Volume 2

Report to Her Majesty's principal secretary of state for the Home Department from the Poor Law Commissioners, on an inquiry into the sanitary condition of the labouring population of Great Britain; with appendices. Presented to both Houses of Parliament, by command of Her Majesty, July, 1842 / [by Edwin Chadwick].

  • Chadwick, Edwin, 1800-1890.
Date:
1842-1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report to Her Majesty's principal secretary of state for the Home Department from the Poor Law Commissioners, on an inquiry into the sanitary condition of the labouring population of Great Britain; with appendices. Presented to both Houses of Parliament, by command of Her Majesty, July, 1842 / [by Edwin Chadwick]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    disappears so another springs up,” that the positive “ amount of mortality, the common lot,’ is the same to all classes. But death, besides differing in the period to different individuals, differs widely in the numbers of burials, and in the consequent expenses to different families, classes, and districts. It is the number as well as the separate expense of each of the funerals which occur during the year to each class of persons, or to different districts, which determines the total expense of burial to the class or district. ‘Thus, to the poorer classes, living in wretched habita- tions, as those comprised in Bethnal Green and Whitechapel, there is one burial to every 31 of the inhabitants, whilst in the contiguous district of Hackney there is only one burial to every 56 of the inhabitants yearly. In Liverpool there is one burial per annum to every 30 of the inhabitants, whilst in the county of Hereford there is one burial only to every 55 of the inhabitants. If the existing charge of burial, at the above rates of expense to each class of individuals, were commuted for an annual payment, commencing at birth, as a premium for the payment of 100/. 90/., and 5/., payable at the undermentioned periods respectively, it would in the metropolis and the county of Hereford be nearly as follows :— METROPOLIS. HEREFORDSHIRE. Annual | Annual Average Payment for Average Payment CLASS. Age Burial Age for Burial at Death, to every at Death. to every Individual, Individual. Years. Le Somat J co. 5) ag Gentry . sjhetis Ly; 1410 45 ] 0 Tradesmen or Farmers. . . 25 1 Goes 47 0,9 &.9 RACUOLTCLS Ey yen Be ee os 22 Dee ee | 39 | i i Average of all Classes . . . 27 39 SUE Ren a ee Supposing each member of the family to have been assured at birth, a labourer’s family in Herefordshire consisting of five persons would have to pay yearly 13s. 9d., and there a farmer’s family of the same number would have to pay 2/7. 8s. 9d. yearly ; whilst in London for an artisan’s family of five, the yearly pay- ment would be 15s. 10d. and for a tradesman’s family it would be 6/. 13s. 4d. per annum. To insure the payment of the average cost of funerals, 142. 7s. 5d. at the end of 27 years, on the metro- politan chances of life, the annual payment would be 7s., whilst on the Herefordshire chances of life of 39 years to all born high or low the sum would be only 4s. Or to take another form of displaying the comparative burthen; the general average cost of each burial being 14/. 7s. 5d., and the annual proportions of deaths being different from the average duration of life—being 1] of every 40 in the metropolis, a poll-tax to defray the burial