John Snow was born in York, but came to Newcastle in 1827 to be apprenticed to William Hardcastle, the surgeon. In 1831, cholera reached England from Europe, first appearing in Sunderland. For the next eighteen months an epidemic raged throughout the North East and Hardcastle sent his apprentice to Killingworth Colliery to work with the victims.
In 1833, Snow left Newcastle and, after practising in Yorkshire, went to London in 1836. He established his first practice at 54 Frith Street in Soho and soon developed an interest in anaesthesia. He became the first professional anaesthetist and quickly became London's leading practitioner in the field. Snow now turned to chloroform, rather than ether, and administered it to Queen Victoria at the birth of Prince Leopold on 7 April 1853, and again at the birth of Princess Beatrice.
Meanwhile Snow's active mind had turned to the study of cholera and his 'On the Mode of Communication of Cholera' appeared in 1855. Snow opposed the theory of cholera as an air-borne disease; he investigated the Broad street pump during the Soho epidemic and was able to prove that the dread disease was water-borne. It was largely due to Snow that British cities invested in vast new drainage and sewerage systems from the mid 1850s.
The name of the pub on the site of the Broad street pump, 'The Newcastle upon Tyne', was changed in 1955 to 'The John Snow'.