My thanks go to local researcher and author Ruth Newman for submitting the following article:

Salisbury suffered a severe cholera epidemic in the Summer of 1849. The open water channels ensured that the disease spread like wildfire with 192 people dying in under two months. It became one of the hotspots in the country.

The Journal in mid-July 1849 reported the death from cholera of Adam Burbage, aged seven, in White’s Court, Chipper Lane, a place lacking ‘ventilation and drainage’. But just a week later, although cholera was spreading rapidly, the paper reported that the disease was now ‘thankfully abating'. After this, nearly all accounts disappeared from the newspaper for five weeks.

There was paranoia in Victorian England about cholera which could strike a person dead within 24 hours. People were alarmed that the disease was no respecter of class. The (London) Times reported that ‘deaths have occurred in Salisbury in nearly every street': two children of a brewer, an organ builder, vicar and the ‘beloved wife of James Smith, editor of The Journal, aged 30’. Nine people died in the Cathedral Close including a young surgeon.

By mid-August nearly 150 people had died although The Journal chose not to acknowledge this. But all was revealed in an editorial referring to criticisms in The Times attacking the local paper for its censorship. The Times published not only full lists of deaths, but also wrote of the wealthy fleeing the city and the economic downturn. The Journal attempted to justify its news blackout by stating that it had deliberately not reported such painful facts. Everyone in Salisbury knew of the cholera epidemic and its terrible results, but despite every precaution 'it has spread in the city'. After this there were full reports in the local paper, a day of 'solemn prayer' was observed and by the end of September cholera had disappeared.

In 1849 fear of cholera and its impact on the city caused a provincial paper to retreat into a news blackout. This would be impossible today with the extensive media coverage of Covid-19, but censorship in 1849 ultimately increased awareness of this particular catastrophe.