Constructing vital statistics: Thomas Rowe Edmonds and William Farr, 1835-1845

This paper describes the role of these two English statisticians in establishing mortality measurements as means of assessing the health of human populations. Key to their innovations was the uses for the law of mortality Edmonds claimed to have discovered in 1832. In reality he had merely rediscovered a relationship between aging and mortality first described mathematically by Benjamin Gompertz a decade earlier. During the 1830s Edmonds attempted to interest the medical profession in his discovery and to suggest how his discovery could be used to assess health of large communities and to study case fatality and therapy. Using the rich data of the General Register Office William Farr would develop Edmonds's suggestions to produce some of the most sophisticated uses of vital statistics in the 19th century. In understanding the motivation of these two statisticians, it is essential to recognise their reform sympathies in an age deeply troubled by the human costs of rapid industrialisation and urbanisation. The two set out to reform both their professions and society.