Causes[edit]

The basic cause was fever spreading from insanitary jails via prisoners into dirty and overcrowded courtrooms.[1]

1577: in Summer 1577. Among the dead victims were: Chief Baron Bell, Serjeant Barham, the Clerk of Assize, the Lord Lieutenant, the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire, the Coroner and almost 400 others.[1] The names of the dead were recorded and survive as "The note of such as ar ded of this infection in Oxenford" in Bodleian manuscript Tanner 79 folio 182.[1]

Black Assize of Oxford

1598 Black Assizes of . Among the dead were Baron Flowerdew, Justice Beaumont and "Serjeant Drewe",[1] namely Edward Drew (c.1542–1598), MP, of Killerton, Broadclyst and The Grange, Broadhembury, Devon, a Serjeant-at-Law to Queen Elizabeth I.

Northern Circuit

1586 Black Assizes at Exeter Castle, end of March 1586

The most notable Black Assizes were:[1]

(died 1586), Serjeant-at-Law and Baron of the Exchequer[2]

Edward Flowerdew

Sir (1541–1586), JP, of Umberleigh. Buried at Atherington 2 April 1586.[6]

Arthur Basset

Sir (died 31 March 1586) of Raleigh,[7] JP. He was Sheriff of Devon in 1585.[7]

John Chichester

(died 1 April 1586), JP, MP, lord of the manor of Clovelly,[8] whose monument survives in Clovelly Church.

Robert III Cary

Thomas Carew, JP(died 28 March 1586, aged 68), of Haccombe.[9]

[5]

Sir , JP,[5] (died 10 April 1586)[10] of Ash, Musbury.

Bernard Drake

John Fortescue, JP

[5]

John Waldron, JP; given by Wyote (see below) as Mr Welrond.[11] The only Devonshire gentry family listed in the Heraldic Visitation of Devon similar to this name is Walrond of Bradfield,[12] Uffculme, Devon. Humphry II Walrond of Bradfield and his second son Thomas Walrond were both buried on 7 April 1586 at Uffculme.[13] Humphry II Walrond had legal connections, having married the daughter of Sir Thomas Willoughby, a Justice of the Common Pleas.[14]

[5]

Thomas Risdon, JP (died 2 April 1586) of Bableigh, Parkham, twice reader of Inner Temple.[15]

[5]

The Black Assizes at Exeter Castle were the Lent Assizes held from 14 March 1586 by Sir Edmund Anderson (1530–1605), Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas,[2] who survived the disease. Exeter Prison was situated underneath the royal Exeter Castle and the courtrooms were within the castle buildings. The cause according to modern medical opinion was typhus transmitted by the human body-louse.[3] Among the dead victims were 8 judges,[4] 11 of the 12 jurors, several constables,[5] and the surrounding population which was ravaged by the disease for several months. Amongst the dead were the following, many being prominent members of the Devonshire gentry:

Firstly due to the "close aire and filthie stinke" of Exeter Prison, which infected the prisoners.

Secondly that the disease originated from 38 Portuguese fishermen returning fully loaded with fish from whose vessel was captured by Sir Bernard Drake (c.1537–1586) and landed at Dartmouth in Devon and transferred to the "dark pit and stinking dungeon" of Exeter Prison. The Portuguese had been forced to wait in the jail for a long period until the time of the assize for their judgement, at which time those who were still alive were so weak and thin that they had to be carried into the courtroom. The Chief Justice was shocked at their terrible condition, which was then attributed to lack of proper feeding, and made orders for future improvements, but it was too late as the disease had by then spread to the courtroom, to the judges and local people in attendance, and infected the population of the Westcountry for many months after.

Newfoundland

1700s[edit]

Outbreaks of Gaol Fever were still common in the 1750s.[18] Two judges and the Lord Mayor died from the affliction in 1750, and there was another outbreak in 1772. [19]

Cockburn, J.S., History of English Assizes 1558–1714, Cambridge, 1972

[2]

Creighton, Charles, History of Epidemics in Britain, Part 1, 2013, pp. 383–388, Exeter Assizes 1586

[3]

Jenkins, Alexander, Civil and Ecclesiastical History of the City of Exeter and its Environs, 2nd edition, Exeter, 1841, p. 125

[4]

Vivian, Lt.Col. J.L., (Ed.) The Visitations of the County of Devon: Comprising the Heralds' Visitations of 1531, 1564 & 1620, Exeter, 1895