Thackray Insights: Factories and Fevers

Taking place across our Autumn/Winter season, Thackray Insights invites you to delve deep into eye­ opening topics and explore the unheard stories of medicine.

In Victorian Leeds over 40,000 children under the age of nine were buried in Leeds Cemetery. Working class children as young as five were working long hours in dangerous factories and living in cheap housing, riddled with poor sanitation and infectious diseases. In a time when life was cheap, Dr Emma Storr explores the main protagonists – from doctors to politicians – fighting for better working and living conditions for the poor.

Does public health have the power to end homelessness? From wartime Britain to Covid-19 – where more than 37,000 people were provided immediate and unconditional access to emergency housing – Dr David Saunders examines how infectious disease has shaped society’s understanding and responses to homelessness.

About the Speakers

Dr Emma Storr is a retired GP and clinical lecturer. Her interest in the history of medicine arose from running a special study module for medical students at the University of Leeds on ‘The ill child in history’. She is also a writer and author of two poetry collections and a pamphlet.

Dr David Saunders is a former medical historian and support worker. He earned his PhD at Queen Mary University of London in 2020, with a thesis investigating the experiences of civilian volunteers for medical experimentation in wartime Britain.