The Plague Of Eyam: The Village That Died To Save Its Neighbors

Early in September 1665 George Viccars, a tailor, opened a consignment of cloth in his cottage in Eyam, a village near Sheffield damp and hung it in front of his fire to dry.

With that innocent act, Viccars unleashed upon his community the most feared disease of the age. The package had come from London, where bubonic plague had been raging for months, and the cloth harbored fleas that carried the disease.

A few days later he fell ill with fever, and died within one week. By the end of September, five more people in the neighborhood had died, and in the first days of October there were four more deaths. At the end of the month the toll had reached 23.

The terrified villagers began to panic. Many prepared to leave Eyam for healthier surroundings. Fearing this would only spread the plague across the countryside, the village clergymen, William Mompesson and Thomas Stanley, decided to act to stop the exodus.