Bills of mortality / by William A. Brend.

  • Brend, William Alfred, 1873-
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Bills of mortality / by William A. Brend. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    8/20 (page 4)
    The next Bill of Mortality appears to have been for the year 15G2, and tho occasion of its preparation is thus given in Maitland’s “History of London,” 1754 : “In the year 1562 a grievous Pestilence raged in this City; therefore, in order to know the Increase or Decrease of the same ’twas judg’d necessary to take an Account of the Number of Burials; which being the First of the Kind that was ever taken in London, it commenc’d on the first of January Anno 1562, and ended the last of December 1563, Whereby it appears that the Number Total buried within the City and Suburbs in that Year amounted to 23,630, whereof of the Plague 20,136.” This Bill is quoted by Stow, but I have not been able to find any instance of the original. In the Hall of the Parish Clerks, Wood Street, City, is a well- preserved Bill of Mortality for the year 1582. This is probably the oldest Bill now extant. Walford {Transactions of the Boyal Historical Society, 1878) mentions it, but no other writer on the subject seems to have been aware of its existence. It runs as follows : “ The nvmber of all thofe that hath dyed in the Citie of London and the liberties of the same from the 28 of December 1581 vnto the 27 of December 1582, with the Christenings. And alfo the number of thofe haue dyed of the plague of euery parifh particulerly. “Eeuela, 14 chap.—Blefied are the cleade that die in the I.orde euen fo fayth the fpirite for they reft from their labours. “There is deade this yeere, that is to say frd the' 28 of December 1581 unto the 27 of December 1582 - within the Citie and liberties of the fame viMDccccxxx Of the plague Chriftencd ... Tarithes clecrc of the plague Out parishes Of the plague iiiMLxxv iiiMDiii v CCCCxxx CCxxxix “ Here followeth the parifhes with their numbers that hath buried of the Plague. . . .” Bills of Mortality were not again kept until the plague }Tcars,