Urbanization and mortality in Britain, c. 1800-50.

In the long-running debate over standards of living during the industrial revolution, pessimists have identified deteriorating health conditions in towns as undermining the positive effects of rising real incomes on the 'biological standard of living'. This article reviews long-run historical relationships between urbanization and epidemiological trends in England, and then addresses the specific question: did mortality rise especially in rapidly growing industrial and manufacturing towns in the period c. 1830-50? Using comparative data for British, European, and American cities and selected rural populations, this study finds good evidence for widespread increases in mortality in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. However, this phenomenon was not confined to 'new' or industrial towns. Instead, mortality rose in the 1830s especially among young children (aged one to four years) in a wide range of populations and environments. This pattern of heightened mortality extended between c. 1830 and c. 1870, and coincided with a well-established rise and decline in scarlet fever virulence and mortality. The evidence presented here therefore supports claims that mortality worsened for young children in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, but also indicates that this phenomenon was more geographically ubiquitous, less severe, and less chronologically concentrated than previously argued.Leverhulme Trust (award RPG-2012-803) Wellcome Trust (award no. 103322

Diet, health and work intensity in England and Wales, 1800-1914

In their different ways, both Thomas Malthus and Thomas McKeown raised fundamental questionsabout the relationship between food supply and the decline of mortality. Malthus argued that foodsupply was the most important constraint on population growth and McKeown claimed that an improvementin the population’s capacity to feed itself was the most important single cause of mortality change.This paper explores the implications of these arguments for our understanding of the causes of mortalitydecline in Britain between 1700 and 1914. It presents new estimates showing changes in the calorificvalue and composition of British diets in 1700, 1750, 1800 and 1850 and compares these with theofficial estimates published by the Royal Society in 1917. It then considers the implications of thesedata in the light of new arguments about the relationship between diet, work intensity and economicgrowth. However the paper is not solely concerned with the analysis of food-related issues. It alsoconsiders the ways in which sanitary reform may have contributed to the decline of mortality at theend of the nineteenth century and it pays particular attention to the impact of cohort-specific factorson the pattern of mortality decline from the mid-nineteenth century onwards

Long life in the modern world Changes in the process of ageing

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