Causes of death and ages 1578-1837

Smith, Richard and Davenport, Romola and Newton, Gill (2020). Causes of death and ages 1578-1837. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-854223

These individual-level pre-civil registration cause of death data with ages 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)

These individual-level pre-civil registration of deaths cause of death (COD) data with ages were compiled as part of a research programme exploring long-run changes in England's mortality regime. The data collection comprises COD with reported ages for circa 160,000 persons, abstracted from the Anglican burial registers of English parishes/places for periods ranging from 1578 and 1837. Burial year and month date are available for all records and in most cases burial day date. For some places additional information is included, such as sex, occupation, address, poor status, migrant status, or whether born to an unmarried mother. Most of the records are from urban or urban-adjacent parishes.

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