The London Plague of 1636

The London plague of 1636 was one of the second degree, for the capital, and was otherwise peculiar as being rather later in the autumnal season than usual. The following table of the weekly mortalities shows how it increased, reached a height, and declined.

Christened Buried in all Buried of
plague

Dec. 24 231 170 0

31 195 174 0

1636

Jan. 7 217 189 0

14 242 174 0

21 220 190 0

28 214 171 0

Feb. 4 227 183 0

11 234 160 0

18 207 203 0

25 198 238 0

Mar. 3 221 198 0

10 231 194 0

17 244 187 0

24 215 177 0

31 193 196 0

Apr. 7 202 199 2

14 221 205 4

21 202 205 7

28 271 210 4

May 5 197 206 4

12 199 254 41

19 171 244 22

26 160 263 38

June 2 189 276 51

9 153 275 64

16 145 325 86

23 149 257 65

30 141 273 82

July 7 152 265 64

14 142 298 86

21 146 350 108

28 183 365 136

Aug. 4 152 394 181

11 166 465 244

18 167 546 284

25 161 690 380

Sept. 1 163 835 536

8 153 921 567

15 166 1106 728

22 172 1018 645

29 168 1211 796

Oct. 6 170 1195 790

13 164 1117 682

20 174 855 476

27 133 779 404

Nov. 3 153 1156 755

10 164 966 635

17 143 827 512

24 162 747 408

Dec. 1 168 550 290

8 175 335 143

15 134 324 79

9,522 23,359 10,400

The parishes chiefly affected were the same as in 1625 and 1603. Stepney is still wanting from the general bill; but after 1636 it was included therein, along with Newington, Lambeth, Westminster, Islington and Hackney. These omitted parishes doubtless contributed largely, Stepney in particular, so that the total of plague-deaths would have to be increased by perhaps two thousand. The following parishes had the severest mortalities:

Total deaths Plague-deaths

St Giles’s, Cripplegate 2374 870

St Mary’s, Whitechapel 1766 1060

St Olave’s, Southwark 1537 847

St Botolph’s, Aldgate 1506 735

St Sepulchre’s, Newgate 1327 566

St Saviour’s, Southwark 1269 742

St Botolph’s, Bishopsgate 1239 515

St George’s, Southwark 1044 514

St Andrew’s, Holborn 922 419

St Giles’s in the Fields 863 428

Like the greater plagues of 1603 and 1625, that of 1636 appears to have begun in the suburbs[1053]. Taylor, the Water-poet, in reprinting his poem on the plague of 1625, with some notes for 1636, says that of 1076 plague-deaths from April 7 to July 28 (the summation in the annual bill comes to 864), only 40 had occurred within the walls, so that the general infection of the City must have followed that of the Liberties and out-parishes. As early in the epidemic as 31 May, according to a record of the Middlesex Sessions, “the plague increases most at Stepney,” wherefore the Greengoose Fair at Stratford was prohibited, (the parish of Stepney extending as far as Shoreditch)[1054]. From Taylor we learn that Gravesend and Faversham had calamitous visitations, and that the infection was in many other towns and villages.

The epidemic of 1636 was like the plague of 1625 in having been preceded by much typhus fever in London, and accompanied by the same, as many as 2360 deaths being put down to fever in the plague-year in the classified causes of death now issued regularly (since 1629) in their printed bills by the Parish Clerks’ Hall. The letters and state papers of the time bear witness to the usual exodus from the City, the movements of the Court, and personal incidents, which have no farther interest after the samples given for 1625. One incident relating to the worst week of the plague in London in 1636 is preserved: eleven persons were committed to Newgate on 5 October for going with one Samuel Underhill, a trumpeter, who died of the plague, to his grave with trumpets and swords drawn in the night time in Shoreditch[1055]. The profession still makes no appearance in the way of epidemiological writing; but some “necessary directions” were drawn up by the College of Physicians, in substance the same as certain statutes issued on the alarm of plague in 1630[1056].

Next year, 1637, the plague continued in London, causing 3082 deaths out of a total of 11,763 in the bills. In 1638 there were only 363 plague-deaths, but the total mortality was 13,624, or nearly 2000 more than in the previous year, when plague alone had claimed its 3000. What were the epidemic types of disease that caused the high mortality in 1638?