Maitland[1] in 1756 and by the editor[2] of the "Collection of the Yearly Bills" in 1759, no material amendment was effected in the administration of the London Vital Statistics until they came under the supervision of the Registrar-General[3].
To determine the mere number of persons who died, or were born or married, is much less difficult than to determine the causes of their death; but even in the former respects the seventeenth century bills leave much to be desired. Graunt himself pointed out "that there hath been a neglect in the Accompt of the Christenings[4]," and explains that this "hath been neglected more than that of Burials" because religious scruples played a larger part in the former case[5]. But even the record of burials included, as a rule, only those buried according to the service of the Church of England. Roman Catholics and non-conformists interred in their own burying grounds were entirely omitted from the bills. Now as late as 1676 Petty calculated on the basis of the Bishop's Survey, that these omitted classes were nearly five per cent of the population of England[6] and it is generally admitted that in the twenty-five years after the Restoration the proportion of non-conformists had considerably decreased. Besides this, it seems that even conformists buried elsewhere than in the parish churches or cemeteries, e.g. in St Paul's, the Charter House, or the hospitals, were omitted from the bills[7]. Further than this Dr Ogle has shown by comparison of the printed or manuscript registers of many parish churches with the number of burials returned from those parishes by the bills, that the Parish Clerks were often careless in making the returns even of members of the Established Church buried in their own parish cemeteries, and that the number in the bills is more frequently an understatement than an exaggeration. It seems, however, that
- ↑ History of London, ii. 740, seq.
- ↑ Probably Dr Heberden. See Bibliography, no. 17.
- ↑ Penny Cyclopedia (1835), Vol. iv. pp. 407, 408, s.v. Bills of Mortality.
- ↑ Pp. 361—362.
- ↑ P. 361.
- ↑ P. 461.
- ↑ Maitland, Hist, of London, ii. 740—743; Ogle, loc. cit. 446; Short, New Observations, p. x. Petty says (p. 511) that in 1685 there were buried from St Bartholomew's and St Thomas's alone 451 persons, which is over two per cent, of the 23,222 burials returned in the annual bill for that year (p. 517 note). In 1729, when the bills returned 29,722 deaths, Maitland finds that 3038 were omitted.
ears, Bell clinches by adding "I presume there cannot be a stricter obligation than an oath to bind any person." London's Remembrancer (not paged).
