This is the story of an English soldier and his Scottish wife who both died from typhus within the same year – and the wider threat this deadly disease posed in past centuries.

Stephen Kilminster (c1822-76) came from Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, where the 1841 census shows him living with his family. In 1842 he joined the 51st Regiment of Foot at Chippenham, and served two years in Australia. He deserted in May 1843, re-joining in August. He was court martialled and imprisoned, but spent 13 years in the East Indies, where we find him in 1861, with the 74th Foot (Highlands) in India.

He was next in Burma and was in possession of a medal and clasp for the capture of Pegu, for which it was said he still claims prize money. Stephen fought in the Second Burmese War (1852-53), which ended in the annexation of Pegu province. Pegu town was taken on 3 June after fierce fighting near the Shwemdawdaw Pagoda.

In 1864 private 3613 left the army in Aberdeen aged 39. That year he married Helen Mennie (1842-77), a domestic servant aged 22. Aberdonians usually married within their area with little mixing from elsewhere in Scotland, but there was an occasional sprinkling of English blood. They had four children and the 1865 birth certificate of their son, William, records Stephen as a Chelsea Pensioner: professional soldiers serving full terms were generally awarded ‘out pensions’ from the Chelsea Hospital.

Stephen was luckily to avoid typhus as a soldier. More soldiers died of typhus in Napoleon’s retreat Russian retreat than were killed fighting, and typhus was known as the American Civil War’s devastating ‘camp fever’. Ironically, after his years of service, Stephen succumbed while living a peaceful life in Aberdeen.

Typhus was common on 1800s death certificates. Its onset was sudden and symptoms included delirium, abdominal pain, fever, nausea and a rash. In pre-antibiotic days it was often fatal. Not to be confused with typhoid, an unrelated disease, it is one of several diseases caused by Rickettsia bacteria. Epidemic typhus is caused by Rickettsia prowazekii and spread by human body lice. These lice were then an unpleasant fact of life especially in conditions of poor hygiene, overcrowding and poverty. Found in the bedding and clothing of infected people, they caused an intense itching accompanied by small bites which developed into a rash.

Typhus appears on death certificates under many names, sometimes referring to the same or a similar disease and sometimes different conditions – and the different terms are used inconsistently.

You may find: spotted ague, abdominal typhus, African tick typhus and scrub typhus (not typhus but related diseases), typhus carcerum or jail fever, war fever, endemic or murine typhus, epidemic typhus also called European or louse born typhus, typhus ichteroides (yellow fever), typhus icterus (indicating jaundice), and typhus recurrens and Brill-Zinsser disease (recurrent forms).

There was an Irish typhus epidemic in 1816-1819, and another associated with the potato famine in 1846-1849. It spread to England as ‘Irish fever’, hitting the crowded lower classes worst. Typhus is recorded in Aberdeen in 1818-19 and returned as part of a Scotland-wide epidemic in 1840 when 535 cases were admitted to its two fever wards. There were later outbreaks in 1863-66, in 1846-8 (where it spread to Northern Ireland and was known as ‘the Scotch fever’), and in 1882 in the crowded Gallowgate and Causeway End areas.

The 1871 census shows Stephen and Elizabeth living in Commerce Street; they later moved to Queen Street. They had escaped the 1860s typhus outbreak, but from the informative Scottish death certificates we learn that Stephen died aged 54 on 17 September 1876, at the Royal Infirmary, Aberdeen of typhus lasting eight days. Aged just 32, Helen died the following year at the same infirmary, from ‘typhus fever’ lasting 18 days. The same doctor certified both deaths.

Typhus left the Kilminsters’ four children orphaned. In the 1881 census two of the boys were boarding with elderly crofters – sometimes orphans were assigned to an elderly couple – and another aged 16 worked in a comb factory. The daughter, Harriet, aged nine, was resident at the Female Orphan Institute, although by 1891 she lived with her grandmother.

The Aberdeen Kilminsters survived and their numbers grew. The surname is rare but Grampian is one of the five British counties where you are most likely to find it.