Victorian Sunderland's social and housing
conditions were for thousands poverty, vermin, disease and
neglect. The winter of 1853 and an anonymous note delivered
through the letter box of a powerful town official would uncover a
case of neglect that would shock the whole of Sunderland. The
poorly written note said a woman was suffering at the hands of her
husband at 14 Arras Lane, in the East End.
Without too much concern assistant overseer Thomas Hedley and the
Inspector of Nuisances (he would today be a social worker) William
Banks went to investigate. After they knocked and received no
reply entered the open passageway where they were overcome by the
smell, but hearing a woman cry out they entered the dark damp back
room to find a woman shivering and afraid. In the freezing cold
she sat on an old stool with an old nightdress and a small piece
of boat sail for a cover, as the men lit a candle a plague of rats
fled from a filthy mattress nearby.
The men discovered the woman was almost blind, half starved and
crippled by disease that she could barley crawl. When asked she
said her name was Ann Smith 34 years old, but as her husband and
teenage daughter entered the house Ann immediately stopped
speaking. When Mr. Hedley and Mr Banks asked John Smith about the
state of his wife he said he could not afford to look after her,
but on searching the house the two men found well kept rooms with
well kept beds in them.
When asked about this Mr Smith replied his wife was incontinent
and would spoil the other rooms, so he kept her in the same room
as his donkey which he used for travelling the borough selling his
tins. Mr Smith and Letty the daughter were told to clean up the
room and feed Mrs Smith properly or she would be put in the
workhouse to be looked after, which would cost Mr Smith two
shillings and sixpence a week. Two weeks later when the two men
returned the walls had been whitewashed and Mrs Smith looked
better fed, so the men left and forgot the matter.
On 9th March 1853 two young women heard moans from the Smith's
house and went inside, where they found Mrs Smith so starved her
backbone was showing through her stomach. Lying in the filth
beside her was a pile of seaweed she had been left, which she
smoked in a pipe for comfort.
