Dunghills and privies

In 1841 Dr William L Laurie wrote report on the sanitary conditions in Greenock for the Poor Law Commissioners of Scotland.  It is a remarkable description of the living conditions of the ordinary people of Greenock at that time.  Several of the descriptions are particularly dreadful.

Dr Laurie, whose consulting rooms were on Hamilton Street, writes -

“Behind my consulting rooms, where I am now sitting, there is a large dunghill with a privy attached; to my knowledge that dunghill has not been emptied for six months; it serves a whole neighbourhood, and the effluvium is so offensive that I cannot open the window.  The land is three stories high, and the people, to save themselves trouble, throw all their filth out of the stair window, consequently a great part of it goes on the close, and the close is not cleaned out till the dunghill is full: the filth in the close reaches nearly to the sill of the back window of a shop in front, and the malarious moisture oozes through the wall on the floor.”

The map above shows some of the places Dr Laurie was describing in his report.  Market Street came to his attention when he noted that more people from there than other parts of the town were being admitted to his care with fever and typhoid -

“This [Market Street] is a narrow back street; it is almost overhung by a steep hill rising immediately behind it; it contains the lowest description of houses built closely together, the access to the buildings being through filthy closes; the front entrance is generally the only outlet; numerous foci for the production of miasma lie concealed in this street, I think I could point out one in each close.”

Market Street, Greenock - Source @Watt Institution

Dr Laurie goes on to describe some of the houses in the poorer areas of the town -

"The great proportion of the dwellings of the poor are situated in very narrow and confined closes or alleys leading from the main streets; these closes end generally in a cul-de-sac, and have little ventilation, the space between the houses being so narrow as to exclude the action of the sun on the ground.  I might almost say there are no drains in any of these closes, for where I have noticed sewers, they are in such a filthy and obstructed state, that they create more nuisance than if they never existed.  In those cases where there is no dunghill, the excrementitious and other offensive matter is into the gutter before the door, or carried out and put in the street.”

Dr Laurie (1814-1899) was born in Dumfries.  In 1838 he married Mary Andrew Macfie (1813-1883) in Greenock.  The couple moved to Druimneil House, Appin near Oban.  Mary Andrew was the daughter of William Macfie, sugar refiner of Langhouse and was the sister of Robert Macfie who owned the Airds Estate in Port Appin.