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Burnley Express

Wednesday 19 April 1893

Purchase Of A Hospital For Nelson

The Spread Of Smallpox

On Monday it was reported to the medical officer of health, Dr. Millar, that an outbreak of smallpox had occurred in another part of the town to that in which the first case arose last week. The subjject of the attack is a young man named Shuttleworth, who lived with his wife's parents and family at No. 32, Dalton-street. During the morning he was removed from his home to the house in Albion-street where the case was reported last week. This caused a great feeling of irritation amongst the other tenants of houses in Albion-street, who objected to one of the cottages there, with its situation in the centre of the town, being converted into a smallpox hospital. In consequence of their complaints the matter was brought before a special meeting of the Health Committee held on Monday afternoon and it was then decided to purchase a temporary infectious hospital - a corrugated iron biulding - and locate it upon the land recently acquired by the Corporation for cemetery purposes. The same evening a meeting of the General Purposes Committee, consisting of the whole of the members of the Council, was held, when the Health Committee's proposal was severely criticised. The opponents of the scheme argued that it would
COST ABOUT £700,
and not £200 as the committee suggested, and they submitted a counter-proposal to purchase Catlow House, at Southfield, from Mr. Norton Pickles, or, in the alternative, arranging for the tenancy of Mrs. Matthew's house in Walverden. This proposal was put in the form if a resolution, and the Health Committee's scheme was submitted as an amendment, and rejected by eight votes to six, several of the COuncil abstaining from voting. Yesterday the sub-committee empowered to carry out the resolutions arranged for the purchase, for £320, of Catlow House (a building containing about 12 rooms and surrounded by over an acre of land). Steps will be taken for the immediate occupancy of the house as an infectious diseases hospital, and it is anticipated that the sufferers from smallpox will be removed there by the end of the present week.

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Mel

Searching for lost relatives? Win the Lottery!

I think that has been pulled down now, wasn't it in the field on the right as you leave Cockden going towards Colne, after the farm buildings?

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Gloria

I'd be dangerous with a brain.

Interesting reading. Yes I remember it being on the right at the top of the hill as you come out of Catlow Bottoms towards Colne. It was in a field (near the disused quarry) just past the unmade Crawshaw Lane. It was a long green corrugated building and we all knew it as the 'isolation hospital'. If you zoom in on Mario maps and tick the 1960's aerial view you can make it out quite well. As kids we were told to keep away from it or we might catch something - think that was to make sure we didn't go near the ramshackle building! Don't know just when it was demolished, possibly sometime in the 60's.

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Rockyrobin

You can take a lass out of Lancashire, but you can't take the Lancashire out of a lass!