Great Britain Historical Geographical Information System (GBHGIS)

5. adult males receiving poor relief due to sickness, 1911

Research into the health of people in the past has been almost entirely concerned with mortality, but in everyday language we assess our health mainly in terms of being well or sick - which often in practice means whether we are in a physical state that enables us to do our job. It is by no means clear that mortality data tell us much about this; indeed, it has been argued that high levels of mortality in the 19th century due to epidemic diseases meant that those disposed to ill-health were much less likely to survive into adulthood, let alone old age, and therefore rates of long-term illness due to chronic conditions would have been much lower.

Relevant data is hard to find and generally problematic. The Poor Law system did provide relief to the sick, and by the early 20th century they were separately tabulated. The map below uses Poor Law Union-level data taken from the Local Government Board's returns to Parliament. The term 'Able-Bodied' may appear confusing, but the 'not able-bodied' were the disabled and the aged poor, i.e. those permanently unable to work.

The real problem with this map is the denominator: we are using census data giving the total male population aged between 16 and 64, the latter age being an arbitrary cut-off to exclude those who would probably have been classed as 'not able-bodied'. However, Poor Relief was offered on essentially penal terms, and arguably only a relatively small fraction of the total population would ever have considered applying for assistance, whatever their health. This map may therefore mainly record areas in which a high proportion of the population would consider applying.