Soho

Soho is an area in the West End of London. The area had been made a royal park by King Henry VIII, and from the seventeenth century fashionable houses were built in the area for the aristocracy, but these aristocratic residents moved away to other areas of the West End in the eighteenth century. The neighbourhood was badly affected by an outbreak of cholera in 1854. Dr. John Snow identified the public pump on Broad Street (now Broadwick Street) as the source of the epidemic in the neighborhood.

Coordinates

Latitude: 51.513888075248
Longitude: -0.135067104857

View on the COVE Master Map

Timeline of Events Associated with Soho

Date Event Manage
Sep 1831 to Dec 1832

Cholera Epidemic

The first major cholera pandemic to cross the Channel began in Sunderland in September 1831, spread throughout the country, and was not determined to be over until more than a year later, in December of 1832.

Articles

Pamela Gilbert, "On Cholera in Nineteenth-Century England"
31 Aug 1848

Public Health Act

British Coat of ArmsSpurred by the 1848 cholera epidemic and Edwin Chadwick’s report on The Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population, a Central Board of Health was established that provided for taxation to enforce sanitary reform and the creation of local Boards of Health. Image: The Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Articles

Pamela Gilbert, "On Cholera in Nineteenth-Century England"

Barbara Leckie, “‘The Bitter Cry of Outcast London’ (1883): Print Exposé and Print Reprise”
Oct 1848 to Dec 1849

Cholera Epidemic

The second major cholera epidemic in the UK began in Scotland in October 1848 and is generally agreed to have largely subsided in the UK by the end of 1849.

Articles

Pamela Gilbert, "On Cholera in Nineteenth-Century England"
Aug 1853 to Nov 1854

Cholera Epidemic

The third major cholera epidemic in the UK began in August 1853 and extended through November 1854. It is during this epidemic that John Snow deduced the mode of transmission, by water contaminated with feces.

Articles

Pamela Gilbert, "On Cholera in Nineteenth-Century England"
Nov 1865 to Nov 1866

Cholera Epidemic

The last cholera epidemic is conventionally termed “of 1866” as that was the period of the highest mortality. The epidemic arrived in Britain in September 1865 and ended in November 1866.

Articles

Pamela Gilbert, "On Cholera in Nineteenth-Century England"