New Research Reveals How Londoners Used Death Data to Survive the Great Plague
Arkeonews
21 February 2026
New University of Portsmouth research reveals how Samuel Pepys used the 1665 Bills of Mortality to navigate the Great Plague of London, reshaping public health policy, government power, and the use of death data in crisis.
What a 350-Year-Old Diary Tells Us About the Origins of Public Health Surveillance
New research from the University of Portsmouth reveals that during the Great Plague of 1665, Londoners relied on published death statistics to guide daily survival decisions—reshaping the relationship between citizens, data, and government power for the first time in history.
Drawing on the famous diary of Samuel Pepys, the study shows how weekly mortality reports known as the Worshipful Company of Parish Clerks’ Bills of Mortality functioned as an early form of public health data. Far from being passive records of the dead, these figures influenced where people traveled, whether they remained in the city, whom they met, and how they assessed personal risk.
According to the research, this moment marked a turning point in the development of modern public health governance—centuries before contemporary epidemiology or digital dashboards.
Counting Deaths in 17th-Century London
The Great Plague of 1665 devastated London, killing an estimated 68,596 people according to official records—though historians believe the true toll was closer to 100,000, nearly one-fifth of the city’s population.
More:
https://arkeonews.net/new-research-reveals-how-londoners-used-death-data-to-survive-the-great-plague/
= new reply since forum marked as read
