WEBVTT - John Graunt 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:14.000 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:18.160 Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So today's subject is 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:20.080 a person who's been on my list for a minute, 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:24.120 not a really commonly known name, but whose work is 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:27.440 probably impacting the life of every single person listening in 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:31.320 one way or another. He did this work nearly four 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:33.599 hundred years ago, but it really changed the way that 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:40.159 people perceived population and mortality by measuring it, because that 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:43.880 changes the outcome. We are talking about John Grant, who 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:48.760 was a shopkeeper in London who, through both personal connections 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:50.960 and a desire to just kind of follow his own 0:00:51.040 --> 0:00:55.560 curiosity which I love to a rather grand result, became 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:59.920 very well respected among the city's most revered intellectuals. Work 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:04.800 gave rise to the field of demography and epidemiology, and 0:01:04.840 --> 0:01:08.200 his work could be categorized as statistical analysis, although the 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:11.480 word statistics didn't even exist for another one hundred years 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:14.199 after he died. But that's who we're talking about today. 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:18.920 So John Grant was born April twenty fourth, sixteen twenty 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:23.480 in London, England, to Henry and Mary Grant, who raised 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:27.040 John and their other children. There may have been seven 0:01:27.160 --> 0:01:31.000 other children raised the mall As Puritans at the end 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:35.520 of the seventeenth century. Antiquarian and philosopher John Aubrey included 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:39.920 Grant in his book Brief Lives, which covered notable seventeenth 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:44.080 century figures, and he quite charmingly describes the start of 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:48.000 Grant's life this way quote was born twenty four d 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:52.400 aprilis at the seven Stars in Burton Lane, London, in 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:56.200 the parish of Saint Michael's Cornhill, an hour before eight 0:01:56.200 --> 0:01:59.680 o'clock on a Monday morning, the sign being in the 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:03.120 nine degree of Gemini that day at twelve o'clock. Anno 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:09.040 Domino sixteen twenty. Yeah, that Aubrey account will discuss a 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:12.480 good bit throughout this journey. But reading it is very 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:16.120 fun because it is, you know, old timy language. But 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:18.079 also I don't know, he just has a flare for 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:21.240 freezing that makes me chuckle. I like that the date 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:23.720 of his birth was in Latin. The rest of it's 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:25.760 not Latin, but just that part. That's kind of how 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:29.400 all of Brief Lives go. There's a little Latin sprinkled throughout. 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:35.400 For insussient flair. Although today Grant is pretty much always 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:39.560 mentioned as being a statistician or something related, that is 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:43.160 very far from where he started. This is going to 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:46.200 get into holly pedantry just a little, so bear with me. 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:50.120 He is described as a draper in some accounts and 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:54.040 a haberdasher in others. These are similar roles, but they're 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:58.880 actually different. A draper would have sold fabric for garment construction, 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:02.760 whereas a haberdash would have sold sewing notions, so things 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:06.720 like thread, buttons, et cetera. This is, of course also 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:09.600 different from the way the word haberdasher is used today 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:12.880 in North America, where it usually means somebody who sells 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:15.600 men's wear. In this case, this would not have been 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:21.280 a men'swear specific enterprise. So Grant, we know, would have 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:24.960 been selling sewing supplies of some type intended for garment construction, 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:27.520 but it's not one hundred percent clear if it was 0:03:27.560 --> 0:03:32.679 fabric or notions. The Aubrey biography calls him a haberdasher, 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:36.920 noting he was quote haberdasher of small wares, but was 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:41.440 free of the draper's company. That small amount of words 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:45.080 just confuses things more because haberdashers and drapers in London 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:51.160 at this time already had completely separate guilds. However, Aubrey 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:55.080 seems to have been incorrect about Grant's guild status. John's father, 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.480 Henry Grant, was a member of the Worshipful Company of Drapers, 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.880 having been admitted in sixteen fourteen, and John apprenticed with 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:05.880 his father. According to Henry Conner, writing for the Journal 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:09.400 of Medical Biography in twenty twenty two, John Grant quote 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:12.440 was admitted by patrimony to the freedom of the Draper's 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:16.440 Company when twenty one, and granted the livery when thirty eight. 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:21.400 So for context, freedom admission indicates that a tradesperson is 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:24.479 set on the track to becoming a full member, and 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.839 then when they are granted livery, they have met certain 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:31.839 requirements and submitted a formal application. So it does appear 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:36.400 that Grant was a full member in the Draper's Guild. Yeah, 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:39.400 i e. Not a haberd usher. Tracy also pointed out 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:42.560 that that wording of Aubrey's could be confusing and mean 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:46.440 that he was a freeman within the Draper's Company. But 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:48.520 it doesn't seem like that's what he's getting at. I 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:51.640 could I'm wrong in my interpretation. We do know that 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.400 Grant got married the same year that he was admitted 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:57.440 to the Draper's Guild as a full member, so he 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.800 married a seventeen year old named Mary Scott. We know 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:04.000 very little about their marriage, although according to Aubrey, they 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:06.720 had two children who lived to adulthood, a son and 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:10.479 a daughter, and two other kids who died in infancy. 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:15.720 Those children were also daughters. The only details we know 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:19.200 about the surviving children also come from that Aubrey biography, 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:24.600 so a little bit difficult to substantiate. He states that 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:27.760 their son died as an adult in Persia and that 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:31.640 the daughter became a nun. Grant became very active in 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:34.880 his community and served in a number of civic roles, 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:38.880 including on London's Common Council and his later years, he 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:42.880 was also active in infrastructure projects like developing a canal 0:05:43.080 --> 0:05:45.880 that brought water into the city. As part of his 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:49.200 standing as a citizen and a community leader, Grant was 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.600 also a member of London's Trained Bands. This was a 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.159 militia made up of homeowners within the city that served 0:05:56.160 --> 0:06:00.160 as a defense force serving under the Lord Mayor. Was 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:03.520 often addressed as captain in various accounts of his life, 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:08.320 suggesting he attained that rank in the militia. Aubrey, who 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:11.720 knew Grant and was his friend, describes him as a 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:16.159 man who was well liked, pleasant and smart. In addition 0:06:16.279 --> 0:06:20.120 to John Aubrey, a wide array of impressive friends clustered 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.800 around Grant, and many of them are well known today. 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:27.840 Samuel Peeps mentions Grant in his diaries, noting on April twentieth, 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:31.160 sixteen sixty three, quote, So to my office the remaining 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:34.000 part of the morning till towards noon, and then to 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:37.560 mister Grant's. There saw his prints, which he showed me, 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:41.360 and indeed are the best collection of any things almost 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.279 that ever I saw there. Being the prince of most 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:48.000 of the greatest houses, churches and antiquities in Italy and France, 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.520 and brave cuts, I had not time to look them 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:53.720 over as I ought, and which I will take time 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:57.520 hereafter to do, and therefore left them and home to dinner. 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.039 He became friendly with Sir Benjamin Rudyard, who was a 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:05.360 poet and a politician in Parliament. Painter John Hales was 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:07.440 another friend who would come to be known for his 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:12.280 portraits of Lady Diana Russell, Duchess of Bedford Lady Anne Russell, 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:16.280 Countess of Bedford, and Samuel Peeps, and several members of 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:21.120 Peeps's family. Another artist friend was Samuel Cooper, considered to 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:25.280 be maybe the best portrait miniature painter of the sixteen hundreds. 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:30.120 But the most well known of Grant's friends was William Petty. Petty, 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:32.600 who was three years younger than Grant, was a man 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:36.120 of many interests and abilities. He was a doctor, a 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:39.680 professor of both anatomy and music, and a surveyor, and 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.200 alongside his good friend John Grant, he became interested in 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:47.120 using available data to gain insight into the world around him. 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:50.320 But before that the two men were already very close. 0:07:50.720 --> 0:07:54.840 Grant had helped Petty get his music professorship at Gresham College. 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:58.400 Petty gave Grant his power of attorney. In sixteen sixty 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:03.000 they purchased proper together on Lothbury Street, the short street 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:06.360 in London that was popular with professionals. This land is 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:10.480 now occupied by the Bank of England. Grant was, through 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:13.360 various groups and friendships, tied to a lot of the 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:17.680 city's intellectuals and leaders. Coming up, we will talk about 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:20.800 how Grant's own curiosity led him to start looking at 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:24.760 death statistics, but first we will pause for a sponsor break. 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:38.679 For some reason which remains unclear, Grant became really interested 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:42.760 in London's death records. They would have been commonly available, 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.440 and as a merchant, information about the shifts in the 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:48.960 city's population would have been important to John Grant and 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:53.200 to others. These accounts of the deaths in the city 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:55.920 have their own interesting stories. So we're gonna jump backwards 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.640 a little bit to the fifteen twenties. Starting in fifteen 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.080 twenty seven, the bills of mortality, which were simply lists 0:09:03.080 --> 0:09:06.360 of the dead, began to be collected in London. The 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:09.760 oldest surviving bill of mortality that we know of is 0:09:09.760 --> 0:09:13.760 from fifteen thirty two, and the gathering of this information 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:16.480 was done for the most part by elderly women of 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:19.840 the various parishes of the city. They were called searchers. 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:24.400 When someone died, allowed bell was rung to summon the searchers, 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:26.160 and a pair of them would go to the house 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:28.800 where the bell had come from to observe the body. 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.720 They would note each death, collect those names into lists, 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:35.600 which were submitted to the parish clerks, who then entered 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:38.480 them into the official record and also publish the list. 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.600 The names were not included in the list. The publicly 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.920 available records normally listed the parish and just the number 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.760 of deaths. And initially this job was really just to 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:51.000 determine if people had died of the plague so that 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:54.320 they could track that, But over time the searchers started 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:57.560 to include causes of death other than the plague, even 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:00.600 though they didn't really have medical trainings. They were kind 0:10:00.600 --> 0:10:03.880 of going on a combo of common sense and vibes. Yeah, 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:07.000 if I remember correctly, we talked about these searchers in 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:13.160 our episode on Rickets. Yes, Rickets will come up later. Yeah, 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:14.800 it was one of the reasons that it was like, 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:20.920 we have these references to Rickets in these lists, but 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.120 we don't really know for sure if that was actually Ricketts. 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:27.320 So for a long time these lists were submitted on 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:29.760 kind of a random basis, but toward the end of 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:34.080 the sixteenth century, in fifteen ninety two, a set schedule 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:38.320 was established for their regular submission. At the time, the 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:41.000 cause of death also started to be recorded, with a 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:43.959 summary count of how many people in a given parish 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:47.880 died from it. This was because London experienced a high 0:10:48.040 --> 0:10:50.880 death rate starting that year, as the city struggled through 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:53.599 a plague outbreak that shut down the theaters and the 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:57.440 public houses. When the plague began, the city had an 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:01.000 estimated one hundred and fifty thousand people. Roughly ten percent 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:05.320 of the population died during this outbreak, but once death 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:09.160 numbers started to drop, the bills of mortality became less frequent. 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:13.680 Over time, they did add in christenings, and they tracked 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:18.880 population growth through surviving infants. Then another plague hit the 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:22.120 city in sixteen oh three, just as James the sixth 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:25.319 of Scotland was taking on the additional title of James 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:29.320 the First of England and Ireland, and the newly established monarch, 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:32.600 in an effort to get the city through this plague crisis, 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.080 put out a book of orders regarding how various aspects 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:38.600 of the plague were to be dealt with. Some of 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:41.120 this we're going to talk about on Friday, and he 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:45.320 reinstated a regular schedule for the bills of mortality. Under 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.120 the new orders, searchers had to submit their lists on 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.839 Tuesdays and on Thursday mornings. The complete lists were made 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.960 available to the public, with copies available for a penny, 0:11:55.600 --> 0:11:58.520 or people could get an annual subscription for four pennies, 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:01.640 which seems like a great deal. There was also an 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:05.760 annual report made that compiled the entire year's data that 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:09.040 was always published on the Thursday before Christmas every year. 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:13.199 It wasn't until sixteen twenty nine that the report separated 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.560 out deaths by male and female members of the population, 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:20.840 so for some example numbers, the report for all of 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:24.280 sixteen twenty five noted that the parish of Bennett's Grace 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:28.840 Church had forty eight deaths, sixteen from plague. The parish 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:31.840 of Martin's a Ludgate had two hundred and fifty four 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:34.920 deaths one hundred and sixty four from plague, et cetera. 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:38.360 The sixteen thirty two report that compiled the numbers by 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:41.520 cause of death listed six hundred and twenty eight deaths 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:46.000 from old age, one thousand, seven hundred ninety seven from consumption, 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:50.800 thirty eight executions of which thirteen were pressed to death, 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:55.240 thirty eight from purples and spotted fever, and six as 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:59.280 quotes dead in the street and starved. There are of 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.120 course more entries in both of these sample lists, as 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:04.640 well as other lists, but this gifts just a sense 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:08.160 of how basic these numbers were and in addition to 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:11.720 that simplicity, there was also a question regarding the accuracy 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.440 of the numbers. Yeah, we'll talk about that qu a 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.480 bit more. When Grant decided that he wanted to make 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:21.720 an earnest study of this material, he only worked with 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:24.960 the consistently published list from late sixteen oh three on. 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:28.840 There might actually be a minor bit of scandal regarding 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:32.800 his work with these records. According to Robert Cargan, writing 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:35.080 for the Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:39.160 Sciences in nineteen sixty three, quote, it is unknown how 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:42.600 the publication of the bills fared under the Commonwealth. The 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:46.839 parish clerk's registers before sixteen sixty four are missing, having 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:50.120 been loaned to Grant for his studies and never returned. 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:54.120 I will say there is also a chunk kind of 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:56.800 in the middle of that sixteen o three to sixteen 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:00.360 sixty when he was working, that he discarded because there 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:03.920 was some inconsistency and irregularity in him. But in sixteen 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:07.760 sixty two Grant published his assessment of all of this information, 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:10.479 of which there's a lot. We read a tiny smattering, 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:14.920 but like pages and pages and pages of lists. The 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:17.040 book that he created out of all of this was 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:21.200 natural and political observations made upon the Bills of Mortality. 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:23.840 It was the only book he ever published, but it 0:14:23.880 --> 0:14:27.120 became the foundation of a really significant shift in the 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:32.040 way that people thought about population statistics. The inspiration for 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:35.200 this effort has been a matter of debate for centuries. 0:14:35.760 --> 0:14:39.200 Often William Petty is credited with giving Grant the idea, 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:42.800 but every source that says so seems to be pulling 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:46.560 from that John Aubrey biography, which we know might not 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:50.680 always be accurate. Grant himself gave the reason he started 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:55.040 examining all the data in the preface to his book, quote, 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:58.040 having been born and bred in the city of London, 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:01.960 and having always observed the most of them who constantly 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:05.200 took in the weekly Bills of Mortality, made little other 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:07.920 use of them than to look at the foot how 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:12.000 the burials increased or decreased, and among the casualties, what 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:15.080 had happened rare and extraordinary in the week of the current, 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:18.160 so they might take the same as a text to 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:21.440 talk about in the next company and withal in the 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:25.520 plague time, how the sickness increased or decreased, That so 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:29.160 the rich might judge of the necessity of their removal, 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:33.000 and tradesmen might conjecture what doings they were like to 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:36.640 have in their respective dealings. Now I thought that the 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:41.000 wisdom of our city had certainly designed the laudable practice 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:44.720 of taking and distributing these accompts for other and greater 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:48.080 uses than those above mentioned, or at least that some 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:52.200 other uses might be made of them. And thereupon, I, 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:55.680 casting mine eye upon so many of the general bills 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:59.920 as next came to hand, I found encouragement from them 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:03.200 to look out all the bills I could, and to 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.760 be short to furnish myself with as much matter of 0:16:06.760 --> 0:16:10.240 that kind, even as the hall of the parish clerks 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:13.480 could afford me the which when I had reduced to 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:16.720 into tables, so as to have a view of the 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:20.880 whole together, in order to the more ready comparing of 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:24.960 one year season perish or other division of the city 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:30.040 with another. So to translate that somewhat stilted and run 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:33.520 on passage which Tracy just good naturedly worked her way through, 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:37.560 uh Grant realized even people who read those reports every 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:39.400 week were kind of just doing so. To look at 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:41.800 the death totals so that they'd have something to talk 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.240 about or to see if they should get out of 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:47.880 town because things were getting dire with something. He had 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:50.640 thought that the city government might be using that information 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:53.440 in some way, but realized no one was really tracking 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:56.640 the data in ways that might show patterns or change 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:59.800 over time, so he just decided to do that himself. 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:03.520 He does not mention his friend, Sir William Petty giving 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:06.160 him the idea, or in fact mention him at all. 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:10.359 In the dedication of the book, Grant states that quote, now, 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:13.879 having I know not by what accident engaged my thoughts 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:17.360 upon the Bills of Mortality, I have presumed to sacrifice 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:21.320 these my small but first published labors unto your lordship. 0:17:21.960 --> 0:17:24.800 We're going to talk about who that dedication is addressed 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.239 to in a bit, but the important thing is that 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:30.720 Grant characterizes his interest in the bills as an accident 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.760 that he doesn't even remember. Grant also made it clear 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:37.120 in his writing that he didn't want to go through 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:41.160 this exercise if it was not actually helpful in some way. 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:46.640 Quote moreover, finding some truths and not commonly believed opinions 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:50.840 to arise from my meditations upon these neglected papers. I 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:55.080 proceeded further to consider what benefit the knowledge of the 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:58.000 fame would bring to the world, that I might not 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:02.719 engage myself in idle and useless speculations, but present the 0:18:02.760 --> 0:18:07.159 world with some real fruit from those airy blossoms. So 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:10.359 Grant really did want there to be some real world 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:14.560 benefit from this whole exercise. And Grant lays out some 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:17.720 of the accuracy problems that we mentioned a few moments 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:21.080 ago in his writing, noting that the searchers who collected 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:25.919 this information may be quote, perhaps ignorant and careless in 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:29.919 their work, which apparently was a known problem. There was 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:33.240 not really a system of fact checking their numbers or 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:37.680 what information they included in their reports. Additionally, Grant notes 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:40.879 that these women would sometimes take favors or bribes to 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:43.879 record a cause of death as a less embarrassing or 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:47.159 scandalous one than the deceased family may have found it. 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:51.000 A significant example for this was syphilis that was recorded 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:54.640 in the bills under the title French pox, but according 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:57.760 to Grant, the searchers, after quote the mist of a 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:00.520 cup of ale and the bribe of a two grin fee, 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:06.040 would record that death instead as consumption. Another problem was 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:08.439 that the way these numbers were laid out left a 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:12.879 lot of information to just be assumed or interpreted. Grant 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:15.160 noted that when a person was said to have died 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:19.000 of old age, it doesn't give information regarding what that 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:22.800 age was or whether there may have been some specific 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:27.240 condition involved. There are also no specifics of what qualifies 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:31.560 a child to be categorized as an infant. But Grant 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.040 seems to have come to the conclusion that the records 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:38.320 submitted by the searchers are probably relatively accurate in terms 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:42.240 of cause of death because he believes they consulted physicians 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:45.359 and also use their own judgment. But he also notes 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:49.800 that not all diseases present in obvious ways, so said 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:53.639 deaths might be difficult to report accurately regarding their cause. 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:57.040 He lays all this out to explain the way he's 0:19:57.040 --> 0:20:00.800 approaching these numbers for comparisons. He's clear that there are 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:03.919 places where he has to operate on assumption and that 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:09.000 he welcomes criticism. Yeah. I was reading a modern take 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:10.960 on some of it, and they put it very gingerly 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:14.040 by saying like he does a bit too much smoothing 0:20:14.119 --> 0:20:16.440 at times. I was like, that's a perfect way to 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:19.120 put it, we are going to get into the various 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:22.800 conclusions that Grant drew from analyzing the Bills of Mortality, 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:25.159 as well as talk about the later part of his life, 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:27.280 and we'll do that after we hear from the sponsors 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:40.000 that keep the show going. In his writing, John Grant 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:43.639 draws some conclusions outside of just crunching numbers, some of 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:46.600 which are debatable but show that he is thinking about 0:20:46.680 --> 0:20:50.560 ways of applying all of this information. For instance, he 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:53.719 notes that there are very few deaths from starvation, but 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:56.919 that London has a lot of people panhandling and begging 0:20:56.960 --> 0:20:59.520 for food, and he wonders quote that it were better 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:03.159 to maintain all beggars at the public charge, though earning nothing, 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:05.679 than to let them beg about the streets, and that 0:21:05.760 --> 0:21:09.480 employing them without discretion may do more harm than good. 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:13.600 He doesn't elaborate, so it's unclear if he means to 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:16.040 make these people wards of the state or provide for 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:19.280 them in some other way, but he's basically saying like, 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:21.240 you can't just hire them into jobs because they might 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:22.720 not know what they're doing and it could cause a 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:26.800 lot of problems. He also noted that Ricketts as Tracy 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.359 mentioned earlier had risen over the years, seemingly popping up 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:33.119 out of nowhere, asking in his work quote now, the 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:37.000 question is whether that disease did first appear about that time, 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:40.880 or whether a disease which had been long before did 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:45.879 then first receive its name. Then identified other diseases like 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:49.119 liver grown that were dropping off the list in frequency 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:52.199 and that had probably been rickets before that disease had 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:56.520 been better understood and more consistently diagnosed. There were a 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:59.160 number of ways in which the way John Grant looked 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:02.280 at the numbers the bills of mortality that contradicted a 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:06.040 lot of commonly held beliefs. If you had asked most 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:10.520 Londoners in sixteen sixty how the population was divided between 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:13.040 men and women, most probably would have told you there 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:16.840 were three women to every man. This is something that 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:20.560 was routinely stated. But when Grant actually looked at the 0:22:20.600 --> 0:22:24.600 numbers of male and female babies born, combined with the 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:29.280 mortality rates, he discovered that more male babies than female 0:22:29.359 --> 0:22:32.800 babies were born, they also had a higher mortality rate, 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:36.320 and that when comparing that information to adult deaths, the 0:22:36.359 --> 0:22:41.560 population was actually divided almost evenly, but slightly skewed higher 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:45.000 in men in the country, with sixteen men to every 0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:49.320 fifteen women. In the city proper, there were thirteen women 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:54.440 for every fourteen men. He also calculated the population of London, 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:57.080 creating a piece of data that had been elusive for 0:22:57.119 --> 0:23:02.160 a long time due to rudimentary reporting practices. There were 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:05.240 rumors that he talks about that there were as many 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:07.840 as two million people in London, and he didn't think 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:10.360 that was right, so he really wanted to focus on this. 0:23:11.200 --> 0:23:14.199 Based on available death and household numbers, which were not 0:23:14.400 --> 0:23:17.920 comprehensive for the entire city but were in some areas, 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:22.280 Grant calculated that for every eleven families in London, there 0:23:22.320 --> 0:23:26.480 were three deaths per year. Using those numbers, he looked 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:28.879 at the total average of deaths per year in the 0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:33.080 city according to the Bill's immortality that was thirteen thousand, 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:35.800 and then using those numbers, he could calculate that there 0:23:35.840 --> 0:23:39.439 were forty six thousand, six hundred sixty seven households in 0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:43.440 the city. He used the assumption of eight members per 0:23:43.480 --> 0:23:47.040 household based on averages plus the rate of population increased 0:23:47.040 --> 0:23:49.919 through average number of people moving into the city to 0:23:50.000 --> 0:23:52.919 land at a total of three hundred eighty four thousand people, 0:23:53.560 --> 0:23:56.760 one hundred ninety nine thousand, one hundred twelve male, one 0:23:56.840 --> 0:24:00.600 hundred eighty four thousand, eight hundred eighty six female. He 0:24:00.640 --> 0:24:03.280 then cross checked his own work by using different numbers 0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:07.280 from the table to calculate the population in multiple different ways. 0:24:08.359 --> 0:24:11.400 He also noted that death rates were higher in the 0:24:11.400 --> 0:24:14.520 city than in the more rural parishes, with more people 0:24:14.640 --> 0:24:17.800 per one hundred surviving past the age of seventy in 0:24:17.840 --> 0:24:20.840 the country. This led him to conclude that the country 0:24:20.960 --> 0:24:25.040 was quote more healthful than the city. His research noted 0:24:25.040 --> 0:24:28.280