Impact of a rising mobile population

• death rate fell due to:

  • medical industry producing the vaccine that prevented smallpox killing so many people
  • the agricultural industry producing food that was better in quality and quantity.
  • the chemical industry producing soap that was cheap and readily available, enabling people to keep themselves and their clothes cleaner than before.
  • textile industry producing cotton cloth that was cheap to buy and easy to wash and so help people to keep clean
• birth rates rose:

  • fewer people dying when young meant that more people survived into their 20's and 30's to have babies
  • more babies living to adulthood meant that their generation, too, would have more children, and so on through following generations.
• marriage rate rose because:

  • in rural areas farmers employed fewer live in servants. - easier for men and women agricultural labourers to get married earlier
  • in industrial areas, unskilled workers were replacing skilled craftsmen who had to work a 7-year apprenticeship - industrial workers could marry as soon as they had a job or even if they did not have one
  • earlier marriages = more babies
• • 1801 - 33% of the population lived in towns
  • 1851 - 50% lived in towns
  • 1891 - 72% lived in towns
  • official national census was was held every 10 years from 1841
• Civil registration

  • births, deaths and marriages
  • introduced in 1837
  • young, fertile and actively reproducing population in urban centers
  • birth rates were continually above death rates and so natural increase, from the 1840's, added to the increase from internal migration
• • Manchester 1840's - 57% of babies died before their 5th birthday
  • epidemics of cholera, smallpox and scarlet fever, were recorded and their rate and geographical distribution were analyzed by statisticians and used by those pushing for reform in public health.
• William Farr (1807-83)


  • started medical practice in 1833
  • was chief statistician at the Office of Registrar Office a post he held until 1879
  • 1st July 1837 - all deaths, births and marriages had to be registered.
  • doctors registered the cause of death, Farr was able to produce statistics that were invaluable to public health reformers
  • used his position to advocate public health reform, drawing attention to the wide variations in mortality between different areas of the country.
  • was a supporter of miasma theory but the 1866 Cholera outbreak convinced him cholera was waterborne
• • urban growth created public health problems