Great Britain Historical Geographical Information System (GBHGIS)

2. infant mortality in london registration sub-districts, 1881

Existing research on mortality in the pre-1911 period is almost entirely concerned with data for the c.630 Registration Districts (RDs), as in the previous map. However, these Districts were largely identical to Poor Law Unions, which were originally defined in the 1830s in terms of towns together with their hinterlands. As a result, RDs tend to combine rural and urban areas and consequently are a poor basis for studying rural/urban differences.

We have therefore been investigating the more limited data available for the 2,000+ Registration sub-Districts. We have already constructed complete transcripts of the tables from the four issues of the Registrar General's Quarterly Returns for 1881, but so far can only map them for London, as shown here.

Note that there are particular problems in London as deaths in hospitals were recorded in the sub-District containing the hospital, not that containing the person's home, but there are various ways this can be adjusted for. 1881 was of course a census year, and we also have a complete transcript of the census table listing the age and sex structure of each sub-District's population, which will permit us to compute Standardised Mortality Ratios (SMRs).