Cattle plague

Hi all, my other half is doing a PhD looking at the cattle plague of 1865-1867. Does any member know anything about it in Warwickshire, of special interest would be info about any memorial stones erected either marking losses or thanks for recovery. Thanks.

Hi. Had never heard of the Cattle Plagues before your post; pretty terrible stuff - the sheer number of domestic cattle lost to the Rinderpest virus. It must have created real hardship for the farmers. The only cattle plague memorial I could see online near Warwickshire was this one in Staffordshire: carlscam.com. Perhaps searching old newspaper archives looking for articles that mention the erection of these memorials might help? Interestingly, in 1867 the Metropolitan Free Drinking Fountain Association changed its name to the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association. Perhaps this was due to the cattle plague (? or maybe it was coincidental?) - However if this was the reason it may have been ill thought as the virus spread easily in contaminated water. Hopefully someone else on the forum will know where to find these memorial stones. Good luck with your partner's doctorate , Luke.

There is a prayer in the archives to be used in times of cholera and cattle plague. Link to archives location.

Thanks so much everyone - we knew about the one at Mucclestone, but evidence of other stones is very hard to find, probably removed when areas were "improved". The cattle trough link is interesting and he will be certainly be chasing this. Thanks again.

Phew! what an informative site is Historic Coventry, I for one had never heard of Cattle Plague or even considered the "history" of agriculture beyond the three field system, the enclosures, the corn laws and the development of agricultural machinery, taught in schools. Even having spent evacuation plus two extra years close to a farm which had cattle, mad cow disease did come as a surprise to me, at any rate I suppose I have to take on board the history of everyday things is not just the history of the evolution of human beings, but also their domesticated animals and the birds and bees surrounding them and the diseases they have been and are subjected to. Could be that the emphasis on the Industrial Revolution and the consequent move from the countryside to the towns has blinded us to matters rural. Or is it just me being dense or a typical townee?

Roger, I think we are all very insulated from the hardships of the past. The Black Death killed people at a level we can't imagine in our modern world. Influenza, pneumonia, cholera, typhoid, smallpox, polio... At one point, one of the greatest killers in London was malaria. Famine caused by hot weather, cold weather, wet weather and dry weather. One of the reasons Coventry declined in the late Tudor period was because of a famine. People stopped buying fine wool cloth because they couldn't afford food, never mind luxuries.

Roger, until I seen the title I had never "herd" of the cattle plague, that is the beauty of this site. Although I could not respond to the question I am now a walking minefield of information about the plague but who do I plague it with? Edited by member, 10th Oct 2018 12:34 pm

covgirl I would think in 1865 it would be our foot and mouth disease. There is little written about it before the 19 th century. During WWII, 1942/3, there was a strong rumour around Coventry that a farm had it - now in those days there were thousands and thousands of troops all over the countryside so there was no way of preventing people walking on the land. My boss (farmer) said "Right every day we move the cattle to one of three fields and at night we will take them to a different field, we will also fence all the drinking places, we will bring them in the yard every lunchtime to drink at the trough. We will drain the trough and scrub it out after and refill it, also before and after every milking time. And each day we will spread new bedding in all the cattle sheds, pigsties, etc. We will spread all the cowpats in the field they were in the day before and the nighttime field." For about three/four months we did that, we never had the disease or lost one head of cattle. It took a lot of time and money but worth the effort. My belief is that some farmers have too many animals in too small a place for too long. Like the Irish potato collapse the ground got sick for lack of rotation. But the disease caught me out in early Feb 2001. I was about to walk the Offa's Dyke Path. I wrote for a map. "Dear member, The Offa's Dyke Path is closed from Feb to the end of May 2001, due to Foot and Mouth. J Saunders." It also stopped me walking the Medway walk, so it was well widespread.