Great Britain Historical Geographical Information System (GBHGIS)

2. infant mortality in london

The next map shows infant mortality in London at Registration Sub-District level based on the Quarterly Returns of the Registrar General. In this case we have only mapped data from the first two quarters of 1881 which may have led to the results being unpredictable due to small number effects. There is also the problem of institutional deaths; a death was recorded in the RD that it occurred in so an infant that died in hospital would be recorded as dying in the Sub-District containing the hospital rather than the one they lived in.

The most striking feature of this map, as with all maps of infant mortality last century is the high death rate; the mean rate per sub-district was 140 infants dying before their first birthday from every 1,000 births. There is however no clear pattern visible from this map. Wapping seems to be particularly bad and areas of outer London seem better than inner ares. There is not however the clear east/west difference that might be expected.