Mortality statistics in England and Wales
Introduction
This guide is intended to provide a starting point for finding mortality statistics for England and Wales in printed sources. It also lists some publications explaining how the collection and analysis of mortality statistics has changed. All references listed are held at the Wellcome Library; shelfmarks and locations are given in brackets. A timeline listing major developments
in the collection and dissemination of mortality statistics completes the guide.
A Library catalogue search will provide more sources than are listed in this guide. Key search words are mortality - statistics and numerical data.
National statistics
First major attempt at organised collection on a national basis was the Annual Report of the Registrar General.
19th-21st century
Annual Report of the Registrar General for births, deaths, and marriages in England
[Closed stores serials S4652]
Annual summary of births, deaths, and causes of death in England and Wales, and in London and other large towns (compiled from weekly and quarterly returns). A decennial supplement was introduced from the 25th Annual Report and the first supplement is for 1851-60. Statistics cover mortality by age, registration district and cause of death, not always by gender.
London statistics
16th century-18th century
Prior to the 19th Century, Bills of Mortality were the main source of mortality statistics, designed to monitor deaths from the plague, they ran from 1660's to 1830's.
London's Dreadful Visitations: or a collection of all the Bills of mortality for this present year: Beginning 27th December 1664 and ending the 19th December the following. 1665.
[Closed stores EPB MSL/B/LON]
Weekly statistics for the number buried in each parish who died of the plague and those who died of other causes. Disease and casualties per week for all causes by sex and number christened. General Bill for year ending 19th December 1665 containing the number buried and number dying of plague, and by sex. Totals for diseases and casualties for the year.
London's Remembrancer or a true accompt of every particular weeks christenings and mortality in the years of pestilence within the cognizance of the bills of mortality being XVIII years taken out of the request of the
company of Parish clerks of London etc. together with several observations on the said years, and some of their precedent and subsequent years, 1668-1700
[Closed stores EPB / B 13123/B]
Information taken from the registers kept in the common hall of the Company of Parish clerks. Weekly figures by parish for burial and plague, total number buried by sex and by cause of death.
A collection of weekly bills of mortality. 19 Dec. 1665-17 Dec. 1700 / Made up from two
sets, 1665-98 (6 vols.) and 1680-1700 (2 vols.)
[Closed stores EPB MSL/B/LON]
A general bill of all the christnings and burials… 1758-1799.
[Closed stores EPB MSL /COL]
Bound with Collection of the yearly bills of mortality from 1657-1758; 1759 -. All mortality bills for this period with a selection of other bills from earlier dates; 1593, number buried and number who died of plague by parish, annual and monthly totals. Christenings and mortality by month and total: 1606-1610, 1625, 1630, 1636, 1637, 1640-1647. General Bill gives cause of
death, number who died, number who died of plague, and number christened 1657 - 1799.
John Marshall, Mortality of the Metropolis, 1832.
[Closed stores EPB / C 35547/C]
Burials by county 1801-1820, total burials 1790-1820, total burials by parish 1700-1820, total burials per week 1593-1646, total dying of plague per week 1593-1665. Mortality rate by age in City of London 1728 - 1830, burial rate by parish, 1657-1830, number of deaths and cause 1629-1831.
Capt. John Graunt, Natural and Political observations mentioned in a following index, and made upon the on the bills of mortality, London, 1662 and later editions held.
[Open shelves EK.41.AA6, facsimile copy]
A discursive examination and analysis of the Bills of Mortality with statistical data. Facsimile copy available in Pioneers of Demography series.
19th-21st century
Weekly returns of births and deaths in London. General Register Office.
[Closed stores serials S4662, check catalogue for holdings]
Weekly reports showing deaths from all causes by age.
London local Medical Officer of Health reports, 1855 - 1856 (see below for development of MOH reports)
Annual Report for the year..../Metropolitan Asylums Board 1887-1922.
[Annual Reports collections - Closed stores].
Statistical Committee reports include notifications of infectious diseases and number of deaths from them.
Regional statistics
Early periods
There is no one source for early regional mortality statistics. You should check with general books on mortality statistics and search on geographical locations on the online catalogue.
19th century
The most comprehensive compilation of statistics is provided through the Medical Officer of Health reports.
Medical Officer of Health Reports
The Library holds the most complete collection of MOH reports in Great Britain and they are divided into four sequences Main, Provincial, Educational, and London. Mortality statistics include sex, age, cause of death, and for towns, notifiable diseases.
All reports are listed on the Library catalogue, and should be searched under ‘medical officer of health’ and the town or borough, e.g. medical officer of health birmingham.
Timeline for Medical Officer of Health reports
1847: First Medical Officer of Health (MOH) - William Henry Duncan for Liverpool.
1848: John Simon was created MOH for City of London.
1848: Public Health Act created the General Board of Health and allowed authorities to
create MOH posts without recourse to Parliament.
1855: Metropolis Act divided London into 46 districts and each required to appoint an MOH.
1856: Sir John Snow (now at General Board of Health) instituted the publication of the annual report of the Chief Medical Officer of Health.
1872: Public Health Act initially created 1453 urban and rural authorities, all had to appoint an MOH.
1929: Compulsory for MOHs to be full-time
1972: Local Government Act brought the post of MOH to an end.
Secondary source material and compiled data
General books & contemporary compilations of mortality statistics
R. Woods & N. Shelton, An atlas of Victorian mortality, 1997.
[Open shelves Folios EK.41.AA8]
A description of the geography of mortality in England and Wales, including infant and childhood mortality, maternal mortality, early adult death, causes of death in old age. Contains nosologies for decennial supplements of Registrar General Report, graphs and maps of geographical variations.
Wrigley, E.A. & Schofield, R.S., The population history of England 1541 - 1871: a reconstruction, 2 editions.
[Open shelves EH.41.AA5-8]
Includes chapters on mortality levels, crises and fluctuations. Includes some statistical tables.
Charlton, J. & Murphy, M. The health of adult Britain, Vol 1 & 2. 1997.
[Open shelves EH.41.AA8-9]
Mortality trends from 1841-1994, including socio-economic factors, disease and accidents. Contains tables and figures of statistical data with discussion and a chronology of major events for this period.
Tranter, N. L., British population in the twentieth century, 1996.
[Open shelves EH.41.AA9]
Population growth, migration, mortality and fertility trends. Includes statistical tables.
Creighton, C., A History of epidemics in Britain, 1965, first edition 1894.
[Open shelves ED.41]
Includes selective statistics for specific epidemics in the U.K. from ancient times to late 19th Century.
Background Reading
Ayers, G. M. England's First State Hospitals 1867 - 1930, 1971.
[Open shelves CAF.41.C]
History of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, includes some data from MAB and Registrar General Reports.
Eyler, J.M. Victorian Social Medicine: the ideas and methods of William Farr, 1979.
[Open shelves BZP/Farr]
The work of William Farr, the statistical movement, GRO and mortality statistics, the Life Table, and zymotic theory.
Hardy, A. "Death is the cure of all diseases": Using the General Register Office cause of death statistics for 1837-1920. Social History of Medicine, Vol. 7, 1994, p.472 - 492.
[Serials /SOC and online]
Nissel, M. People Count: a history of the General Register Office, 1987.
[Open shelves EH.41 or Closed stores Shepherd /NIS]
Sheard, S. and Donaldson, L. The nation's doctor: the role of the Chief Medical Officer 1855-1998. Oxford: Radcliffe, 2005.
[Open shelves JOF.41.AA8-9]
Vital Statistics : A memorial volume of selections from the reports and writings of William Farr. 1975.
[Open shelves EH.41.AA8]
Large section on deaths, discussing all aspects of mortality and death rates.
Woods, R. The demography of Victorian England and Wales, 2000.
[Open shelves EH.41.AA8]
Demographic change 1837-1914, quality of the registration system, occupational mortality.
Journals specialising in articles on demographic trends
Please check online catalogue for holdings:
Economic History Review [Closed stores serials S7426 and online]
Population Studies [Closed stores serials S4970 and online]
Population Trends [Closed stores serials S4927 and online]
Electronic resources
Twentieth Century Mortality. 2003.
[CD-ROM, Available at Library Enquiry Desk]
Includes files to import data into any analysis or database package. Data provided by Office of National Statistics.
Websites
These sites are for health statistics in general and include references to UK mortality statistics.
Department of Health
Data on indicators of health in the UK.
NHS Information Centre
Public health, population and lifestyle statistics. Includes Health Survey for England
Office of National Statistics
Mortality statistics in England and Wales from 2006 to present
Royal College of General Practitioners
Weekly incidence rates for several illnesses from General Practice in England and Wales.
UK Data Archive
Datasets for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Users must register individually to download data.
UK National Statistics
Gateway to UK National Statistics website. Includes data for life expectancy, cause of death and mortality.
World Health Organization
Global disease, health and mortality statistics.
Timeline for mortality statistics
1593: First year any account of Christenings and burials were kept.
1665: Bills of Mortality were introduced to provide statistics on deaths caused by the plague. Data often derived from parish registers (no allowance was made for non-conformists failing to register most baptisms and burials.)
1836: Registration Act created the General Register Office, which was set up in 1837. Indexes of births, deaths and marriages for England and Wales stem from this date. The Act required the GRO to prepare an annual abstract for Parliament. Under the Act the family had to report the death to the local registrar of births, deaths and marriages, it did not require certification by
a medical practitioner. Required information regarding the deceased was; date of death, name, age, sex, rank or profession and cause of death.
1839: William Farr devised the first system of disease classification (nosology), his third revision was adopted by the GRO in 1860.
1840: GRO began to issue weekly reports for London, and in 1842 began to issue quarterly reports for the Nation.
1845: Qualified medical practitioners were issued with tablets of printed forms for certification of cause of death. Any death not registered with this certificate was 'not certified'.
1867: The Metropolitan Asylums Board was founded by the Metropolitan Poor Act, and created the Metropolitan Asylum District covering London. The Board made provision for the sick poor and collected statistics.
1874: Registration Amendment Act. Medical practitioners were now formally required to issue death certificates (printed forms provided by Registrar-General). Failure to deliver certificate to the registrar incurred a penalty.
1881: William Ogle set up an enquiry system between the GRO and certifying medical practitioners in an attempt to cut down on ambiguously worded death certificates, this lead to a general improvement in the quality of statistics.
1896: GRO revised the classification of disease further by adopting the revised nomenclature published by the Royal College of Physicians.
1900: International Classification of Diseases (ICD) was introduced, and has been used for mortality statistics in England and Wales since 1911. (1901-1910 an unnumbered list of causes was used because the ICD had not been widely adopted).
1959: Office of National Statistics (ONS) introduced computerised record keeping for statistical tabulations of mortality.
1970: GRO became Office of Populations Censuses and Surveys (OPCS)
1996: OPCS became Office of National Statistics (ONS)
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