The mysterious Lewis Powell Williams

In 1995 Steven Lee, the Rector of Kibworth, received an enquiry from a John Godwin who had moved recently from Lichfield to Leicestershire. Mr Godwin,  a frequent contributor of historical articles to the Leicester Now monthly magazine, was puzzled by the tablet because he knew that smallpox inoculation had been introduced to the UK by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in 1721.  Intrigued by this dichotomy I contacted the Jenner Educational Trust to learn more about the treatment of smallpox and to try and find some additional information about Lewis Powell Williams.  Here are the results of my research.

Smallpox was already entrenched in parts of Europe, Asia and Africa when in the 16th and 17th centuries European colonists carried the disease to the Americas. In London, smallpox killed one person in twelve and left disfiguring scars on thousands of survivors. Queen Mary, wife of William III died of the disease in 1694, as did Queen Anne’s son in 1700.  Yet within 300 years, by May 1980, the World Health Organisation proclaimed the worldwide eradication of this devastating disease principally by the means of vaccination, a procedure that won much fame for Edward Jenner (1749-1823)  (see lithograph drawing). However, Jenner was not the first to offer a means of acquiring immunity to smallpox. Earlier in the 18th century a form of inoculation was being used - the deliberate gashing of the arm and the placing of a large volume of fluid from a smallpox blister. The healthy patient was prepared with fasting and purging to lower the patient’s strength. This harsh treatment usually provoked a mild form of the disease, resulting in longlasting immunity. There were risks, however, as it had a low success rate and patients could still transmit the disease to non-immune contacts for a few days after treatment.

While at Adrianople, in 1717, after noting with interest the practice of ‘ingrafting’ against smallpox, Mary wrote to a friend. She described how, each September, the older women visited groups of young people by arrangement and simply placed a small quantity of "the matter of the best sort of smallpox" on the end of a needle and inserted it into a vein, after which the small wound was bound up. Eight days later the young people had a mild fever lasting two days, after which they were immune to smallpox. Thousands were treated each year and the procedure had an excellent safety record.

The following year, on 18th March 1718, she allowed her five year old son, Edward, to be treated. The ‘ingrafting’ was carried out by "an old Greek woman, who had practised a great many years" and supervised by Dr Maitland. Edward Wortley Montagu therefore became the first native of the UK to undergo this operation.

The Wortley Montagus returned to England, and in 1721 a smallpox epidemic swept the country. Mary had written articles anonymously about her experiences with smallpox treatment in Turkey, and she now asked Dr Maitland to inoculate her three year old daughter, Mary. Later he inoculated other people in London, under Lady Mary’s patronage. Her campaign was helped by her friend, the Princess of Wales, who suggested the new treatment be tested on six condemned Newgate prisoners. All six survived and, as recompense, were discharged as free citizens. The Princess’ two daughters were later inoculated with complete success. There were setbacks however, and it seemed the practice would not gain general acceptance. Some clergy believed the disease was one of God’s tools for shaping the destiny of man, so it would be sinful to try and outwit him! Then the Royal Society of London began to receive reports of the dramatic success of the technique in Massachusetts. The Rev. Cotton Mather, a Congregational minister in Boston, had read the Turkish accounts and despite opposition from sections of the clergy, remarkable results had been achieved. The 1721 Boston epidemic saw 6,000 afflicted with smallpox and 844 died. Mather encouraged all Boston doctors to use the method by informing them of the efficacy of inoculation.

So who was Lewis Powell Williams? In a bid to discover more about him the Kibworth Parish Register for 1771 was inspected. All entries for deaths during that year included the village or town of residence except for one entry - 9th January - Lewis Powell Williams - stranger. We can only presume he died suddenly while travelling through the parish, and that sometime later relatives or friends erected the tablet. He remained a man of mystery until in 1998 a local historian, Christine Viall, gave me some more information that she had unearthed during research on Northamptonshire records.

P. Razzell in his book, "Conquest of Smallpox" (1977) writes that the first inoculator to completely dispense with preparation was a surgeon by the name of Williams who placed an advertisement in the Northampton Mercury at the end of 1768:

Only 25 years after Williams' death, Edward Jenner introduced in 1796 a truly safe form of inoculation with cowpox, a mild illness, and he showed that this also protected against smallpox. This new "vaccination" (after vacca - Latin for a ‘cow’) spread rapidly and childhood mortality greatly decreased. Inoculation with "live" smallpox was prohibited by law in 1840 but it was still practised in Afghanistan and China until the 1970s. Now, since the WHO 1980 proclamation, the smallpox virus can only be found in research establishments and even these final bastions are expected to be destroyed soon.