The History of Infant, Child and Adult Mortality in London, 1550–1850

Razzell, Peter; Spence, Christine

doi:10.1179/174963207x227578

Cited by 16 publications

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“…Appleby, ‘Nutrition and disease’; Champion, London's dreaded visitation , pp. 81–97; Razzell and Spence, ‘History’; Newton, ‘Infant mortality variations’.…”

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Living standards and plague in London, 1560–1665

Cummins

Kelly

Gráda

2015

The Economic History Review

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This article uses individual records of 930,000 burials and 630,000 baptisms to reconstruct the spatial and temporal patterns of birth and death in London from 1560 to 1665, a period dominated by recurrent plague. The plagues of 1563, 1603, 1625, and 1665 appear of roughly equal magnitude, with deaths running at five to six times their usual rate, but the impact on wealthier central parishes falls markedly through time. Tracking the weekly spread of plague, we find no evidence that plague emerged first in the docks, and in many cases elevated mortality emerges first in the poor northern suburbs. Looking at the seasonal pattern of mortality, we find that the characteristic autumn spike associated with plague continued into the early 1700s. Natural increase improved as smaller crises disappeared after 1590, but fewer than half of those born survived childhood.

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“…Appleby, ‘Nutrition and disease’; Champion, London's dreaded visitation , pp. 81–97; Razzell and Spence, ‘History’; Newton, ‘Infant mortality variations’.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Hollingsworth and Hollingsworth, ‘Plague mortality rates’; Finlay, Population and metropolis ; Boulton, Neighbourhood and society ; Razzell and Spence, ‘History’; Newton, ‘Infant mortality variations’.…”

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confidence: 99%

Living standards and plague in London, 1560–1665

Cummins

Kelly

Gráda

2015

The Economic History Review

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“…122 122 Razzell and Spence, ‘History’, p. 176. This was a part of a long‐term increase in virulence, with under 4% of children dying from smallpox in London in the sixteenth century, increasing to over 45% among unprotected London children in the 1880s.…”

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The decline of adult smallpox in eighteenth-century London: a commentary

Razzell¹

2011

The Economic History Review

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Smallpox was probably the single most lethal disease in eighteenth-century Britain, but was a minor cause of death by the mid-nineteenth century. Although vaccination was crucial to the decline of smallpox, especially in urban areas, from the beginning of the nineteenth century, it remains disputed the extent to which smallpox mortality declined before vaccination. Analysis of age-specific changes in smallpox burials within the large west London parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields revealed a precipitous reduction in adult smallpox risk from the 1770s, and this pattern was duplicated in the east London parish of St Dunstan's. Most adult smallpox victims were rural migrants, and such a drop in their susceptibility is consistent with a sudden increase in exposure to smallpox in rural areas. We investigated whether this was due to the spread of inoculation, or an increase in smallpox transmission, using changes in the age patterns of child smallpox burials. Smallpox mortality rose among infants, and smallpox burials became concentrated at the youngest ages, suggesting a sudden increase in infectiousness of the smallpox virus. Such a change intensified the process of smallpox endemicization in the English population, but also made cities substantially safer for young adult migrants.e hr_599 1289..1314 T he late eighteenth century was a crucial period in English population history, marking the beginning of the demographic transition. On the mortality side, the period saw a rise in life expectancy that was moderate in rural areas but resulted in the transformation of the urban mortality regime. London in particular ceased to function as a brake on the national population, consuming the population growth of the countryside, and became a self-sustaining centre in which births exceeded deaths. 2 This period also witnessed the emergence of class differences in mortality, heralding the modern mortality regime where urban and higher socioeconomic groups enjoy significantly higher survival chances than their rural and poorer peers. 3 Despite the huge significance of this period for our understanding of population growth and mortality decline, we still know little more than the bare outline of events. While the work of the Cambridge Group has provided very detailed information on the age structure of mortality decline through the technique of family reconstitution, we know very little about the changes in disease patterns that were the proximate cause of these changes, because parish data rarely included information on cause of death. 4 Moreover, the reconstituted populations did not include any large towns, and it is clear that early modern cities, and especially London, had very different mortality regimes from rural areas, and experienced more profound changes in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. However, although we know relatively little about changes in death rates in urban areas, almost all we know of causes of death in this period comes from urban populations, because the main sources for London and sev...

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“…The persistence of families is considered by several other studies. Razzell and Spence examined long‐term trends in child and adult mortality in London, emphasizing Smith's observations about the broader impact of metropolitan death rates. They conclude that infant and child mortality rates doubled in the capital between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, so that by 1750 two‐thirds of children died before the age of five.…”

Section: (Iii) 1500–1700 Henry French University Of Exetermentioning

confidence: 99%