By Christine Swan
The early 1900s seem to have been the best years for David Deighton Taylor. After the loss of their first child in 1893, David and Julia went on to have seven children: May Elena, Albert Edward, James Edwin, Frank Henry, William Alfred, Violet Alice and Arthur George.
The Taylor family in the 1911 England census
When researching my great grandfather, I stumbled across a Poor Law settlement record for a William English, half-brother of David. This single document led to several discoveries because, at that time, I had not yet discovered the David’s stepfather, also William English.
William English, dock labourer, in the Bethnal Green Infirmary 1907
David Taylor, half-brother of William English
In 1871, William English the younger was living with the family in Henrietta Street along with his half brothers David and John aged 10. More on William English will be added in a future post but his significance to the Taylor family was his re-emergence after the death of his wife and his own failing health led him to seek poor relief in 1907. Attached to the record was a letter. I recognised the scrawl of my great grandfather straight away. William had been living with the Taylors in Wadeson Street but, now had a terminal diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis. It was an act of familial generosity to offer a home to him but ultimately, they put their own lives at risk. William was admitted to Hackney Union infirmary where he later passed away. Sadly, his time spent in the Taylor household did not leave them unscathed.
A scrawled note from David Taylor, 1907. I am particularly drawn to the phonetic spelling and can imagine David saying this with a Cockney accent.
Incredibly, the discovery that tuberculosis was caused by a bacterium was not made until 1882 by the German physician and microbiologist, Robert Koch. Until that point, it was assumed to be a hereditary condition as it appeared to be linked within families. In 1905 he won the Nobel prize for medicine. Koch didn’t get the science completely accurate as we now know it, for example, he believed that injecting a secret mixture, later disclosed to be of glycerine and a culture of tuberculosis bacteria, would halt the progression of the disease. It did not and the results of the trial were disastrous. However, the hypersensitive reaction, and the use of the mixture known as tuberculin, continued as a test for the presence of disease and an immune response. The TB skin test was developed by Clemens von Pirquet in 1907. The skin test was refined over the following decades and the one that I remember from my school days involved a staplegun type contraption that delivered a set of pin pricks in a pattern. It seemed to me that regardless of how you reacted, you were still given the BCG (Bacille Calmette-Guérin) immunisation injection. This was first developed in 1921, and use of antibiotics in treating the condition, not until the 1940s with further refinements in treatment during the following two decades. None of these developments could have prevented the deaths of my ancestors sadly.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis and tubercules, sketched by Robert Koch, 1882. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Tuberculosis or, consumption, as it was also called, gained a reputation of being associated with delicate individuals of a sensitive and fragile nature, as well as being associated with poor housing, not enough food and overcrowding. This interesting juxtaposition brings everybody equal. It doesn’t matter if you can afford a countryside villa to enable you to take the air, as D.H. Lawrence did, or if you are living in an impoverished hovel. If you have contracted the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, your fate may have been sealed. I say may because not everybody in a household did die. For example, in my own family. I can remember my mum telling me about a girl in her primary school who had recovered from TB returning to her school and my grandmother advising her to not sit next to her in what would have been the 1930s. Some of our literary favourites were swept away by tuberculosis including Keats, Barrett Browning, multiple Brontes, Lawrence and Orwell to name some. Unfortunately, during my great grandparents’ time, surviving TB was unlikely.
In 1912, David’s wife Julia died of tuberculosis. This would have had a huge impact on the family of seven children, the youngest just less than two years old. May would have helped as the eldest daughter at 15, Albert would have been 13 so perhaps he was able to help too with the younger children. May was working as a French polisher in 1911 and I know that Albert became a building labourer so they may have been able to supplement the family income too. Their father had not enjoyed good health and had been admitted to Bethnal Green Infirmary in 1907 and again in 1914. I strongly suspect that his admission to the London Hospital in 1891 may also have been associated with the early development of tuberculosis which had also claimed his mother in 1878.
Julia Taylor death certificate detail, 1912
David Taylor in Bethnal Green Infirmary in 1915 then transferred to St George in the East temporary infirmary
Infirmary admission with informant, Albert Taylor who was just 15 years of age at this point
David clearly wasn’t able to keep the family together and the younger children were taken into the care of the Bethnal Green Board of Guardians and eventually moved to different institutions and training facilities. He moved into Belmont Mansions on Goldsmith’s Row which was to be his final residential address. The older children were able to make their own way and it was Albert who took his ailing father to the infirmary in the years before he died. In 1915 he was taken to the temporary infirmary at St George in the East because Bethnal Green Infirmary was being used to treat casualties from the Great War. Later that year, Bethnal Green was operational again and David finally succumbed to the disease in January 1917.
David was admitted to the temporary infirmary in St Georges in the East before returning to Bethnal Green Infirmary on Cambridge Heath Road where he died
My father was always pleased that I took the time to find out what I could about David because, with name changes and the constant changes in his life, it was not straightforward. David only enjoyed snatches of family life before something disrupted it but Tuberculosis had the biggest impact of all, taking his mother, half-brother, wife and eventually himself. When I had my TB skin test and BCG immunisation, it always seemed to be a disease in serious decline in the UK – almost unheard of. When Mum and Dad were at school in the 1930s, it was still a threat, but, by that time, both the cause and detection were known. My grandfather very much had the look of his own father. He was just fifteen years of age when he took his father to the infirmary and must have known how very ill he was. As a testament to his compassion, he himself became a sick ward attendant and passed nursing qualifications.
I still am no wiser as to the history of our surname of Taylor but, with David’s passing, this was the last time that the name of Deighton continued in my branch of the family tree.
Information sources
Bethnal Green workhouses https://www.workhouses.org.uk/BethnalGreen/
Guardian 2018 How London became the tuberculosis capital of Europe https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/nov/26/how-london-became-the-tuberculosis-capital-of-europe
CDC World TB day https://www.cdc.gov/tb/worldtbday/history.htm
Robert Koch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Koch
Awful Rigours and Wretched Pay 