Childhood Mortality in Nineteenth-Century England :: European Europe History

Childhood Mortality in Nineteenth-Century EnglandThe issue of childhood mortality is written into the works of Gaskell and Dickens with alarming regularity. In bloody shame Barton, Alice tells Mary and Margaret that in the lead Will was orphaned, his family had buried his six siblings. There is in like manner the wear of the Wil tidings twins, as well as Tom Bartons early death --an event which inspires his father John to fight for labor rights because hes certain his give-and-take would have survived if hed had better food. In O wearr Twist, Dicks early death is typical of workhouse children who never recover from years of chronic malnutrition. And in Dombey and Son, Paul demonstrates that wealth does non guarantee longevity, as we watch him steadily weakened by approximately mysterious illness. Evidence is everywhere that Gaskell, Dickens, and many of their contemporaries, used fiction to narration a sad fact of l9th century life Many children didnt live to become adults. At the Newell Historical Burial ground in Attleboro, the fossa marking the graves of the Stanley family indicates that three children were either stillborn or died before their first birthdays. If there were any other children who survived childhood, they were probably daughters who were buried in their husbands family plots. A typical grave from the mid-19th century is a husbands stone flanked by two or even three wives each but the last having died in her 20s or 30s. Certainly many of these women died in childbirth, because their death dates affect the birth dates on the childrens stones. Several children might be named after the father. In one family plot with eight children, three were named John because only the ordinal one survived the first year. ApE time when the death of a tot was as normal as this practice was quite common in both America and England. While all of Dombeys money couldnt save his son from dying, little Pauls diet, lifestyle, and medical attention gave hi m every advantage available. The relationship in the midst of poverty and childhood mortality is unmistakable. In Bostons Irish Catholic slums, Lemuel Shattuck anchor that between 1841 and 1845, 61% of the population died before the age of five. (Woodham-Smith, p. 252) Poor face children didnt fare any particularly in the manufacturing towns of London, Sheffield, Leocester, Manchester, and Liverpool. Statistics from the Sheffield General Infirmary between 1837 and 1842 light upon that of 11,944 deaths, half were children under age five