Famine and the female mortality advantage: Sex, gender and mortality in northwest England, c. 1590-1630

Continuity and Change

Volumn 30, Issue 2, 2015, Pages 153-192

  Healey, Jonathan ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CAUSE OF DEATH; FAMINE; FEMALE; GENDER RELATIONS; MORTALITY; SOCIAL HISTORY; STARVATION;

ENGLAND; LANCASHIRE; UNITED KINGDOM;

EID: 84938827379     PISSN: 02684160     EISSN: 1469218X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0268416015000211     Document Type: Review

References (132)

1. For a succinct summary of extant literature, see: K. Macintyre, 'Famine and the female mortality advantage', in T. Dyson and C. O'Gráda eds., Famine demography: perspectives from the past and present (Oxford, 2002), 240-59
2. C. O'Gráda, Famine: a short history (Oxford, 2009), 98-105.
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10. O'Gráda, Famine, 100.
11. S. Adamets, 'Famine in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russia: mortality by age, cause, and gender', in Dyson and O'Gráda, Famine demography, 158-80. Adamets found no female advantage in 1892, a strong one in 1933, and a smaller one in 1947, concluding that 'excess male mortality is likely to manifest itself most during intense crises', here 174.
12. T. Dyson, 'On the demography of South Asian famines, part I', Population Studies 45, 1 (1991), 5-25.
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14. Quoted in Macintyre, 'Female mortality advantage', 254-5.
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28. Boyle and O'Gráda, 'Fertility trends', 553-4.
29. Macintyre, 'Female mortality advantage', 252.
30. Macintyre, 'Female mortality advantage', 248-9.
31. J. P. W. Rivers, 'Women and children last: an essay on sex discrimination in disasters', Disasters 6 (1982), 256-67.
32. Henry, 'Body mass index'.
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47. Rogers, Lancashire population crisis, 13.
48. For examples of these 'famine foods': J. Thirsk and J. P. Cooper eds., Seventeenth-century economic documents (Oxford, 1972), 24.
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50. M. Livi-Bacci, Population and nutrition: an essay on European demographic history (Cambridge, 1991), 47-50.
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52. Laslett, World we have lost, 130-48.
53. Rogers, Lancashire population crisis, 26-7.
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58. M. James, 'The Lancashire population crisis of 1623 - further comment', Local Population Studies 37 (1986), 53-4.
59. J. C. Cox, The parish registers of England (London, 1910).
60. The registers used are: H. Brierley ed., The parish registers of the church of Altham in the county of Lancaster, 1596-1695 (Lancashire Parish Register Society [hereafter LPRS], 36, Cambridge, 1909).
61. H. Brierley ed., The parish registers of Ashton-under-Lyne, 1594-1720 (LPRS, 65, Preston, 1927-8).
62. H. Brierley ed., The registers of the parish church of Blackburn in the county of Lancaster, 1600-1660 (LPRS, 41, Cambridge, 1911).
63. A. Sparke ed., The registers of the parish church of Bolton, 1573-1660 (LPRS, 50, Bolton, 1913).
64. W. Farrer ed., The registers of the parish church of Burnley in the county of Lancaster (LPRS, 2, Rochdale, 1899).
65. H. Brierley and W. J. Löwenberg eds., The registers of the parish church of Bury, 1590-1646 (LPRS, 1, 10, Rochdale, 1898-1900).
66. H. Brierley ed., The registers of the parish church of Cartmel in the county of Lancaster, 1559-1661 (LPRS, 28, Rochdale, 1907).
67. H. Brierley ed., The registers of Caton, 1585-1718 (LPRS, 59, Preston, 1922).
68. E. McKnight and H. Brierley eds., The registers of the parish church of Chorley in the county of Lancaster, 1548-1653 (LPRS, 38, Cambridge, 1910).
69. Lancashire Parish Register Society eds., The registers of the parish church of Cockerham in the county of Lancaster, 1595-1657 (LPRS, 21, Cambridge, 1904).
70. T. B. Ecroyd ed., The registers of the parish church of Colne in the county of Lancaster, 1599-1653 (LPRS, 17, Rochdale, 1904).
71. A. E. Hodder ed., The registers of the parish church of Eccles in the county of Lancaster, 1564-1632 (LPRS, 25, Rochdale, 1906).
72. H. S. Cowper ed., The oldest register book of the parish of Hawkshead in Lancashire, 1568-1704 (London, 1897).
73. H. Brierley and R. N. Brierley eds., The registers of Kendal, Westmorland (Kendal, 1921-52).
74. H. Brierley ed., The registers of the parish church of Lancaster, 1599-1690 (LPRS, 32, Cambridge, 1908).
75. E. Axon and H. Brierley eds., The registers of the cathedral church of Manchester, 1573-1655 (LPRS, 31, 55, 56, Cambridge, 1908-16).
76. H. Brierley ed., The parish registers of North Meols, 1594-1731 (LPRS, 66, Preston, 1929).
77. J. Arrowsmith and T. Williams eds., The registers of the parish church of Ormskirk in the county of Lancaster, 1557-1678 (LPRS, 13, 98, Rochdale, 1902-1960).
78. W. E. Robinson ed., The registers of the parish church of Poulton-le-Fylde in the county of Lancaster, 1591-1677 (LPRS, 19, Wigan, 1904).
79. F. V. Driffield ed., The parish register of Prescot, 1573-1631 (LPRS, 76, Preston, 1938).
80. J. Croston ed., The register book of christenings, weddings, and burials within the parish of Prestbury, 1560-1636 (Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 5, Manchester, 1881).
81. A. E. Hodder ed., The registers of the parish church of Preston, Lancashire, 1611-35 (LPRS, 48, Wigan, 1913).
82. H. Brierley ed., The registers of the parish church of Standish in the county of Lancaster, 1560-1653 (LPRS, 46, Cambridge, 1912).
83. H. Brierley ed., The registers of the parish church of Prestwich, 1603-1688 (LPRS, 34, Cambridge, 1909).
84. J. Clayton ed., The registers of the parish church of Radcliffe, 1557- 1783 (LPRS, 60, 61, Cambridge, 1922-23).
85. J. Arrowsmith ed., The registers of the parish church of Ribchester in the county of Lancaster, 1598-1694 (LPRS, 26, Wigan, 1906).
86. Cumbria Record Office (Kendal Branch), WPR 62/1/1/1-2, Troutbeck Chapelry Register, 1579-1629, 1633-61.
87. G. E. C. Clayton ed., The registers of the parish of Walton-le-Dale in the county of Lancaster, 1609-1812 (LPRS, 37, Wigan, 1910).
88. A. Sparke ed., The parish registers of Warrington, 1591-1653 (LPRS, 70, Preston, 1933).
89. T. B. Ecroyd ed., The registers of the parish church of Whalley in the county of Lancaster, 1538-1653 (LPRS, 7, 74, Preston, 1900-1936).
90. W. H. Chippendall ed., The parish registers of Warton, 1568-1812 (LPRS, 73, Preston, 1935).
91. Lancashire Parish Register Society eds., The registers of the parish church of Wigan in the county of Lancaster (LPRS, 4, 152, Wigan and Preston, 1899-2001).
92. R. Dickinson and F. Dickinson eds., The register of Winwick parish church (LPRS, 109, 113, Preston, 1970-74).
93. D. E. C. Eversley, 'Exploitation of Anglican parish registers by aggregative analysis', in E. A. Wrigley ed., An introduction to English historical demography from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century (London, 1966), 71.
94. A. J. Gritt, 'The "survival" of service in the English agricultural labour force: lessons from Lancashire, c. 1650-1851', Agricultural History Review 50, 1 (2002), 25-50.
95. The following is based on: C. M. L. Bouch and G. P. Jones, A short economic and social history of the Lake Counties, 1500-1830 (Manchester, 1961), 63-145.
96. J. K. Walton, Lancashire: a social history, 1558-1939 (Manchester, 1987), 7-35.
97. C. B. Phillips and J. H. Smith, Lancashire and Cheshire from AD 1540 (London, 1994), 5-54.
98. J. K. Walton, 'Proto-industrialization and the First Industrial Revolution: the case of Lancashire', in P. Hudson ed., Regions and industries: a perspective on the Industrial Revolution in Britain (Cambridge, 1989), 41-68.
99. Appleby, Famine, 17-94.
100. G. N. Tupling, The economic history of Rossendale (Manchester, 1927), 42-97.
101. J. T. Swain, Industry before the Industrial Revolution: north-east Lancashire, c. 1500-1640 (Manchester, 1986).
102. J. Healey, 'Land, population and famine in the English uplands: a Westmorland case study, c. 1370-1650', Agricultural History Review 59, 2 (2011), 151-75. Here 172-4.
103. Phillips and Smith, Lancashire and Cheshire, 7-9.
104. Laslett, World we have lost, 133.
105. J. S. Moore, 'Population trends in Lancashire, 1548-1563', Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 157 (2009), 33-55.
106. Appleby, Famine, 95-108.
107. E. H. Phelps-Brown and S. V. Hopkins, 'Seven centuries of the price of consumables, compared with builders' wage-rates', Economica 23, 92 (1956), 296-314, here 302.
108. These and successive food price data are taken from P. Bowden, 'Statistical appendix', in J. Thirsk ed., The agrarian history of England and Wales, V(ii) (1985), 827-902.
109. Appleby, Famine, 132-45.
110. Appleby, Famine, 110-12, 133-45.
111. H. Kamen, European society, 1500-1700 (London, 1994), 34.
112. T. S. Willan, 'Plague in perspective: the case of Manchester in 1605', Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 132 (1983), 29-40.
113. Wrigley and Schofield, Population history, 675-7.
114. Appleby, Famine, 120-25.
115. R. Romano, 'Between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries: the economic crisis of 1619-22', in G. Parker and L. M. Smith eds., The general crisis of the seventeenth century, 2nd edn. (London, 1997), 153-205.
116. These are calculated from baptism rates, using the figures in Wrigley and Schofield, Population history, 528.
117. J. G. Timmins, Made in Lancashire: a history of regional industrialisation (Manchester, 1998), 11-82.
118. See Macintyre, 'Female mortality advantage', 247.
119. P. Slack, 'Vagrants and vagrancy in England, 1598-1664', Economic History Review 27 (1974), 360-79.
120. J. Healey, 'The development of poor relief in Lancashire, c. 1598-1680', Historical Journal 53 (2010), 551-72.
121. The National Archives, State Papers, SP 16/388/7, Poor Law Returns for Kendal Ward, 1638.
122. Manchester parish, for example, ordered a general rate in the immediate aftermath of the famine: Lancashire Record Office, QSR/21, Quarter Sessions Roll, 1624.
123. Laslett, World we have lost, 130.
124. Hoyle, 'Famine', 978, 999-1000.
125. Hoyle, 'Famine', 1000. Emphasis added.
126. Bowden, 'Statistical appendix', 821.
127. J. R. Dasent ed., Acts of the Privy Council of England (46 vols.) (London, 1890-1964), XXXVIII, 394, 424, 434, 454.
128. T. Gray ed., Harvest failure in Cornwall and Devon: the Books of Orders and the Corn Surveys of 1623 and 1630-1 (Redruth, 1992), xxvii-xxvii.
129. Appleby, Famine, 146.
130. A. M. Maclean ed., The registers of the parish of Greystoke in the county of Cumberland, baptisms, marriages and burials, 1559-1757 (Kendal, 1991).
131. Rogers, Lancashire population crisis, 17-18.
132. Rogers, Lancashire population crisis, 27.