Impact of Industrialisation report

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To answer this question, a multidisciplinary research project, working in partnership with Gaynor Western, Ossafreelance, investigated health patterns over 800 years.

This was based on the analysis of 2,241 archaeological human skeletal remains of adults from 22 sites, both in London and other parts of England. The research was funded by The City of London Archaeological Trust (CoLAT) from a bequest by the late Rosemary Green.

London has a current population of nine million. All living and working together as one geographic mass, yet each person is affected differently by the environment.

Today, health and wellbeing, are closely tied to where we live and work.

But what of the people that lived here before? What happened to us and our bodies as London changed and grew?

In Britain, the Industrial Period is usually considered to have happened between 1750 and 1900. It was a pivotal time, with unprecedented changes in population growth and influencing all aspects of people’s lives, profoundly affecting the environment in which they lived and worked. London transformed from rural and largely agrarian to urban, becoming a manufacturing hub and distribution network for the nation, and overseas.

Industrialisation is complex and was far from a uniform process across the UK as not all people living during this time experienced the same changes and living conditions.

This raised three questions:

• How did our bodies respond to working and living in this manufactured, urban environment?
• What imprint has industrialisation left on our health today?
• Is our health still shaped by the footprint of London past?

Using digital imaging of archaeological remains, we found that the shift from agrarian to industrial lifestyles created deeply embedded health changes. These biological changes in human remains show how we manufacture our living environments and our bodies as a result.

With the curation at London Museum of large-scale archaeologically derived collections of human skeletal remains from the pre-Industrial (medieval) and Industrial (post-medieval) period, and access to comparative skeletal collections from non-Metropolitan locations outside of London, it was possible to examine and analyse the skeletal remains of men and women who had lived through the Industrial era. Thus, enabling a unique perspective on the impact of industrialisation on the health of Londoners directly from their physical remains.

Based on the evidence from the analysis of these human remains, we looked at the diversity of lifestyles people experienced before, during and after industrialisation, and compared life in London to non-metropolitan places outside.

Focusing on the different environments people were living in and the huge expansion of London as an industrial city, we explored whether these changes had a good or bad impact on our health, and what this might mean for our future.

Digital radiography and computer tomography (CT) scanning were used to assess the consequences of industrialisation detectable in the skeletal remains of these individuals.

Only adults with an age and sex estimation were analysed, enabling them to be grouped into age cohorts of young, middle and old-age adults. This allowed us to discern health patterns between the sexes and different age groups over time and in relation to their geographical context.

These results helped determine the factors important to the health of Londoners and the general population, past and present.

We focused on seven diseases associated with industrialisation, urbanisation, enriched lifestyles and old age to assess their prevalence over time:

1. Hyperostosis Frontalis Interna (HFI), detected using radiography and CT
2. Osteoporosis, detected using radiography
3. joint disease, detected macroscopically and radiographically
4. trauma, detected macroscopically
5. neoplastic disease (cancer), detected using radiography and CT
6. infectious disease (rib lesions), detected macroscopically
7. Diffuse Idiopathic Skeletal Hyperostosis (DISH), detected macroscopically

These diseases were investigated to ascertain if and how their frequency has altered over time to the present day.

We compared five key areas of health over time – these still impact us today:

1. accidents, fractures and physical trauma
2. air pollution
3. cancer
4. obesity
5. old age

We also looked at a range of sites from across London to compare how the different environments within the city impacted on the quality of our lives in the past.

Determining patterns and trends provides a synthesised insight into the health status of the population, and specifically Londoners. These were analysed in relation to rural and urban lifestyles, social status, technological and medical advances, hazardous environments, malnourishment and excess food, cancers and age-related issues.

The project resulted in a publication, Manufactured Bodies: The Impact of Industrialisation on London Health which revealed the findings from the large-scale comparative data sets, thus, highlighting how they resonate with modern health topics.

We saw a significant trend in bone changes in the ribs (visceral surface) from chronic lung disease which rose from 2.9% to 19.5% in Industrial London. The city still has the country’s highest air pollution mortality rate at 6.3%.

High-status males and females from Industrial-period London had increased rates of metabolic disorders (DISH and HFI) linked to richer diets, excessive consumption and sugar, providing an insight to obesity in the past. However, today, obesity and type 2 diabetes are more prevalent in less affluent boroughs, reversing historical patterns.

Life expectancy increased around 1870. During the Industrial period, old-aged Londoners also experienced the highest osteoporosis rates (21.8%) compared to non-metropolitan areas (10.5%).

Issues such as air pollution, nutrition, sedentary lifestyles, technology and ageing are all pertinent today. Industrialisation has had serious consequences on our health and leaves an ongoing legacy. It is literally shaping our lives.

All the radiographic images used in this study can be accessed via our online searchable database.

Here you can access all the radiographs used in the impact project research. You will need a login to access the database. Please use the ‘sign up’ button to create an account. Once your account is approved, you will receive a confirmation email.