The Thoresby Society

 

The Weather and other outside influences

The first 3½ years worth of data that was processed had 'wearing' listed as a disorder only in the first year, mainly in the first half of that year. This prompted the thought that maybe particularly bad weather had played a part in these deaths and started a hunt for temperature and rainfall figures. Wrigley and Schofield [1981] gave references for some data which was not immediately available.

The internet was searched to see if such data existed in electronic form. This led to the Met. Office web site and the discovery that they expect payment even to download historical records. An e-mail led to the address of their library archives who very kindly supplied both rainfall, Table B-1, and temperature, Table B-2, statistics for the years in question. Each Table has an accompanying graph, Figures B-1 and B-2, to illustrate the totals. The Central England temperature figures were also found in Manley [1974 p394 &395] Prior to obtaining them from either source the temperature figures had been posted to an internet weather newsgroup in response to a plea for information as to where such information could be found.

The Met. Office also supplied some information on a handwritten journal which contained weather information and also contained agricultural prices, Records of the Seasons, Prices of Agricultural Produce, and Phenomena Observed in the British Isles, by Thomas Baker. The details of the journal led to the discovery that it had been published in 1883 and that the work had been incorporated into a more recent book [Stratton and Brown, 1969] As well as wheat prices, Table B-3, this book produced some information that brings the raw statistics to life.

1760	The series of fine years continued. summer dry and exceptionally hot. Estimated to be 365,000 farmers and 200,000 agricultural day labourers in England and Wales.
1762	A year of great drought. A blizzard in February lasted for 18 days, and snow in some places lay 10-12 feet deep. In the drought and heat a heavy harvest was gathered, but fodder became exceedingly scarce. The drought broke in exceptionally heavy rainfall from October 26th onwards, especially in the eastern counties. "Most of the cattle in the fields were carried off; likewise stacks of hay and wood, ......." London Magazine.
1763	Recorded as the wettest summer since 1756....
1767	Very severe frosts began in late December
1768	The year began with a very cold spell, lasting till January 16th. Spring cold and wet. From June 7th onwards torrential rain fell, and rainy weather continued till the end of harvest. Both hay and grain harvests were disappointing. A whirlwind of remarkable intensity devastated a moorland valley near Tavistock on August 22nd. Fogs in September and rain frequent for rest of autumn. Serious floods in November. Food riots in many place.
1773	More food riots

[Stratton and Brown 1969 p79&80]

The book does, however, lack the variety and interest of the unpublished journal by Baker, which has a hand written entry saying:

1773 April 15. Between noon and 2pm. Two violent shocks of an earthquake in the Channel Islands and coast of Dorsetshire, and in Kerry Ireland.

May 26. A shock at Coalbrookdale Staffordshire. (Roper.)

[Baker]

An interesting relationship between the weather and bubonic plague is quoted below:

'The flea that transmits bubonic plague (Xenopsylla cheops) undergoes a speeding up of its life-cycle as temperatures rise in the range 20°-32°C (68°-90F). Breeding is speeded up, but the death of each generation of the insect also comes sooner, the higher the temperature. At relative humidities below 30 per cent of saturation the life of the flea is reduced to a quarter of what it is in near-saturated air.' [Lamb 1982 p302-303] A look at the weather conditions prevailing at the times of some of the major outbreaks could be interesting.

Shrewsbury quotes a supposed eyewitness account of the outbreak of plague in Leeds in 1645 as saying : 'the air was then very warm, and so infectious that dogs and cats, rats and mice died' [Shrewsbury 1970 p406] which would support Lambs' assertions.

The affect of the weather on agriculture is profound. Apart from years when crops don't ripen or are devastated by too much or too little rain or too high winds there are also conditions which permit certain pests to flourish. Again from Lamb:

'specific weather conditions promoting the development of potato blight (periods of forty-eight hours or more with temperatures continuously above 10°C and humidity above 90 per cent saturation), or favouring cattle diseases in temperate countries such as liver-fluke and gastro-enteritis (and their hosts or vectors at some vital stage of the development cycle), can be defined and are used to issue warnings and initiate preventive measures.' [Lamb 1982 p304-305]

So the Irish potato famine need not happen today.

The number of burials in Leeds did increase in 1762 and were at the highest level, up to that point, in 1763. 1768, a year of food riots, actually had a drop in the number of burials but 1773 was the year with the highest burial level in the whole sequence.

Lamb [1972 p 434] contains details of volcanic eruptions with an assessment of the amount of dust they threw into the atmosphere to affect the weather Table B-4. Volcanic dust is known to affect the weather for a number of years when the eruption is large enough.

None of these figures actually relate to the immediate area of Leeds, or even of Yorkshire, but are the closest we can come to understanding the climate in England at that time.

Temperature figures are available for Lancashire for the same period [Manley 1946 p15] but the years 1760 - 1765 are indicated as being based on more distant records so are unlikely to be more helpful than the Central England figures. Equally the Kew rainfall monthly figures [Wales-Smith 1971] are incorporated into the Central England totals.

Was it worth obtaining all this information? The Leeds burials actually look to be more closely related to the rainfall figures than to anything else. Table B-5 and Figure B-3 Even this is spurious though as shown by Figure B-4 where the rainfall figures have been sorted into an ascending sequence and plotted against the number of deaths. A further attempt was made by plotting both sets of figures compared to their own averages Figure B-5 but this still only showed the original relationship. Calculations also proved that there was not a linear relationship between the two sets of data, although this does not mean that there is not a more complicated relationship.

To make everything fit on to the same graph the burials from Wrigley and Schofield [1981 p516] were divided by 250 and the Central England temperatures were multiplied by 10. However at that scale the temperature figures still look almost like a straight line.

Figure B-2 shows that the monthly temperatures follow a general pattern with no more than 7°C between the highest and lowest for each month. In real terms 7°C can make a big difference to the comfort of living so all it really shows is the wide range of temperatures that are possible during the course of a year in England.

Stratton and Browns 'very severe frosts' [Stratton and Brown 1969 p79] in 1767 translate into an average Central England temperature for January of 0.10°C. However in February 1765, with an average of 0.40°C we have a cause of death of 'Drowned by scating' which would imply that at some point the temperatures were low enough to freeze a body of water of sufficient size to tempt children, at least, to try skating on it.

The discovery of Mitchells' Abstract of British Historical Statistics [Mitchell 1962]added even more additional factors to the equation, although it has to be noted that the wheat prices quoted by Mitchell are different to those quoted by Stratton and Brown.

Since wool prices were important to the region they were considered [Mitchell 1962 p494-495] although only the Lincoln Long covered the whole of our period of interest. [Table B-6] Cloth production figures in West Yorkshire [Wilson[1971 p40] can be found in Table G-1.

The Schumpeter-Gilboy Price indices for 1757 - 1776 can be found in Table B-7 but don't tell us much other than that prices were high in 1757 and 1758, fell slightly then rose steadily through the 1760s, peaking in 1767 and only 1 point less at the time of the food riots in 1768. A brief dip and then steadily rising again. It is interesting to note that only the index including cereals, beans and peas is consistently higher than the base year of 1701.

As with all the figures used in this study the time span in insufficient to be able to draw any conclusions. The picture produced is, however, very interesting.

 

Average Monthly rainfall - England and Wales (mm) supplied by the Met Office Library Dec 1998

Table B-1  

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	total
1753	66	91	36	58	38	36	91	130	25	104	109	147	931
1754	51	38	58	51	53	86	109	84	5	58	66	142	801
1755	41	30	66	74	46	53	91	104	94	64	135	56	854
1756	71	28	66	142	43	102	84	150	66	43	48	36	879
1757	64	33	84	86	64	23	97	183	28	71	76	69	878
1758	51	94	53	38	33	56	185	84	94	48	51	86	873
1759	46	13	74	74	51	109	48	104	79	81	61	41	781
1760	51	102	25	18	43	86	41	112	112	122	107	89	908
1761	18	76	30	25	76	97	51	99	102	122	86	69	851
1762	91	58	56	36	28	23	58	114	102	152	61	30	809
1763	18	89	38	48	79	104	175	119	109	71	71	170	1091
1764	168	74	46	46	53	56	145	76	53	79	84	71	951
1765	64	36	109	89	18	46	18	102	53	152	61	41	789
1766	8	64	20	64	104	102	69	46	71	74	61	51	734
1767	74	117	71	30	69	28	147	69	64	86	81	28	864
1768	99	130	18	74	36	130	124	91	137	109	150	94	1192
1769	56	69	33	36	53	109	46	91	107	38	76	74	788
1770	48	53	69	61	53	104	58	48	81	99	175	107	956
1771	66	30	43	28	46	30	48	97	61	137	53	94	733
1772	66	89	84	33	48	107	58	74	140	97	127	41	964
1773	76	51	23	51	145	48	38	79	150	112	99	109	981
1774	97	86	61	51	66	71	91	89	140	36	46	64	898
1775	79	97	64	28	23	51	145	135	127	119	89	41	998
1776	56	114	46	23	38	79	86	130	107	48	81	51	859
Month Total	1525	1662	1273	1264	1306	1736	2103	2410	2107	2122	2054	1801
Mean	63.54	69.25	53.04	52.67	54.42	72.33	87.63	100.42	87.79	88.42	85.58	75.04	890.13
Median	64.00	71.50	54.50	49.50	49.50	75.00	85.00	98.00	94.00	83.50	78.50	69.00	875.50
St. Dev.	31.29	31.70	22.62	27.24	26.60	32.02	44.64	30.43	37.91	34.25	32.90	37.65	105.70
1941-70 long term average	86	65	59	58	67	61	73	90	83	83	97	90	912
1961-90 long term average	88	63	72	60	64	65	62	76	77	85	90	94	896

 

 

Average monthly temperatures - kindly supplied by the Met. Office Library Archives

Table B-2

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Ar	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Se	Oct	Nov	Dec	Average
1757	0.30	4.00	4.90	8.10	10.70	14.00	18.40	15.20	13.30	8.20	7.10	3.20	8.95
1758	2.60	3.80	5.20	7.20	13.80	14.60	14.20	16.40	11.90	8.10	5.70	3.90	8.95
1759	5.90	5.80	6.10	8.60	12.10	15.00	18.20	16.30	13.50	10.90	5.10	2.50	10.00
1760	1.90	3.80	6.60	9.40	11.70	15.20	16.90	15.80	15.70	9.20	5.70	6.10	9.83
1761	5.40	5.80	6.80	9.40	11.90	14.30	15.80	16.40	14.20	9.40	6.20	4.40	10.00
1762	4.70	4.00	3.70	10.00	12.90	16.90	17.80	15.30	13.60	7.90	4.60	3.60	9.58
1763	-0.80	4.90	5.40	8.90	10.20	14.60	15.30	15.30	13.10	8.30	5.80	6.20	8.93
1764	3.70	3.80	3.90	7.20	12.20	13.90	16.10	15.20	12.50	8.90	4.40	2.80	8.72
1765	4.80	0.40	5.00	7.50	11.40	13.80	15.70	15.30	13.30	9.20	3.90	1.70	8.50
1766	0.70	1.70	4.20	8.10	9.70	13.70	15.70	16.60	13.30	9.30	7.20	3.30	8.63
1767	0.10	5.40	4.70	7.30	10.00	12.80	14.40	16.10	14.10	9.20	6.90	3.30	8.69
1768	0.80	4.80	4.70	8.10	12.20	13.90	15.60	16.00	11.70	9.20	5.60	4.60	8.93
1769	2.50	2.70	5.00	7.80	11.30	13.10	16.40	15.00	12.80	8.20	5.70	4.80	8.78
1770	3.70	4.60	2.50	5.40	10.00	13.10	15.30	15.80	13.90	8.90	5.30	3.60	8.51
1771	1.00	3.20	3.10	5.50	12.20	14.30	15.70	14.30	12.20	9.20	6.30	5.60	8.55
1772	1.20	1.90	4.40	6.40	10.10	16.10	16.90	16.10	13.00	11.70	7.20	4.80	9.15
1773	4.00	2.60	6.50	8.30	10.30	14.70	15.90	17.20	12.40	9.90	5.30	3.80	9.24
1774	0.60	4.30	6.40	8.60	10.90	14.70	16.10	16.10	12.50	10.30	4.80	3.50	9.07
1775	4.60	6.10	6.00	9.80	12.60	16.60	16.70	15.80	14.30	9.30	4.80	4.50	10.09
1776	-1.60	3.80	6.40	9.40	10.80	14.10	16.30	15.20	12.90	10.20	6.20	4.40	9.01

 

Wheat Prices

Table B-3

Year	Wheat (per qtr) s   d	Wheat price converted into pence
1758	50 0	250.00
1759	39 10	199.17
1760	36 6	182.50
1761	30 3	151.25
1762	39 0	195.00
1763	40 9	203.75
1764	46 9	233.75
1765	48 0	240.00
1766	43 1	215.42
1767	47 4	236.67
1768	53 9	268.75
1769	40 7	202.92
1770	43 6	217.50
1771	47 2	235.83
1772	50 8	253.33
1773	51 0	255.00
1774	52 8	263.33
1775	48 4	241.67
1776	38 2	190.82

[Stratton and Brown 1969 p252&253]

Volcanic Dust Index

Table B-4

Year	Volcano	Situation	Dust Veil Index
1755	Katla, Iceland	63½°N 19°W	400
1759	Jorulla, Mexico	19°N 102°W	300
1760	Makjan, Moluccas	½°N 127½°W	250
1763	'Molucca Is.'	2°N-3°S 125-131°E	600 (?)
1766	Hekla, Iceland	64°N 19½°W	200
1766	Mayon, Luzon, Phillippines	13½°N 123½°E	2300 (?)
1768	Cotopaxi, Ecuador	1°S 78°W	900
1772	Gunung Papandayan, Java	7½°S 108°E	250
1775	Pacaya, Guatemala	14°N 91°W	1000(?)

Comparison of factors that might be involved with Deaths

Table B-5

	Wheat	Temp	Rain	Burials	Baptisms	W&S Burials	Real Wage Index
1758	250.00	8.95	873	472	404	165150	634
1759	199.17	10.00	781	424	464	165550	669
1760	182.50	9.83	908	483	476	161100	706
1761	151.25	10.00	851	405	430	162678	684
1762	195.00	9.58	809	467	442	193250	672
1763	203.75	8.93	1091	614	443	199535	672
1764	233.75	8.72	951	430	482	168347	605
1765	240.00	8.50	789	440	509	163163	602
1766	215.42	8.63	734	504	499	188088	574
1767	236.67	8.69	864	623	485	185804	585
1768	268.75	8.93	1192	543	482	175724	641
1769	202.92	8.78	788	458	559	172708	649
1770	217.50	8.51	956	571	552	182994	602
1771	235.83	8.55	733	520	611	175401	548
1772	253.33	9.15	964	529	585	177662	554
1773	255.00	9.24	981	647	613	180825	552
1774	263.33	9.07	898	466	554	163994	589
1775	241.67	10.09	998	558	611	173041	606
1776	190.82	9.01	859	464	636	165654	616

To allow all the figures to co-exist on one graph the temperatures were multiplied by 10 and the figures for the 404 parishes used by Wrigley and Schofield [1981 p516] were divided by 250.

 

Raw Wool Prices

converted to pence /lb

Table B-6

	Lincoln Long	South Down	Kent Long
1757	3.21
1758	3.57
1759	3.57	3.54	3.13
1760	3.30	3.54	3.13
1761	3.21	2.71	2.50
1762	3.04	2.71	2.50
1763	3.57	3.33	2.92
1764	3.57	3.33	3.33
1765	3.75	3.13	2.92
1766	3.84	3.33	3.33
1767	3.57	3.75	3.13
1768	2.86	2.92	2.71
1769	2.72	2.92	2.71
1770	2.50	3.13	2.92
1771	2.68	3.33	3.13
1772	2.77	2.92	2.71
1773	2.77	2.92	2.92
1774	3.13	3.33	2.92
1775	3.30	3.75	3.33
1776	3.30	3.54	3.33

 

Schumpeter-Gilboy Price Indices

Table B-7

	Consumer Goods (a)	other than cereals (b)	Producers Goods (c)
1757	109	92	94
1758	106	94	101
1759	100	96	101
1760	98	97	102
1761	94	91	101
1762	94	90	102
1763	100	92	102
1764	102	94	101
1765	106	97	99
1766	107	96	99
1767	109	93	99
1768	108	92	98
1769	99	92	92
1770	100	92	94
1771	107	96	94
1772	117	103	98
1773	119	102	99
1774	116	101	98
1775	113	96	98
1776	114	102	101

(a) Viz. Barley, beans, biscuiits, break, flour, oats, peas, rye, wheat, beef for salting, butter, cheese, pork, ale, beer, cider, hops, malt, pepper, raisins, sugar, tea, tallow candles, coal, broadcloth, hair, felt hats, kersey, leather, leather backs, Brussels linen, Irish linen, blue yarn stockings.

(b) Viz. all items after wheat in footnote (a).

(c) Viz. bricks, coal, lead, pantiles, plain tiles, hemp, leather backs, train oil, tallow, lime, glue and copper.

Reproduced, complete with footnotes, from Mitchell [1962 p469]

 

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