William Petty, the multiplication of mankind, and demographic discourse in seventeenth-century England

Journal article

In the 1650ss, after a century of increase, the population of England stopped growing. It was not to increase substantially again before 1750. Over the same interval, and not wholly coincidentally, scholars and theologians were trying to defend the orthodox account of how global population had increased since the Creation and must continue to do so, and the first political arithmeticians were trying to measure and analyse demographic change. This article seeks to throw fresh light on this many-sided discourse by examining William Petty’s attempt to write an account of the multiplication of mankind, and the reasons why he failed to complete it. It focuses particularly on Petty’s part in developing methods of measuring population density which highlighted the potential for future growth, and on the equally important demonstration by John Graunt that high and rising mortality in cities was hindering population growth in reality. As Petty’s cousin Robert Southwell pointed out, Graunt’s ‘rule of mortality’ was wholly incompatible with any coherent account of the future multiplication of mankind. At the end of this particular discourse, newly discovered facts about demography triumphed over the presuppositions of divinity.

Authors: Slack, P

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Journal: Historical Journal
• Volume: 61
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 301-325
• Publication date: 2017-12-04
• Acceptance date: 2017-08-13
• DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X17000358
• EISSN: 1469-5103
• ISSN: 0018-246X