Genius Fan

I make a mental note every time my 18th century researches turn up someone aged 80 and above. That’s old, even by today’s standards. And these octogenarians, nonagenarians and the very occasional centenarian pop up all over the place. There are a lot of ’em. I collected their names into a list after meeting my 91-year-old dad for lunch earlier this week.

Life expectancy in the 1700s: what the figures really mean

If you’re like me, you assumed everyone in history died before they reached 50, and their lives were filled with hunger, disease and fear, and that people who reached 50 years of age were ancient. Well, I’ll be 61 years of age shortly, and I can confirm: I feel ancient.

My dad’s life expectancy vs reality (born 1935)

My dad is 91 years of age. I met him for lunch the other day and watched him polish off a plate of fish and chips and then a gigantic wedge of chocolate cake. My wife, my sister and I were gobsmacked. Not bad for a nonagenarian. And his marbles? All in order. He was talking about current affairs and recalling events from the 60s, when I was born, back to the 40s when he was a kid. He’s outlived my mother and a second wife. He’s upbeat with no plans to throw in the towel. How long was a man born in 1935 expected to live? See below:

No.	Birth year	Person	Life expectancy	Expected death year	Deceased?
1	1935	My Dad	57.48 yrs (Born: Scot)	1992	Nope, he’s still scoffing pub lunches. He’s outstayed his ‘Life visa’ by 34 yrs!
2	1936	My Mum	64.42 yrs (Born: Eng)	2000	Sadly, yes, in 2015. Alzheimer’s diagnosed in 2010.
3	1965	Me	68.56 yrs (Born: Eng)	2033	Dear God! I’ve only got 7 years left??? But I’ve got so many GeniusFan stories to write. lol!

(Note: My life expectancy at birth is. of course, different from that in 2026.)

Data source: Human Mortality Database

Life expectancy in 18th century England

This is not easy data to find. I had to rope in Claude AI to help me find some data. (Had I not done that I would be sitting in a university library somewhere in November, trying to find a figure I could use.) What did I find?

No.	Birth year	Male/ Female	Life expectancy	Expected death year	Notes
1	1730s	Both	35 (Born: Eng)	1765-75

Data source: According to Wrigley et al. (1997), as cited in Nunn and Qian (2009, p. 1, n. 3), English life expectancy at birth was 35 years by the 1730s.

So, it’s pretty low. A child born in 1730 could expect, on average, to die around 1765. And because this is an average figure, that means plenty of infants born died early, and equally it’s likely a significant number survived into their 40s, 50s and beyond. Life was not easy… Unless you were a member of the privileged class. Easier maybe: starvation, murder, infectious disease, cold exposure, workplace injury and so on, weren’t such a burden on the well off as the poor, agricultural worker, for example.

Thomas Percy: living 47 years past the average

Here’s a comparison of one of the people I know from my 18th century researches died in his 80s.

• Bishop Thomas Percy, clergyman
• Born: 1729
• Life expectancy in 1730: 35 yrs
• Expected to die: 1764
• Actual death: 1811
• Age at death: 82
• Extra years of life: 47

This is not an in-depth post about death rates in the 18th century. The goal is to show that lots of people survived way beyond the life expectancy. Another way to look at it is this: Most 18th century history is that of famous people, not the ordinary people, the workers, the labourers, the husbands and wives and children who came and went over the dozens of generations between then and now.

What did 69 long-lived 18th-century figures have in common?

This list isn’t comprehensive – how could it be. It reflects the reading I’ve done over the years and doubtless I’ve forgotten people I’ve encountered. But from any list I would have thought most people who reached 80+ in the 18th century would be wealthy, educated, high status, male. Here’s what my list shows:

• Profession: Roughly ten were clergy (both Wesleys, Blair, Erskine, Carlyle, Home, John Newton, Percy, Somerville, Cartwright) and five were judges or lawyers (Kames, Monboddo, Mansfield, Jay, Mackenzie). That’s more sedentary, low-risk work. Six were American Founders or leaders (Franklin, John and Samuel Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Jay), all well-off.
• Status: Those who used their hands (not writing, but experimenting/ building etc) are masters or owners (Harrison, Boulton, Coade, Revere, Earnshaw, Peel). There are no manual labourers.
• Male / Female: 11 of 69 (16%) are women and six of them were in Samuel Johnson’s circle: Delany, Carter, Montagu, More, Piozzi and Fanny Burney.
• Geography: 25 are English, 19 Scottish, 8 American and 6 French: this partly reflects my reading.

The full list: 18th-century people who lived to 80+

This list is completely arbitrary – it’s based on my reading and my memory, nothing more. Once you browse the list, the key thing to take away is the range of people. Don’t read anything into the number of people or distribution etc.

I’ve listed them from the oldest (100+) down to those aged 80-84.

18th century people: Aged 100+ (2 people)

No.	Name	Age	Years	Summary
1	Michel Eugène Chevreul	102	1786–1889	Chemist who studied fats and the theory of colour contrast.
2	Sir Moses Montefiore	100	1784–1885	Financier, philanthropist, Jewish campaigner.

18th century people: Aged 95-99 (2 people)

No.	Name	Age	Years	Summary
1	Bernard de Fontenelle	99	1657–1757	Popular-science writer and perpetual secretary of the Académie des sciences.
2	Caroline Herschel	97	1750–1848	Astronomer who discovered several comets, and William Herschel’s sister.

18th century people: Aged 90-94 (2 people)

No.	Name	Age	Years	Summary
1	Adam Ferguson	92	1723–1816	Philosopher and historian, author of An Essay on the History of Civil Society.
2	John Adams	90	1735–1826	Second US president and Revolution leader.

18th century people: Aged 85-89 (22 people)

Click to reveal names

No.	Name	Age	Years	Summary
1	Thomas Somerville	89	1741–1830	Jedburgh minister and historian, author of My Own Life and Times.
2	William Murray, Lord Mansfield	88	1705–1793	Lord Chief Justice who shaped English commercial law.
3	Elizabeth Carter	88	1717–1806	Bluestocking scholar and translator of Epictetus.
4	Charles Burney	88	1726–1814	Music historian and composer.
5	Eleanor Coade	88	1733–1821	Businesswoman who ran the Lambeth factory making Coade stone.
6	Hannah More	88	1745–1833	Writer, educator and evangelical reformer.
7	Marie Tussaud	88	1761–1850	Wax modeller who founded Madame Tussauds.
8	Joanna Baillie	88	1762–1851	Scottish poet and dramatist.
9	Mary Delany	87	1700–1788	Letter-writer, artist and creator of paper ‘mosaicks’.
10	John Wesley	87	1703–1791	Founder of Methodism.
11	Fanny Burney	87	1752–1840	Novelist and diarist, author of Evelina.
12	Henry Home, Lord Kames	86	1696–1782	Scottish judge and philosopher, and patron of Hume and Smith.
13	Thomas Reid	86	1710–1796	Founder of the Scottish ‘common sense’ school of philosophy.
14	Thomas Clarkson	86	1760–1846	Leading campaigner against the slave trade.
15	Edmond Halley	85	1656–1742	Astronomer who predicted the return of the comet that bears his name.
16	John Home	85	1722–1808	Minister and playwright, author of Douglas.
17	Warren Hastings	85	1732–1818	First Governor-General of British India, impeached and acquitted.
18	Joseph Nollekens	85	1737–1823	Leading portrait sculptor.
19	Charles Willson Peale	85	1741–1827	Portrait painter and founder of a Philadelphia museum.
20	Henry Mackenzie	85	1745–1831	Edinburgh lawyer and author of The Man of Feeling.
21	James Madison	85	1751–1836	Fourth US president and chief architect of the Constitution.
22	William Murdoch	85	1754–1839	Engineer who pioneered coal-gas lighting for Boulton / Watt.

18th century people: Aged 80-84 (41 people)

Click to reveal names

No.	Name	Age	Years	Summary
1	Isaac Newton	84	1643–1727	Physicist and mathematician who formulated the laws of motion and gravitation.
2	Emanuel Swedenborg	84	1688–1772	Swedish scientist and mystic whose visions founded a religious movement.
3	Benjamin Franklin	84	1706–1790	American printer, scientist and diplomat.
4	James Burnett, Lord Monboddo	84	1714–1799	Judge and speculative anthropologist who anticipated evolutionary ideas.
5	Alexander Monro secundus	84	1733–1817	Edinburgh professor of anatomy, second of three Alexander Monros in the chair.
6	Henry Fuseli	84	1741–1825	Swiss-born painter of The Nightmare.
7	James Northcote	84	1746–1831	Painter and pupil of Joshua Reynolds.
8	Jeremy Bentham	84	1748–1832	Utilitarian philosopher and legal reformer.
9	Talleyrand	84	1754–1838	Diplomat who served successive French regimes.
10	Voltaire	83	1694–1778	Leading French Enlightenment writer and satirist.
11	Alexander ‘Jupiter’ Carlyle	83	1722–1805	Moderate minister whose Autobiography is a key source on Edinburgh society.
12	Paul Revere	83	1735–1818	Boston silversmith and Revolutionary messenger.
13	James Watt	83	1736–1819	Engineer who transformed the steam engine.
14	William Herschel	83	1738–1822	Hanoverian-born astronomer who discovered Uranus.
15	Thomas Jefferson	83	1743–1826	Principal author of the Declaration of Independence and third US president.
16	John Jay	83	1745–1829	First Chief Justice of the US and Federalist Papers co-author.
17	Sir John Soane	83	1753–1837	Architect of the Bank of England and his own London museum.
18	John Harrison	82	1693–1776	Clockmaker who solved the longitude problem with his marine chronometers.
19	Sir Alexander Dick	82	1703–1785	Edinburgh physician and agricultural improver of Prestonfield.
20	Hugh Blair	82	1718–1800	Edinburgh minister and first Regius Professor of Rhetoric.
21	John Newton	82	1725–1807	Former slave-ship captain turned clergyman and author of ‘Amazing Grace’.
22	Thomas Percy	82	1729–1811	Bishop and editor of Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.
23	Patrick Brydone	82	1736–1818	Electrical experimenter and author of A Tour through Sicily and Malta.
24	Johann Wolfgang von Goethe	82	1749–1832	German poet, dramatist and polymath.
25	Alison Cockburn	81	1713–1794	Edinburgh hostess and author of a version of ‘The Flowers of the Forest’.
26	Elizabeth Montagu	81	1718–1800	Bluestocking hostess and Shakespeare critic.
27	John Erskine	81	1721–1803	Leader of the Evangelical party in the Church of Scotland.
28	Samuel Adams	81	1722–1803	Boston Revolutionary organiser and signer of the Declaration.
29	Pasquale Paoli	81	1725–1807	Corsican independence leader.
30	Benjamin West	81	1738–1820	American-born history painter and President of the Royal Academy.
31	George III	81	1738–1820	King of Great Britain and Ireland, 1760-1820.
32	Sir John Sinclair	81	1754–1835	Agriculturist who organised the Statistical Account of Scotland.
33	Jean-Philippe Rameau	80	1683–1764	Composer and music theorist.
34	Charles Wesley	80	1707–1788	Methodist leader and prolific hymn writer.
35	Comte de Buffon	80	1707–1788	Naturalist and author of the vast Histoire naturelle.
36	Matthew Boulton	80	1728–1809	Birmingham manufacturer and James Watt’s business partner.
37	Hester Thrale Piozzi	80	1741–1821	Samuel Johnson’s close friend and biographer.
38	Edmund Cartwright	80	1743–1823	Clergyman who invented the power loom.
39	Thomas Earnshaw	80	1749–1829	Watchmaker who perfected the spring detent chronometer escapement.
40	Sir Robert Peel, 1st Baronet	80	1750–1830	Lancashire calico-printing and cotton magnate, and father of the prime minister.
41	John Loudon McAdam	80	1756–1836	Road engineer whose method gave us ‘macadamised’ roads.