100 years since flu pandemic hit
100 years ago, New Zealand was thrown into turmoil as influenza spread throughout the country. With little known about how to treat and prevent the pandemic, towns were put into lockdown and residents were left to battle it on their own. Stephen Stewart and Georgia Weaver revisit the past.
If he had caught the ship and sailed off to war, young Invercargill soldier Ernest Barber would not have died of the ‘‘Spanish’’ flu at an army training camp in Awapuni, Palmerston North in 1918.
That April, Barber was sent to the New Zealand Medical Corps base in Palmerston North, to begin training for ambulance work.
A reference on his file shows that he was to be transferred to the hospital ship Maheno on its fifth charter, which began on July 7.
On that day, the ship sailed from Otago for Australia and then the Middle East, but Barber was not on board and does not appear in the crew list.
It is not clear why he did not join the Maheno before it sailed, or why he remained at Awapuni, but sometime later, influenza struck the camp.
Barber’s medical case sheet records that he was admitted to the hospital on November 2, suffering from fever, headache, and pains in the back and limbs.
Diagnosed with influenza, he was treated with regular sponging and aspirin. His condition briefly improved the following day, but then it worsened and he died six days after being admitted.
Training camps like Awapuni, Featherston and Trentham became rife with influenza.
Most of the dead were buried within 24 hours, as authorities struggled with tens of thousands of sufferers.
For Barber however, it was different. His body was sent to Invercargill, but somehow got lost in transit.
Whatever the explanation for the coffin being mislaid, the burial took place 11 days after he died on November 8, at Wellington’s Karori Cemetery.
Amazingly, a letter held by the Imperial War Museum in London sheds light on what happened.
The letter, written in 1972, is from Alfred Hollows, recalling his experiences a member of the NZ Medical Corps at Awapuni in the early stages of the epidemic.
He wrote: ‘‘One of the first deaths in Awapuni Camp was our bugler (Barber I think his name was), and I was on guard at the Main Gates the night his body was taken away by the local undertakers. We stood to attention as the cortege passed. About two years later I was staying in Invercargill and a friend of my landlady mentioned her son had died during the epidemic: she was Mrs Barber. I told her I had been with the guard and had accorded him military honours as he passed through. Imagine my amazement when she told me she did not know where her son lies. The undertaker says the body was conveyed to the ferry for shipment to Invercargill but got lost somewhere.’’
Barber was just one of many Southlanders who fell victim to the pandemic.
As New Zealand troops came home after the war, influenza had already been rampant in the country for about a month.
It was widely believed it had arrived aboard the Royal Mail liner Niagara on October 12, carrying Prime Minister William Massey and his deputy Joseph Ward on their return from Britain.
Rumours swirled that Massey had personally rejected quarantine measures.
It is no longer thought that the ship carried the pandemic, considering dozens of ships carrying soldiers and war invalids arrived from Europe and North America at the same time.
It was widely believed the influenza pandemic had arrived aboard the Royal Mail liner Niagara on October 12, carrying Prime Minister William Massey and his deputy Joseph Ward on their return from Britain.
However, no-one seems to know exactly how or when the flu reached New Zealand.
Many thought it was the return of the bubonic plague because the cyanosis of severe influenza and pneumonia turned the victims’ bodies black.
It was a bizarre pandemic. Influenza normally kills only the vulnerable, the very young and the fail elderly, or those with lungs damaged by TB or other respiratory diseases.
But children and teenagers seemed virtually immune to this flu, as did the older middle-aged. It took four years for 18,000 New Zealand soldiers to die during WWI, but in just six weeks at least 9000 New Zealand civilians and soldiers died from the pandemic.
All of New Zealand fell mercy to the flu, but it was Nightcaps, in northern Southland, that suffered the worst European death rate, where nearly all the adults were stricken and left without care.
The town suffered a Ma¯ ori death rate of 25 per 1000, the second highest Ma¯ ori death rate in the country.
There was no doctor in the town and the nearest, in Otautau, was understandably tied up with patients there.
Scattered throughout the Nightcaps and Wairio cemeteries are headstones for those who succumbed to the flu.
A mother and daughter who died within days of each other. Soldiers would have only been home just days when they fell ill.
Curiously, throughout Southland at the time, many places closed, not to contain the flu and stop it from spreading, but because there were not enough people to continue operation.
Newspapers printed notices reporting the suspension of trains owing to a shortage of staff.
‘‘Ordinary train services will be resumed as soon as staff is available.’’
On November 12, the Otautau Standard reported that in Nightcaps, the school, bakery, blacksmiths and a Moretown mine were closed to to influenza. The Otautau Town Board issued an ‘‘urgent and important’’ notice.
‘‘In view of the serious epidemic now prevalent in the Dominion, residents in the Town District are urged to take all immediate steps to see that their sanitary arrangements are maintained in the best of order. The public are directed to observe any notifications made from time to time by Health Authorities. Standard Influenza Remedy is available for speedy issue to the public on demand from Dr A A Stewart.’’
Ward and domestic work volunteers were requested for the Wallace and Fiord Hospital in Riverton, and A&P Shows were cancelled.
Schools and picture theatres were closed, and the returned soldiers postponed their ball.
On November 15, 1918, the Western Star reported several deaths caused by influenza – many were soldiers who survived the war.
Precautions and warnings were issued to stay safe from influenza. ‘‘Remain in the fresh air as much as possible. Avoid too close contact with persons suffering from colds. Absolutely avoid intimate contact – eg., kissing and dancing.’’
Nightcaps Notes in the Otautau Standard outlined the harsh reality of the flu in the town.
‘‘Influenza has taken rather an alarming hold on the district. The epidemic has gripped all the Railway Staff, Station master to telegraph messenger. The Railway Hotel staff have been laid low, from mistress to scullery maid. Moretown miners have been attacked, and fresh cases are being reported every little while. In some instances, the doctor has been called up from Otautau . . . reports have come in to the effect that the Public School has been closed for a week on account of the influenza epidemic. One Moretown mine has been closed, and Nightcaps mines cleared for the day to be disinfected. The blacksmith’s shop is closed, the baker’s cart has ceased to run, for the lack of bread; the baker has gone to bed, a victim of the ‘flu’, and yesterday there was not an ounce of year to be had at any of the shops wherewith to make home-made bread.’’
Bold claims were made in Southland newspapers for Woods’ Great Peppermint Cure, to be taken for influenza, which ‘‘never fails’’, when sprinkled on pillows or nightgowns.
According to the 1916 census, the Nightcaps area had a population of 911, and during a period of two weeks, 41 people had died.
It appears premature Armistice celebrations in most towns on November 8 was a major contributor to the spreading of the flu in Nightcaps.
There is thought to be two reasons why Nightcaps was hit so hard. First was the newly elected Town Board, which lacked experience in dealing with a crisis, and the second was the high morbidity rate.
At its worst, there were only two adults not infected with the resulting in children being responsible for caring for their parents, brothers and sisters.
As November continued and more succumbed to the pandemic, a temporary hospital was established in the Presbyterian Church. Due to a recent renovation, they were able to make soup for the patients instead of transporting it from other towns in the district.
However, they soon became overwhelmed with the number of patients passing through their doors and there were not enough helpers available. There was no doctor in nightcaps and the Otautau doctor was too busy to come to the town.
The worst of it was over by the time November came to an end but by that time 41 people in a town with a population of 911 had died.