Bills of mortality, returns of the deaths which occur within a certain district.
It was with the view of communicating to the inhabitants of London, to the Court, and the constituted authorities of the city, accurate information respecting the increase or decrease in the number of deaths and the casualties of mortality occurring amongst them, that the bills of mortality were commenced in London after a visitation of the plague in 1592, but they were not continued uninterruptedly until the occurrence of another plague in 1603, from which period, up to the present time, they have been continued from week to week; excepting during the Great Fire, when the deaths of two or three weeks were given in one bill.
In 1605, the parishes comprised within the bills of mortality included the 97 parishes within the walls, 16 parishes without the walls, and six contiguous out-parishes in Middlesex and Surrey.
In 1626, the city of Westminster was included in the bills; in 1636, the parishes of Islington, Lambeth, Stepney, Newington, Hackney, and Redriff (Rotherhithe). Marylebone and St. Pancras, with some others, were never included in the bills. The enactments providing for the registration of births, deaths, and marriages now secure full statistics on these subjects; but the area 'within the bills of mortality' came to be occasionally used in Acts of Parliament as a practical equivalent to the metropolitan area before the passing of the (English) Metropolis Management Act,1855 (18 & 19 Vict. c. 120).