Upset tummies was something that everybody was used to in the hot days of August at the end of the last century. Young children were often ill at this time of the year when the warm weather and the flies spread the bacteria that caused dysentery. The summer of 1897 was no exception. At the end of August the Medical Officer of Health, Algernon Adams, went on holiday and left his son in charge of public health matters in Maidstone.

The first cases of typhoid were reported in late August and early September. By September 9th there were 117 cases, a month later there were 1200 cases. This was one of the worst outbreaks of the typhoid at the end of the nineteenth century.

The medical facilities in the town were completely overwhelmed, nurses were brought down from London and there were national collections of money for food and medicines. By December the outbreak was over and the town gradually returned to normal but 132 people had died out of a total of 1,847 cases.

The cause of the outbreak was impossible to prove. Scientific techniques were inadequate but records of the cases and observations of the spread of the disease pointed towards the pollution of a spring which fed the East Farleigh Water works. Faeces from hop pickers, who were carriers of the disease, got into the water supply. The East Farleigh water works filter beds failed to remove the bacteria and the water supply was not shut off immediately the disease was detected in the town. Only a few years earlier the Town Council made savings by reducing the number of times the town water was tested. The town also had a poor system of drainage with many of the toilets in the town badly connected to the sewage system. The final report on the outbreak highlighted many of these points but did not put the blame on any one person or group.