A new source, 1840s Admiralty seamen’s tickets, is used to explore three anthropometric issues. First, did being born in a city, with its associated disamenities, stunt? Second, did being born near a city, whose markets sucked foodstuffs away, stunt? Third, did child labour stunt? Being born...

Age-specific death rates for males and females are compared for a sample of mid- Victorian registration districts. Excess female mortality is defined relative to the normal relationship between male and female mortality observed in the data, and then modelled as the outcome of economic,...

Using a new source of evidence we explore the geographical mobility of mid-nineteenth century seamen. Among seamen born outside London, the tall, the literate and those who could remember the exact day, month and year when they were born - characteristics that we suggest mark them out as men...

Historical estimates of workers' earnings suffer from the fundamental problem that annual incomes are inferred from day wages without knowing the length of the working year. This uncertainty raises doubts about core growth theories that rely on existing income estimates to explain the origins of...