7 - ‘She was Lame Long After’: Medical and Social Response

Summary

Thus have I endeavoured a common good. And I beseech our Lord Jesus Christ so to blesse all his servants, that either by his Providence they fall not into any of these Accidents, or els by his blessing upon these or the like meanes they may safely escape them.

Stephen Bradwell, Helps for Suddain Accidents (1633)

So far this book has focused upon those who died as the result of sudden violent trauma. This chapter, while still considering the impact that fatality might have, moves to consider the responses of early modern society to those who encountered harm through accident events. Initial responses were in most cases medical in nature; however, in the complex social and occupational setting of the metropolis exactly who would, or could, provide such care varied greatly. If death was avoided, then those injured often required the support of others. For many this would be provided by family and friends, but where the poor or destitute were concerned the parish would be the first, or sometimes last, port of call. London also had a complex pattern of occupational oversight in the form either of livery and craft companies or of major corporate employers. The City companies had over many years developed various means of support that frequently mirrored those dispensed by the parochial authorities. During this period corporate employers began to advance more modern strategies to support injured workers or the dependents of those killed, although even those systems were not without echoes of earlier charitable ways of working.

For every sudden violent death that occurred in early modern London there were many more incidents that were characterised by non-fatal outcomes. Discovering evidence for such accidents is difficult, as few were inscribed in the historical record. While the searchers and parish clerks had a systematic interest in the dead, there were no such chroniclers for the injured. Nonetheless, by exploring a variety of sources it is possible to get a broad sense of the approaches that were taken within the metropolis toward those injured in accident events.