This Day in History: 1891-05-02

On 2nd May 1891, ‘The Friend; A Religious and Literary Journal’ noted: ‘The influenza epidemic is becoming of an alarmingly more severe type in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire……….and deaths are becoming much more frequent. At Pontefract, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, there are 400 serious cases. The garrison of Pontefract has also been attacked, with the result that a large number of the soldiers are on the sick list, and that several deaths have occurred among the military.’