A sad but typical tale of 1700s English rural infant mortality is told by this headstone in the graveyard of St Augustine’s parish church at Brookland, Kent, amid the low-lying wetlands of Walland Marsh. It records the death in infancy or childhood between 1740 and 1751 of three children born to Martha and Stephen Terry - at a time when infant death rates in marshland parishes were two to three times higher than in downland villages. Romney and Walland marshes were afflicted by infectious and chronic diseases such as bubonic plague and smallpox - and by malaria, which was once endemic.
Brookland, Kent, United Kingdom: the sad reality of rural infant mortality in 18th century England is brought into sharp focus by this lichen-encrusted headstone in the graveyard of the ancient Parish Church of Saint Augustine. The sculpted memorial records the death in infancy or early childhood, over an 11-year-period, of three children born to Martha Terry and her husband Stephen: Thomas (died 1740), Henry (died 1745) and Elizabeth (died 1751). Similar gravestones can be found in country parishes in many parts of England, with high numbers of childhood deaths continuing throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. St Augustine’s church was constructed around 1250 on an artificial mound in Walland Marsh, part of Romney Marsh with its low-lying land prone to flooding and criss-crossed by dykes and ditches. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Romney Marsh was known for its prevalence of disease and death, amongst adults as well as babies and children. Scrutiny of parish registers has shown that rates of infant mortality in the marshland villages were some two to three times higher than in neighbouring downland communities. Although the parish registers give no indications of cause of death, the marshes were afflicted by a range of infectious and chronic diseases, including bubonic plague, smallpox and fevers. Malaria - once endemic in the marshes - also took its toll, although by the mid-19th century the malaria threat had receded and Romney Marsh had become one of the healthier districts of Kent.
Size: 3750px × 2510px
Location: Parish Church of St Augustine, Brookland, Kent, England, United Kingdom
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: -lying, 1700s, 1740, 1745, 1751, augustine, augustine’, british, brookland, bubonic, built, child, childhood, chronic, church, churchyard, conditions, , death, deaths, died, disease, endemic, england, english, epidemics, family, fever, grave, gravestone, graveyard, grief, headstone, heavy, higher, infancy, infant, infectious, kent, kerr, kingdom, lichen-encrusted, lives, malaria, marsh, marshland, mid-1700s, mortality, parish, plague, rates, romney, rural, saint, short, smallpox, st, terence, toll, tombstone, tragedies, tragic, uk, unhealthy, united, village, walland, wetlands
