Everyone has heard of the Great Plague, which swept Europe and England in 1665, and which some estimates suggest up to 100,000 died. It is also likely you have heard of the Black Death which struck Europe from 1348-1351 in the 1300s, and in which millions of people lost their lives.
But these weren't the only plague epidemics which killed significant numbers in England. The burials recorded in parish registers reveal that significant outbreaks took place in other years. Outbreaks are evidence at various points after 1538, when parish registers were first instituted by Thomas Cromwell, and 1625 was the most significant 17th century outbreak after that of 1665.
Taking the parish of Stepney as a guide for the 1625 outbreak, the first burial to have 'plague' entered by the clerk as the cause of death was on 18th April that year. This was of one Sarah Rumard, the wife of Marmaduke, a mariner of Ratcliffe. No burial for him was apparently present in Stepney, so he may have survived this epidemic.
As spring progressed into summer, more and more burials were shown to be due to 'plague', with the hot summer months of July, August and September revealing page after page of plague deaths in the burial register. Plague entries continued in large numbers until October, thinning out from then. One or two plague burials a month then occurred from January 1626 as evident in the parish register.
It is these type of events which our ancestors, if they were lucky, lived through and would have had a significant impact of their lives. When conducting genealogical investigations in the 16th and 17th century, if a family or individual disappears from view then could they have died of plague?
