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Papers by Edward Higgs

Continuity and Change, May 1, 1996

On constate une certaine tendance à écrire en termes de religion et de médecine l'histoire de... more On constate une certaine tendance à écrire en termes de religion et de médecine l'histoire de l'instauration de l'état civil ainsi que celle duGeneral Register Officeen Angleterre et Galles en application duRegistration Actde 1836. Nous soutenons dans cet article qu'il est plus fécond d'analyser ces mesures essentiellement en termes d'enregistrement de droits de propriéte; d'autre part les grands débats du XIXe siècle commençant, relatifs à l'assistance aux pauvres, jouèrent aussi un rôle essentiel. On comprend mieux ainsi quelques traits essentiels des données demographiques et médicales publiées dans lesAnnual Reports of the Registrar General.

Choice Reviews Online, 2004

The Information State in England, 2004

The Information State in England, 2004

© 1986 Edward Higgs. All rights reserved. First published in 1986. At any one time in late ninete... more © 1986 Edward Higgs. All rights reserved. First published in 1986. At any one time in late nineteenth-century England and Wales over one million men and women were described as domestic servants in the occupational category after agricultural work. This title explores several aspects of domestic service in the area of Rochdale, and the servant population is examined to discover who entered the service, at what age, and from what background they came. This title will be of interest to students of history.

History Workshop Journal, 1983

History is about contradiction; the relationship of opposites. To study only the masses and to ne... more History is about contradiction; the relationship of opposites. To study only the masses and to neglect their relationship with the state and capitalist enterprise is to produce a one-sided picture of the past. In the following pages I hope to give a description of some of the records of ...

In recent years historians have taken an increasing interest in the senses in the past, both in t... more In recent years historians have taken an increasing interest in the senses in the past, both in terms of how people in the past understood the senses, and how our sensory experience of the past world, if we were placed in it, would diverge from our experience of the modern environment. However, somewhat less consideration has been given to how past understandings of the sensory world are still current in our present world, and how this helps to explain contemporary beliefs and cultural phenomena. This short article looks at one sense, sight, and explores some implications of the survival of older understandings of optics in our contemporary world. This means that beliefs which may appear illogical to (some) modern eyes, may seem perfectly sensible in the past, or in some circumstances, if the processes of seeing and perception are understood in a particular way. This present article touches on some of these apparently pre-scientific vestiges, including the evil eye, mirror magic and physiognomy, as an invitation to further exploration.

This paper addresses the question of why state-sponsored medical statisticians in Britain associa... more This paper addresses the question of why state-sponsored medical statisticians in Britain associated with the General Register Office (GRO) and the Medical Research Council (MRC), failed to address the issue of poverty in any great depth in the inter-war period, and why, when they did, especially with regard to unemployment in depressed areas, they tended to dismiss its importance. These men were not fools or charlatans - like all professionals they were aware of the limitations of their data and methods. Their work also pointed up some of the inadequacies of the criticisms made of the Ministry of Health’s policies. However, the papers of these statisticians often betrayed a set of assumptions about the nature of working-class life, and eugenic ideas, which undermined the objectivity of their analyses, and some of their activities can be shown to be a direct consequence of the requirement to defend central administrative policy, and thus their own official positions and funding.

The Information State in England, 2004

The Information State in England, 2004

The Information State in England, 2004

The Information State in England, 2004

Part 1 The history of 19th-century census taking. Part 2 The structure of the records. Part 3 The... more Part 1 The history of 19th-century census taking. Part 2 The structure of the records. Part 3 The interpretation of census data. Part 4 References and finding-aids. Part 5 Making use of the census. Appendices: Census Acts and Census Days, England and Wales, 1801-1890 the overall structure of the enumeration books the structure of the nominal page geographical and administrative areas in the census geographical data sought on each page of the enumerators' books summary tables in the enumerators' books examples of documents used in the process of census-taking examples of documents used in abstracting occupational data from the returns.

Continuity and Change, May 1, 1996

On constate une certaine tendance à écrire en termes de religion et de médecine l'histoire de... more On constate une certaine tendance à écrire en termes de religion et de médecine l'histoire de l'instauration de l'état civil ainsi que celle duGeneral Register Officeen Angleterre et Galles en application duRegistration Actde 1836. Nous soutenons dans cet article qu'il est plus fécond d'analyser ces mesures essentiellement en termes d'enregistrement de droits de propriéte; d'autre part les grands débats du XIXe siècle commençant, relatifs à l'assistance aux pauvres, jouèrent aussi un rôle essentiel. On comprend mieux ainsi quelques traits essentiels des données demographiques et médicales publiées dans lesAnnual Reports of the Registrar General.

Choice Reviews Online, 2004

The Information State in England, 2004

The Information State in England, 2004

© 1986 Edward Higgs. All rights reserved. First published in 1986. At any one time in late ninete... more © 1986 Edward Higgs. All rights reserved. First published in 1986. At any one time in late nineteenth-century England and Wales over one million men and women were described as domestic servants in the occupational category after agricultural work. This title explores several aspects of domestic service in the area of Rochdale, and the servant population is examined to discover who entered the service, at what age, and from what background they came. This title will be of interest to students of history.

History Workshop Journal, 1983

History is about contradiction; the relationship of opposites. To study only the masses and to ne... more History is about contradiction; the relationship of opposites. To study only the masses and to neglect their relationship with the state and capitalist enterprise is to produce a one-sided picture of the past. In the following pages I hope to give a description of some of the records of ...

In recent years historians have taken an increasing interest in the senses in the past, both in t... more In recent years historians have taken an increasing interest in the senses in the past, both in terms of how people in the past understood the senses, and how our sensory experience of the past world, if we were placed in it, would diverge from our experience of the modern environment. However, somewhat less consideration has been given to how past understandings of the sensory world are still current in our present world, and how this helps to explain contemporary beliefs and cultural phenomena. This short article looks at one sense, sight, and explores some implications of the survival of older understandings of optics in our contemporary world. This means that beliefs which may appear illogical to (some) modern eyes, may seem perfectly sensible in the past, or in some circumstances, if the processes of seeing and perception are understood in a particular way. This present article touches on some of these apparently pre-scientific vestiges, including the evil eye, mirror magic and physiognomy, as an invitation to further exploration.

This paper addresses the question of why state-sponsored medical statisticians in Britain associa... more This paper addresses the question of why state-sponsored medical statisticians in Britain associated with the General Register Office (GRO) and the Medical Research Council (MRC), failed to address the issue of poverty in any great depth in the inter-war period, and why, when they did, especially with regard to unemployment in depressed areas, they tended to dismiss its importance. These men were not fools or charlatans - like all professionals they were aware of the limitations of their data and methods. Their work also pointed up some of the inadequacies of the criticisms made of the Ministry of Health’s policies. However, the papers of these statisticians often betrayed a set of assumptions about the nature of working-class life, and eugenic ideas, which undermined the objectivity of their analyses, and some of their activities can be shown to be a direct consequence of the requirement to defend central administrative policy, and thus their own official positions and funding.

The Information State in England, 2004

The Information State in England, 2004

The Information State in England, 2004

The Information State in England, 2004

Part 1 The history of 19th-century census taking. Part 2 The structure of the records. Part 3 The... more Part 1 The history of 19th-century census taking. Part 2 The structure of the records. Part 3 The interpretation of census data. Part 4 References and finding-aids. Part 5 Making use of the census. Appendices: Census Acts and Census Days, England and Wales, 1801-1890 the overall structure of the enumeration books the structure of the nominal page geographical and administrative areas in the census geographical data sought on each page of the enumerators' books summary tables in the enumerators' books examples of documents used in the process of census-taking examples of documents used in abstracting occupational data from the returns.

Reading Faces: from Artificial Intelligence to Aristotle

The chapter is part of a proposed book on how historically faces have been 'read' to identify peo... more The chapter is part of a proposed book on how historically faces have been 'read' to identify people and impute characteristics and emotional states to them. The chapter shows how the current development and application of emotion-detecting AIs needs to be put into the long history in the West of the assumed relationship between emotions and facial expressions stretching back to the Ancient Greeks.

Edward Higgs, 2020

This paper addresses the question of why state-sponsored medical statisticians in Britain associa... more This paper addresses the question of why state-sponsored medical statisticians in Britain associated with the General Register Office (GRO) and the Medical Research Council (MRC), failed to address the issue of poverty in any great depth in the inter-war period, and why, when they did, especially with regard to unemployment in depressed areas, they tended to dismiss its importance. These men were not fools or charlatans - like all professionals they were aware of the limitations of their data and methods. Their work also pointed up some of the inadequacies of the criticisms made of the Ministry of Health’s policies. However, the papers of these statisticians often betrayed a set of assumptions about the nature of working-class life, and eugenic ideas, which undermined the objectivity of their analyses, and some of their activities can be shown to be a direct consequence of the requirement to defend central administrative policy, and thus their own official positions and funding.

Edward Higgs, 2020

In recent years historians have taken an increasing interest in the senses in the past, both in t... more In recent years historians have taken an increasing interest in the senses in the past, both in terms of how people in the past understood the senses, and how our sensory experience of the past world, if we were placed in it, would diverge from our experience of the modern environment. However, somewhat less consideration has been given to how past understandings of the sensory world are still current in our present world, and how this helps to explain contemporary beliefs and cultural phenomena. This short article looks at one sense, sight, and explores some implications of the survival of older understandings of optics in our contemporary world. This means that beliefs which may appear illogical to (some) modern eyes, may seem perfectly sensible in the past, or in some circumstances, if the processes of seeing and perception are understood in a particular way. This present article touches on some of these apparently pre-scientific vestiges, including the evil eye, mirror magic and physiognomy, as an invitation to further exploration.