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

Abstract

The paper uses a range of sources — parish registers, family histories, bills of mortality, local censuses, marriage licences, apprenticeship indentures, and wills — to document the history of mortality of London in the period 1538–1850. The main conclusions of the research are as follows:1. Infant and child mortality more than doubled between the sixteenth and the middle of the eighteenth century in both wealthy and non-wealthy families.2. Mortality peaked in the middle of the eighteenth century at a very high level, with nearly two-thirds of all children — rich and poor — dying by their fifth birthday.3. Mortality under the age of two fell sharply after the middle of the eighteenth century, and older child mortality decreased mainly during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. By the second quarter of the nineteenth century about 30 per cent of all children had died within the first five years. This latter fall in mortality appears to have occurred equally amongst both the wealthy and the non-wealthy population.4. There was little or no change in paternal mortality from 1600 to 1750, after which date there was a steady reduction until the middle of the nineteenth century. The scale of the fall in adult mortality was probably less than the reduction in infant and child mortality. The latter more than halved between the middle of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, whereas paternal mortality fell by about a third in the same period.5. There appears to have been a minimal social class gradient in infant, child and adult mortality in London during the period 1550–1850. This is an unexpected finding, raising fundamental questions about the role of poverty and social class in shaping mortality in this period.6. Although migration played a leading role in fostering the population increase in London in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, relatively low infant and child mortality made a major contribution to population growth during this period.