London weekly bills of mortality, 1644-1849

Smith, Richard and Davenport, Romola and Newton, Gill (2020). London weekly bills of mortality, 1644-1849. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-854104

These weekly data on London burials, baptisms, causes of death and bread prices were compiled as part of a research programme exploring long-run changes in England's mortality regime. Today, life expectancy is higher in urban rather than rural areas, but early modern towns and cities were demographic sinks with extraordinarily high mortality, especially among the young and migrants who were essential for city growth. The project investigated how and when cities transformed from urban graveyards into promoters of health between 1600 and 1945. The process of endemicisation and exogenous disease variation is key to the evolution of both urban and non-urban mortality regimes, especially with respect to: infectious diseases among the young, maternal health and adult migrants and their health/immunological status.

Data description (abstract)

This dataset comprises enumerations relating to London burials (and baptisms) transcribed from 9,950 extant Weekly Bills of Mortality from 1644 to 1849. Each Bill comprises four main sections containing different types of information for that week: 1) counts - the number of persons buried, dying of plague or christened weekly in each parish from 1644 to 1849. 2) ages - the number of dead persons in all parishes together in each of circa twelve age groups weekly from 1729 to 1849. 3) cods - the number of dead persons in all parishes together ascribed to particular causes of death, ie each 'disease or casualty', weekly from 1644 to 1845. 4) bread - the weight of bread of several types sold at a standard price in London, weekly from 1644 to 1815.

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