Great Britain Historical Geographical Information System (GBHGIS)

4. typhus fever and uncorrected and corrected deaths

The final two maps are concerned with deaths from typhus fever in the 1869 epidemic and demonstrate our ability to map not just raw data but also the results of analysis. In this case the analysis was done by Graham Mooney of the Centre for Metropolitan History.

The analysis attempts to resolve the institutional deaths problem whereby people who died in hospitals or other institutions are recorded as dying in the Registration District containing the institution and not the area the person lived in. This can produced some very misleading affects.

The first map shows where people died from typhus fever in 1869. The pattern is clear with deaths concentrated in one RD, Islington which has a rate which is actually over 200 deaths per 1,000 population hugely exceeding any other areas.

This map is very misleading; the reason for this high rate is simply that the London Fever Hospital was situated in this area and many people from all over London and beyond travelled to Islington and died there. In order to correct for these Dr. Mooney used the patient registers from the London Fever Hospital to find the "home" Registration District of every patient dying of typhus. Deaths were then allocated to the correct RD and removed from Islington's total.

The second map shows these "corrected" data - the high rates are concentrated in the poor areas to the north and east of the City. The rate in Islington is only average. The data used on these maps were provided by Graham Mooney from the Centre for Metropolitan History and this section demonstrates work done by him.