Stature in revolutionary-era Bois-le-Duc
Today, Dutch men are the tallest in the World at an average height of 1,83m, and women are ranked second at 1,69m (after the Latvian ladies at 1,70m). This was different in the past: the Dutch used to be relatively small around 1800, but gained in height since then. This was in part due to improvements in hygiene and health care, which was quite bad around 1800, and caused problems for small children in particular. Babies and toddlers suffered from ‘early life-stage insults’ that contributed to high infant mortality, and also to stunted growth among those that survived early childhood. Indeed, stunted growth caused adults to be relatively small, have physical shortcomings, and live shorter lives than today. This pattern gradually disappeared during the demographic transition, which in The Netherlands started in the nineteenth century.
Measuring tape, 18th century. Rijksmuseum BK-NM-11177-104
There is not much data on stature in The Netherlands before the demographic transition. A register of passports issued by the the town government of Bois-le-Duc does provide insights into stature between 1796-1806. Travellers often requested such a sauf-guarde. Such documents contained a profile consisting of height, stature and other characteristics. Thus we know of the Bois-le-Duc merchant Quirinus van Amelsfoort he was 36 years of age, 1,52m tall, but also that he had a fragile stature, brown eyes, hair and eyebrows, and a ‘big hunched nose’.
Such elaborate descriptions were necessary to prevent abuse of passports, but they did not at all spare the feelings of the travellers. Descriptions such as ‘a pocked face’, ‘cut on the cheek’, ‘cleft chin’, ‘small wart towards the right side of the forehead’. Warts were often used as a means of identification, and are described in a variety of sorts, on cheeks, chins and lips. And travellers without such marks, should nevertheless have prepared for descriptions such as having a ‘big nose, blushing face, boorish mouth, and round chin’. Whigs were also recorded in the passport, including whether it was a ‘natural’ or periwig type.
Along with weight (‘somewhat heavily-build’) height was one of the most important elements that were recorded in the passports. The average height of males was 1,59m; the smallest man was 1,44m, the tallest 1,69m. Women frequently feature in our dataset, but their height is hardly ever given. And when the magistrates of Bois-le-Duc decided to include women’s height, they apparently sufficed with an estimate: four women who were ‘measured’, were supposedly all 1,43m. Such small statures for women and men were quite common though: in London recruits – usually coming from disadvantaged urban lowering groups – did not exceed 1,45m.
Even though we are only aware of the birthplace of a small number of travellers, and their small numbers do not allow for a statistical analysis, it seems those born in cities were slightly smaller (1,58m) than those born in villages (1,62m). In the Flemish countryside the average height was even 1,70-1,71m in the eighteenth and nineteenth century: rural life was healthier than urban life. This was true for the poor and wealthy alike: members of urban elites (1,57m), those described as wearing a whig (1,57m) and merchants (1,60m) were hardly taller than the average man. There was no escaping the ‘urban penalty’: the long-term health effects of being born and raised in the city.
Small stature around 1800 went hand in hand with a relatively rapid physical and mental deterioration: old age started earlier than today, probably once people had passed fifty and had to cope with reduced labour input.