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Think you have a hard life? At least you’re still alive at 24
Jonathan Prynn, Consumer Business Editor16 Sep 2009
Swine flu? Credit crunch? Pub prices going up and up? If you think you've got it bad, cheer up — at least you weren't around in 1809.
Records published online for the first time today reveal that in parts of
London you could expect to be dead before you were 24.
The data from parish files shows how the capital was among the most dangerous and unhealthy places on the planet only 200 years ago.
In Westminster — now packed with glitzy stores and fine dining — the average at which you died was 23. In Kensington and Chelsea, now a haven for the super-rich, it was 25.
A resident of these areas can now expect to live to as long as 88.
The analysis of burial records, carried out for the Evening Standard, shows the average age at which a person died in 1809 was 29. London was particularly unhealthy because of chronic overcrowding, terrible sanitation, poor work conditions, alcohol abuse, and high food prices caused by the wars with France.
Babies and children died in droves from disease and malnutrition. The figures show that the closer to open sewers and cesspits people were, the greater their chances of dying. Notorious slum areas such as Southwark, where Charles Dickens would find much of his inspiration, were equally unhealthy.
But in what were then villages outside the centre, lives were longer — at the start of the 1800s residents of Brent and Harrow could look forward to reaching the venerable age of 37.
Dan Jones, director of content at Ancestry.co.uk, which is putting the 18 million parish records online, said: “London was clearly a very unhealthy place to live for a very long time. It was only the creation of the NHS in 1948 that got Londoners up to the sorts of levels of life expectancy we have seen for the past 30 years or so.”
In 1850, before modern sewerage eradicated cholera, average London lifespans had only advanced by two years. In 1950, just as the NHS began to make radical improvements to public health, it reached 60.
The online parish records go back as early as 1537, enabling people to research their family trees further than the start of official government records in 1837. They also show how bubonic plague wiped out about 20 per cent of London's 500,000 population in the mid-1660s, and burials soared in the cholera outbreak of 1854.
Another trend was the increase in London marriages at the start of the First World War — from 63,540 in 1914 to 84,120 in 1915 — as couples rushed to wed before the men were despatched to the Western Front.
Reader views (6)
"Chronic overcrowding, terrible sanitation, poor work conditions, alcohol abuse, and high food prices...".
Sounds a lot like London in the 21st century to me. Today a lot of Londoners live in "hobbit homes", face poor work conditions (anybody every worked in an overstaffed, windowless open plan office?), abuse alcohol on a regular basis, and can't afford a meal at most of London's restaurants.
- Paulina Smid, London, 17/09/2009 13:10
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Personally,I'd rather have died at 24.
- Eddie, London, 17/09/2009 12:13
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London really wasn't paved with gold was it! It's shocking to think of the struggles that our ancestors had to go through - I suppose this figure was so low because so many children died so young.
- Tally, Hampstead, 17/09/2009 12:10
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I'm only 22, so i've still go two years left before I can categorically state that I am better off today than I would have been 200 years ago!
- Callum, London, 17/09/2009 12:10
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Gowd blimy guvnr, us waifs and strays dont know ow lucky we are ! Back in my day they would have pressganged youn' dodgers off the streets and put em to work for their short lives - dont know why you dont do that today, guv.
Young villans havnt ad it so good wiv all this TV good food and something called playstations, an thats only in prison, I guess sombody will quote me on that in the 21st Century, whatever that is !
- Young Jim, Newgate, 17/09/2009 12:10
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The average age would be extremely low because of the extremely high mortality rate. Once over the age of 10, life expectancy was probably pretty reasonable.
- George, London, 17/09/2009 12:10
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