In the weeks following the end of the First World War, it was the Spanish ‘flu that occupied the pages of the Craven Herald. Schools and factories closed, and people were warned against attending meetings and dances and travelling on trains. Lesley Tate reports.

TOWARDS the end of 1918, Craven - having just experienced the end of the First World War - was suffering the effects of the world wide flu epidemic - Spanish ‘flu. Whole families were wiped out, young children left orphans following the death of both parents, and soldiers both still on the Western Front, or at home, succumbed to the dreadful virus. Events were cancelled, schools and factories closed, and people were warned to stay away from cinemas. Candidates lining up for the forthcoming general election were warned by the chief medical officer for the area to cancel meetings, to avoid the passing of the germs

Variously described as the ‘flu’ or ‘pneumonia’, it was to become known as Spanish flu’, and across the world infected some 500 million people. It is estimated it resulted in the deaths of 50 to 100 million people - some three to five per cent of the world’s population at the time.

In December, the medical officer for Craven, Dr F E Atkinson, dispatched advice by the means of handbills and posters. The virus, he said, spread most seriously in ill ventilated and over heated rooms. He advised against the attending of dances, entertainments and other public gatherings. People should also avoid travelling on trains. Any person in the early stages of the scourge, or recovering from it, if associated with people, say in an enclosed railway carriage, was a ‘formidable’ source of infection - in fact the compartment was a veritable ‘travelling incubator’. The best antidote, said the medical officer, in charge of the health and wellbeing of the people of Craven, was good, wholesome food, exercise and plenty of fresh air. Fresh air was cheap enough for anyone, no matter their environment, and bedrooms should be well ventilated.

Not that the candidates in the forthcoming general election took heed of the doctor’s advice; with just Colonel Roundell, the Coalition candiate and very much the frontrunner for the Skipton division, suspending meetings. Others, despite receiving stern letters from Dr Atkinson, were more reluctant to cancel the gatherings.

The monthly meeting of the Skipton Educational Sub-Committee heard from the school attendance officer that during November, 1918, attendance at all schools had been ‘disastrous’. Throughout the whole of Craven, only the schools in Draughton and in Embsay remained open.

Dr Atkinson, at a meeting of the Skipton Urban Council, reported that 23 people had died in just one month, with half dying from the flu. Asked by a councillor whether he thought vaccination would be a good thing, Dr Atkinson responded that although there was a vaccination, it was not in general use, and was only used in special cases. He went on to explain there were three germs involved in the influenza and that the great cause of death was pneumonia, which followed the flu.

Dr Atkinson had been to both picture houses in Skipton impressing on the owners the importance of complying with a recently introduced order banning children under the age of 14, to protect them against the virus, and the use of ventilation. Cllr Farey, chairman of the council’s health committee, had been to both picture houses and was dismayed to discover proper ventilation was not being used, and also children in attendance. They were ‘real dens of infection’ he said, and called on the higher authorities to take immediate action.

In its leader column, the Craven Herald believed people in Skipton would support Cllr Farey in his condemnation of the owners of the cinemas. Influenza had been rampant for several weeks, and the council and medical officer had done all they could in stamping out the scourge. “By refusing to obey the instructions, the picture palaces are laying themselves open to a charge of being a menace to public health. Everyone will sympathise with the picture houses, if they have to suffer financially, but the public health is the first consideration and must be safeguarded at all costs.”

The Premier Picture Palace responded with a front page advert claiming it was thoroughly ventilated and was not a ‘den for influenza, or any other epidemic’.

The district news pages of the Craven Herald were full of the deaths of both civilians and soldiers from the flu. In the same week, the Barnoldswick correspondent reported the deaths of several people. They included soldier brothers, Gunner Robert Windle, and Private Fred Windle. Robert, who was 26 years old, and had formerly been a warehouseman at Nutter and Co’s Grove Shed in Earby, died in hospital in France. His sister had received a letter just a week earlier to say he was recovering. His brother, Fred, formerly of the Coldstream Guards, was at home in Clayton Street when he succumbed. He had been discharged from the army six months earlier, having been wounded in France, and left a wife and four children.

A husband and wife died within days of each other, while John William Brown, an engineer at Barnoldswick waterworks, died aged 57 after being ill for a week. Another couple, of Higher Park Farm, Barnoldswick, both just 30 years old, died in the same week, leaving two young children.

In a letter to the Craven Herald, a Mr George Deacon of Carleton Street, Skipton, wrote of his surprise that there had been no medical prescription shared with the public to cure the flu. “I am greatly surprised that at a time when the nation is involved in such an epidemic as the Spanish flu, which on average has carried away from us more lives than the Great War, that no thorough prescription has been published to the public which would, if taken when the first symptoms appear, help to check the germicide from getting a footing in the system. Surely, it would only have been a matter of a few moments by some doctor to have sent for publication the prescription for medicine. “ Mr Deacon even included his own prescription, which he said had been provided by a qualified physician. It had in ‘almost every case’ said Mr Deacon, cured the flu.