ABSTRACT
The map shows the stations appointed by various Orders in Council in a clockwise rotation from the largest and most important establishment, which was Stangate Creek in the Medway estuary. Four points should be noted: (1) until 1754 quarantine was not a continuous legal requirement, but the earlier gap years are too complicated to be shown in the table; (2) virtually any port, particularly in the south-west of England, could be used occasionally and unofficially for quarantine purposes, usually because the condition of the ship or state of the weather made it arguably dangerous to proceed to the appointed place; (3) in the years before 1720 several anchorages in east and south-east England (for example, Sandwich and The Downs) were recognized by the Privy Council but not subject to an Order in Council; (4) during the cholera crisis of 1832, many small ports often in remote areas, e.g. Kirkwall, were authorized to quarantine arrivals. These minor or temporary stations in (2) – (4) are not represented on the map. Other places not shown are the east-coast Scottish harbours (Montrose, Burntisland etc.) and islands (Inchcolm, Inchkeith) which were occasionally used in the seventeenth century and even earlier. A particular problem is Leith, which was never an official station after the Act of Union, except briefly in the cholera crisis, but managed to quarantine ships fairly frequently.
