Mr James (?) Letcher with twins
1872
Glass photonegative
Successful Cornish miner James Letcher poses with his sons John and Richard. Tragically, James Letcher and his wife lost four of their children in four months during the diphtheria and scarlet fever outbreaks of 1866, which carried off 33 of Hill End’s children. James and Ann lost Mary 12, Ann 6½, Caroline 3½ and James 17 months. However, a new family emerged, with Ann in 1867, John and Richard in 1870 and Jane the following year.
From the Kilmore Free Press, 22 June 1876 Morning Edition
The accumulations of stagnant water, the soakage of filth into the ground, and the consumption of impure water, are among the evils connected with the present rude mode of living on the goldfields and in many other localities, and go far to .explain the causes of the existing epidemic of scarlet fever, which has made and is still making such terrible havoc far and wide. Sanitary laws are but little understood, and are systematically neglected; but the inexorable law of cause and effect cannot be reversed; and so the dwellers in nasty houses have to pay the penalty, and the undertaker flourishes. [Kilmore Free Press, 22 June 1876 Morning Edition, p2]
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