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.

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    1592-1594, and these arc the Bills which arc usually stated to have been the first. There is no copy of these or of any of the foregoing Bills in the British Museum, Guildhall, Record Office, or Somerset House. The first year in which the Bills of Mortality were issued to the public was 1594. Walford is of the opinion that this was done in order to frighten people from settling in the Metropolis, for Queen Elizabeth was seriously alarmed at the rapid growth of the city. The area within the first Bills of Mortality consisted only of the city parishes, but in 1605 six contiguous parishes in Middlesex and Surrey were added, and in 1626 the City of Westminster, making the total area 5,875 acres. In 1636, Hackney, Islington, Newington, Stepney, Poplar, Bethnal Green, and Rotherhithe were included, bringing the area up to 22,538 acres. St. Peter ad Vincula was added in 1729, “but a conteft arifing between the Inhabitants of the Tower Liberty without and thofe within the Tower, whether the Church of Sfc Peter ad Vincula was Parochial or not, the Merits thereof were tryVl in the Court of King's-Bench at Weftminfter in the Year 1730, when it was determin’d in the Negative, which occafion’d its being left out of the Bill of Mortality Toon after ” (Maitland). Particulars of diseases and casualties were first included in the Bills in 1629, and the burials of males and females were then given separately. It was at first feared that the publication of the causes of death might give offence, and for some years two sets of Bills were printed, one with and the other without this information. But in 1660 the Bills were remodelled, and henceforth only one Bill was issued. The list of casualties and diseases from the Bill for 1665—the year of the Great Plague—is here given as an illustration of the terminology in use at the time : Abortive and Stilborne 617 Bloudy Flux, Scowring Aged ... ... 1,545 and Flux 18 Ague and Feaver 5,257 Burnt and Scalded 8 Appoplex and Suddenly 116 Calenture 3 Bedrid .. 10 Cancer, Gangrene, and Blasted .. ... ... 5 Fistula 56 Bleeding ... ... 16 Canker and Thrush 111