Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.To use information about the heights of the British since the middle of the eighteenth century to describe their nutritional status and to explore its relationship to the welfare and productivity of that population

Main Topics:

Variables Height, age, occupation, place of birth, place and date of recruitment, regiment (if in the army); colour of eyes, hair and complexion; literacy; height at age 24; reason and date of death or discharge; name. Please note: this study does not include information on named individuals and would therefore not be useful for personal family history research.

(a) A list was compiled of all those description books which, according to the P.R.O. indexes, contained information on recruiting during a particular decade. This was done for each decade between 1760 and 1889. (b) The books were divided between those from the Army and those from the Royal Marines. A random sample was then drawn from each set of books within each decade, e.g. for the Army in the 1780s. (c) Information on all recruits who joined within that decade was then taken from the books, up to a sample size of 5000 each from the Army and Royal Marines, or a lesser number if there were not sufficient recruits.

Compilation or synthesis of existing material