung for manure to the richer city dwellers with gardens as an addition source of income.

 Thus to know what went before is to gain an insight into certain parts of our present day existence that we may take for granted. We certainly don't always realise how well off we are to-day in comparison with our ancestors hardships and life expectancy, and are humbled by the fact of how remarkable were their chances of survival in such adverse conditions.