Smallpox in Tring
The reminiscences of Bob Grace . . .
There is also an account of the treatment of a man for smallpox in Tring.  One of the canal labourers was taken ill with smallpox, which even in those days could be considered as a notifiable disease, and he became chargeable to the Tring parish, and therefore his expenses were put as a separate item in the Parish accounts.  These are listed as ‘Payments by Mr. T. Humphrey to attending John Turbot, a labourer on the canal with smallpox, viz:
There is no entry for the funeral expenses for John Turbot - so presumably he recovered! Beer and spirits seem to have been standard treatment for illnesses of a serious nature in those days.  All the accounts for people removed to the Pest House, which incidentally stood at Wigginton, just at the edge of the woods, show that they were filled up with beer and spirits and if they survived - they survived.
[Biographic notes, c.1977] Bob Grace lived in Tring for most of his life.  He was born at Parsonage Farm, which formerly stood on the site of Bishop Wood School.  As a boy he attended the old National School at Tring.

He worked in Tring all his life and eventually joined the family’s corn and milling business which had been in existence for 250 years before it ceased in about 1977.