Addressing Health Pensions Database, 1860-1908

This data collection contains information on the health of 26,500 United Kingdom postal workers who retired between 1860 and 1908. Following the 1859 Superannuation Act, all postal workers serving for ten or more years were eligible for a pension, and those who had worked for less than years could apply for a one-off gratuity. The data were transcribed from the pension application forms submitted to the Treasury for approval when a worker either reached retirement age (60 years until 1892 when it rose to 65) or were medically incapable of performing their duties. Two types of data on the health of these workers have been transcribed from the pension forms. First, a table which provides the number of days off sick taken in each of the ten years prior to their retirement. Second, the cause of retirement, where the worker was retiring for medical reasons this cause had to be certified by a doctor. Additionally, information on each workers’ age at retirement, length of service, occupation and place of work has been transcribed from the pension forms. These data have all be checked and standardised, and the causes of retirement have been coded to ICD10h. Additional contextual information on local characteristics such as population density have been added. For a sub-set of the 26,500 retirees death dates have been traced and so information on survival post-retirement is included. These data provide a new dataset to examine morbidity and mortality across the entirety of the United Kingdom in the second half of the nineteenth century and the time of the epidemiological transition.