London's dreadful visitation

Every week, each London parish recorded the number of people who had died and the reason for their deaths. The numbers from all the parishes were added up and printed in lists called mortality bills, which were published by the Company of Parish Clerks. This is a page from a collection of mortality bills from 1665, the year of the Great Plague. It shows the week of 19 – 26 September in which 7165 people died from the plague; the highest total for any week during the outbreak.

The bill also lists 101 people who died of ‘spotted fever’ – these people probably died of the plague too. In total, the mortality bills show that 68,956 people died from the Great Plague but the real number is probably about 100,000. Some people’s deaths were not recorded or reported properly so they were not on the lists.