The widespread opposition to the enforcement of the compulsory clauses of the Vaccination Acts which exists in Leicester culminated yesterday in a great demonstration, which was carried out very successfully. The position which the inhabitants of the town have assumed with regard to this question is due to a variety of causes. At the present moment there are over 5,000 persons being summoned for refusing to comply with the law.… summonses issued in the year 1884 only reached seven, or a little over one summons in every two months, while at the present moment forty-five summonses are being heard and disposed of every week. But even the disposal of forty-five defendants every week is not sufficient to meet the requirements of the case, and the defaulters and the objectors increase faster than the cases can be dealt with.{194}
The crowd gathered in Leicester from a number of different counties in England and included people of all professions.
The demonstration… drew delegates from all parts of the country, while many letters of
sympathy were received not only from England, Scotland, and Ireland, but from Jersey,
France, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, and America. Most of the large towns in the
kingdom sent special banners, the Yorkshire, Irish, and Scotch being very prominent. The
anti-vaccinationists in Jersey sent a very elaborate banner setting forth that the Acts had
been four times defeated there, while the Belgium banner had this inscription in French —“Neither fines nor imprisonment will prevent vaccine being a poison nor the vaccination laws an infamy.”{195}
It was a festive atmosphere with music playing and hundreds of flags and banners displayed with sayings such as “Liberty is our birthright, and liberty we demand,” “Oppressive laws make discontented peoples,” “The mothers of England demand repeal,” “The Three Pillars of Vaccination —Fraud, Force, and Folly,” and “We no longer beg but demand the control of our children.”
The mayor of the city received the procession, and a member of the municipal council presided. An effigy of Jenner [considered the father of vaccination] was hung from the gallows and given the “long drop” at intervals as the procession advanced. Those men who had suffered the extreme penalty of imprisonment made a prominent figure, and others, whose goods had been seized, displayed samples of the otherwise rather commonplace utensils to admiring eyes. The obnoxious parliamentary acts were enthusiastically burned. A wagon carrying unvaccinated children bore the motto: “They that are whole need not a physician.”{196}The most important feature was a large number of men who had undergone the extreme process of imprisonment rather than submit to the law. Next came a larger detachment, consisting of men who had their household goods seized and sold by public auction, samples of the goods which had been seized and sold being conveyed in wagons. The next detachment consisted of a conveyance filled with unvaccinated children… This was followed by a large number of delegates, many of whom were from London, Leeds, Manchester, Halifax, Blackburn, Keighley, Bedford, Birmingham, Lincoln, and Norwich. Among other features in the procession were a horse and cow, drawn in wagons and exhibited as sources of vaccination.{197}
Both the devices and mottoes were of the most profuse order. One of the devices was an effigy of Dr. Jenner inscribed “child-slayer;” a second was a complete funeral cortège, consisting of a coffin on open bier, mourners, etc., and inscribed “another victim of vaccination”…{198}
The large two-mile-long procession marched around the town for about two hours, receiving enthusiastic cheering at various points along the route. The townspeople showed their support by waving streamers with flags and sayings along the route. The procession continued to marketplace.
…a goodly number of anti-vaccinators were present, and an escort was formed, preceded by a banner, to accompany a young mother and two men, all of whom had resolved to give themselves up to the police and undergo imprisonment in preference to having their children vaccinated. The utmost sympathy was expressed for the poor woman, who bore up bravely, and although seeming to feel her position expressed her determination to go to prison again and again rather than give her child over to the “tender mercies” of a public vaccinator. The three were attended by a numerous crowd and in Gallowtreegate three hearty cheers were given for them, which were renewed with increased vigour as they entered the doors of the police cells.{199}
Organizers of the event estimated the number at attendance to have been between 80,000 and 100,000. Mr. Councillor Butcher of Leicester presided and congratulated the crowd on the magnificent and elaborate display. He said:
…the exemplary conduct of the many thousands of people who had attended the demonstration showed that they were determined only to use fair and constitutional means to bring about a repeal of the Acts.{200}
He addressed the audience:
Many present had been sufferers under the Acts, and all they asked was that in the future they and their children might be let alone. They lived for something else in this world than to be experimented upon for the stamping out of a particular disease. A large and increasing portion of the public were of opinion that the best way to get rid of smallpox and similar diseases was to use plenty of water, eat good food, live in light and airy houses, and see that the Corporation kept the streets clean and the drains in order. If such details were attended to, there was no need to fear smallpox, or any of its kindred; and if they were neglected, neither vaccination nor any other prescription by Act of Parliament could save them.{201}
The crowd cheered. Mr. William Young, secretary of the London Society, followed with a resolution:
That the principle of the Compulsory Vaccination Acts is subversive of that personal liberty which is the birthright of every free-born Briton; that they are destructive of parental rights, tyrannical and unjust in operation, and ought therefore to be resisted by every constitutional means.{202}
After the demonstration, an evening meeting took place in Temperance Hall under the presidency of Rev. J. Page Hopps. The hall was decorated with flags and sayings denouncing the practice of vaccination. There were delegates from more than 60 towns on the platform. Mr. W. Stanyon presented a resolution that passed unanimously.
That the Compulsory Vaccination Acts, which make loving and conscientious parents criminals, subjecting them to fines, loss of goods, and imprisonment, propagate disease and inflict death, and under which five thousand of our fellow-townsmen are now being prosecuted, are a disgrace to the Statute Book, and ought to be abolished forthwith.{203}
The demonstration was considered a wonderful success by the people in attendance. Dr. Spencer T. Hall, a 73-year-old resident of Blackpool, was overcome with emotion when speaking of the events of the day. He said his tears were tears of joy at having lived to see vaccination being so challenged.
He had been vaccinated at two years of age, and very seriously injured; but at fourteen he had a severe attack of small-pox, which was followed by improved health. Far rather would he have small-pox than be vaccinated. He had paid fines for all his children. In his long and wide experience he had never seen such evil results from small-pox as he had seen from vaccination.{204}
These fearless people wanted to be able to make their own decisions for their health and the health of their children and thus fought for self-determination.
The fearful mortality from small-pox in completely vaccinated and presumably well “protected” Leicester during the years 1871-2 had the effect of destroying the people’s faith in “protective” vaccination. The result was that poor and rich alike, the toilers, the aristocrats, and the municipal authorities, began to refuse vaccination for their children and themselves. This refusal continued until 1890, when, instead of ninety-five per cent the vaccination reached only about five per cent of the total births.{205}
Thousands of brave people set off a historical rebellion that successfully countered a prevailing medical belief and heavy-handed government rule. The medical profession proclaimed that the Leicester residents would suffer greatly for their decision to turn their backs on vaccination. They prognosticated that this unvaccinated town with its “highly flammable material”{206} would suffer with the “dread disease”{207} that would spread like “wild-fire on a prairie”{208} and decimate the population.
But the leaders of Leicester held steadfast to what they knew was right and successfully implemented their plan of sanitation, hygiene, and isolation—instead of vaccination. Their grand experiment would test the very notions of freedom of choice, self-determination, and the heart of a flawed medical belief.
Endnotes
{194} “Anti-Vaccination Demonstration at Leicester,” The Times, March 24, 1885.
{195} “Anti-Vaccination Demonstration at Leicester,” The Times, March 24, 1885.
{196} “A Demonstration Against Vaccination,” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, April 16,
1885, p. 380.
{197} “Anti-Vaccination Demonstration at Leicester,” The Times, March 24, 1885.
{198} “Anti-Vaccination Demonstration at Leicester,” The Leeds Mercury, March 24, 1885.
{199} Stanley Williamson, “Anti-Vaccination Leagues,” Archives of Disease in Childhood, vol.
59, 1984, p. 1195.
{200} “Anti-Vaccination Demonstration at Leicester,” The Times, March 24, 1885.
{201} J.T. Biggs, Leicester: Sanitation Versus Vaccination, 1912, p. 117.
{202} Ibid.
{203} J.T. Biggs, Leicester: Sanitation Versus Vaccination, 1912, p.120.{204} Ibid., pp. 125–126.
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