Doctor Gaulter's cholera casebook

Family history tips: Tracing ancestors using a doctor's casebook from the 1832 cholera epidemic

Dr Henry Gaulter’s cholera casebook is a unique resource for family historians.

Cholera arrived in Manchester in 1832 after sweeping through cities unknown to the town’s poor — Cairo, Shiraz and Tabriz.

The board of health foolishly tried to keep the terrifying disease at bay by placing two watchmen on the River Irwell.

They were mocked by medics who said it was like ‘a country gentleman trying to nail shut his gates to keep out the crows’.

In the months that followed, more than 2,000 people were attacked by cholera and 920 died, while the bizarre treatments forced upon patients at the hospital in Swan Street sparked riots.

The story of what happened that summer was recorded by a doctor named Henry Gaulter, who bravely went out into the slums to investigate the deaths.

In this article I peer inside Dr Gaulter’s casebook and show how it can be used by family historians to learn about how their ancestors lived and died.