Research Group: Historical Demography

Overview.  Research in historical demography focuses on the following themes: 

1.  Analysis of the decline of mortality in England and Wales and other countries, and particularly the impact of public investment in sanitary reform on mortality.  Did building sewers and improving the water supply really cause mortality to decline?  It may seem obvious that it did, but the evidence suggests that the decline in mortality from cholera, diarrhoea and other waterborne diseases actually pre-dated the period of peak investment. 

2.  Analysis of well-being over the long run using data on human heights. The adult height of men and women is an indicator of economic and health conditions during infancy and childhood.  Height data are often more easily available (for example from skeletal remains or data on the recruitment of soldiers) than direct information on health and well-being.  One strand of this research demonstrates that data on heights from skeletal remains are consistent with other data on economic conditions in England over the last 2,000 years.  It was featured in The Times 

3.  Regional differences in the implementation and impact of the New Poor Law between 1834 and the early twentieth century.  Dr Andrew Hinde was recently co-editor of a special issue of the journal Local Population Studies on this theme http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/lpss/lps/2017/00000099/00000001;jsessionid=6d28ppedfb8ep.x-ic-live-01.  

4. The older age population in nineteenth-century England and Wales.

Publications during the last five years.

Galofré-Vilà, G., Hinde, A. and Guntupalli, A.M. (2017) Heights across the last 2000 years in England.  University of Oxford Discussion Paper in Economic and Social History 151. 

Hinde, A and Edgar, M. (2016) ‘Following the tools’: migration networks among the stone workers of Purbeck in the nineteenth century. In: Hammond, M and Sloan, B. (eds) Rural-Urban Relationships in the Nineteenth Century: Uneasy Neighbours, London, Routledge, 90-104. 

Hinde, A. (2016) Some reflections on how replacement fertility was achieved in historical Europe. In: Matthijs, K., Hin, S., Kok, J., and Matsuo, H. (eds.) The Future of Historical Demography: Upside Down and Inside Out, Leuven, Acco, 139-41. 

Hinde, A.  (2015) Sex differentials in phthisis mortality in England and Wales, 1861-1870.  The History of the Family 20, 366-90. DOI: 10.1080/1081602X.2015.1051077.

Hinde, A. and Fairhurst, V. (2015) Why was infant mortality so high in eastern England in the mid-nineteenth century?  Local Population Studies 94, 48-66.