The Black Pump is a literary historical novel set during the 1854 cholera outbreak that tore through Soho.
The story follows the residents around Broad Street as the disease strikes households at terrifying speed, leaving a neighbourhood on the edge. Dr John Snow, dismissed by many as a radical, believes the answer lies not in “bad air” but in the water people drink. Henry Whitehead, the local curate, begins as a sceptic but is drawn into the investigation as he witnesses the devastation among his parishioners.
Their search leads through cramped lodging houses and contaminated streets. What they uncover forces a break with the dominant medical theories of the age and becomes a turning point in public-health history. Grounded in meticulous research, The Black Pump brings the crisis to life through the people who suffered, and challenged the thinking that failed them.
