17/09/2026
*HENRY HALLAM and Mid-Century MEDICINE*
F***y Stenton’s diaries rarely mention medicine, as illnesses were mainly treated with rest and prayers. Henry Hallam, however, is unique in seeking medical intervention several times.
On Monday 22nd August 1864, F***y Stenton ‘Called to see Henry Hallam in East Gate, who has come back from Sheffield Infirmary, found him in a humble state of mind, but very ill’. There is no prior mention of Hallam, but the fact that he remained ‘very ill’ after a hospital visit implies that his ailment was serious.
Another clue emerged on Wednesday 21st September, when she ‘found him very weak from being tapped the day before’. This referred to bloodletting, which was performed for various ailments.
But why did Hallam need bloodletting?
Surprisingly, his illness was specified on Thursday 29th September, when Stenton wrote ‘Henry Hallam is very bad of the Dropsy’. Dropsy, or oedema, is the build-up of fluid in the body and is often linked to more severe conditions like heart failure. Bloodletting was commonly used to offer relief, but could not cure this often-fatal ailment. Indeed, on Wednesday 5th October he was ‘no better of his disease, he is very humble and resigned’, so perhaps Hallam knew he would not get better.
Three days later on the 8th, Stenton wrote that Hallam was ‘tapped three times and I fear there is little hopes of his recovery’, and on Monday 10th October, she ‘Went to see Henry Hallam yesterday morning, he died while I was with him in a humble spirit, and I trust has gone to his rest’. Unusually, the ‘yesterday morning’ meant that Stenton saw Hallam on a Sunday, her one day off from her Bible Woman work, which emphasises her devotion to those she visited.
The 1864 diary’s List of Deaths listed Henry Hallam’s age as just 35 years, and the 1861 Census added a wife, Elizabeth, and three children under 7 years, living in the cramped, narrow housing of 7 Boundary Row, Potter Street, at the time, which may have played a part in Henry’s long illness.
Overall, these posts have shown how F***y Stenton’s diaries bring to life the working-class population of Worksop through individual tales of illness and tragedy, faith and resilience, which often helps to contextualise major changes in families between the 1861 and 1871 Censuses. There will be one final post exploring the conditions in which these people lived through a Report on public health by William Lee in 1851.
