‘Guarded treasures’: child health, care, and loss in urban families from mid-18th to 19th century London

Abstract

As London continued to grow in population, wealth, and power in the 18th to 19th centuries, the deleterious conditions propagated by overcrowded and polluted living conditions had significant impacts on the health and survival prospects of the very young. Previous bioarchaeological studies have explored the influence of social inequality and environmental pressures on child health during this time, within a population perspective. However, such data have yet to be considered in terms of how families responded to the ubiquitous threat of child illness. This chapter integrates historical records from St. Bride's Fleet Street, London (1820–1850) and bioarchaeological data from five contemporaneous London-based sites of varying status for individuals aged 0–17 years. The combination of data from these sources enables the exploration of differential risks of childhood disease and loss of children throughout the social strata. A multitude of social and environmental factors influenced risk of morbidity and mortality for children—particularly the spread of infectious diseases. Ultimately, social class was not a determinant of the emotional investment bestowed on children by parents, but whether these risks could be mitigated by health care and child care provisions, or exacerbated by abject poverty, was primarily determined by social status.