The most common accidental way to die in Tudor England reveals surprising truths about daily life
Historian Steven Gunn uncovers what thousands of fatal accidents can tell us about everyday existence in 16th-century England – from water fetching to post-work swims

Tudor history is so dominated by tales of towering tyrannical monarchs and European politics that you’d be forgiven for thinking the most common way to die in 16th-century England was to be beheaded at the command of Henry VIII, or to perish at sea as a victim of the Spanish Armada.
But for most ordinary people, the whims of kings and the disputes of continental royalty were distant concerns. The real dangers lay much closer to home – and could be far more mundane.
According to historian Professor Steven Gunn, drowning in England’s waterways was the single most common cause of accidental death recorded in the period.
Based on thousands of coroners’ inquests, Gunn and co-author Dr Tomasz Gromelski have traced how Tudor people died – and, in doing so, revealed fascinating details about the rhythms of daily life for the average citizen.
“The most striking accidental cause of death is drowning,” Gunn explains on the HistoryExtra podcast. “About 40 per cent of all accidental deaths recorded in coroners’ inquests in the 16th century are drownings.”
These cases were far removed from nobles or monarchs. They involved farmers, labourers, servants and children – people whose lives rarely make it into formal chronicles. And in their deaths, they left behind a detailed record of the routines and risks of everyday life.
A deadly way to cool off
Some drowning cases are unsurprising: children falling into ponds, or people swept away by flooding. But others reflect a pattern of work, habit and physical exhaustion in Tudor England.
“Working men get very hot working in the fields, working on building sites … at the end of the day they strip off and jump in the nearest pond or river to get clean,” Gunn explains.
But there was a significant problem with that. “Many of them can’t swim … and so lots and lots of people end up drowning in those circumstances.”
These deaths were most common in June and July, and many occurred in the late afternoon or early evening – a time when labourers finished work, but the heat of the day still lingered. However, with no public bathhouses, and no widespread teaching of swimming, a refreshing dip could easily turn fatal.
The risk was compounded by exhaustion, cramps or the shock of cold water. There were no lifeguards to save them, and no safety barriers along riverbanks to warn them of the dangers.
The hidden danger of water fetching
For women and girls, the most common cause of accidental drowning came not from impromptu dips into cold water, but from a daily domestic task: collecting water.
“About one in eight accidental deaths of girls over five and women in the 16th century is from fetching water,” says Gunn.
In the Tudor era water had to be fetched several times a day – often from slippery riverbanks, ponds or wells, and in all weathers.
“People are going backwards and forwards all day collecting buckets of water,” says Gunn. “And when the weather’s bad and it’s slippery or they’re ill, they still have to go.”
If someone slipped while carrying a full bucket and fell in, survival was unlikely. Tudor clothing – particularly for women – made the situation worse.
“Their underclothing’s made of thick linen, and their overclothing’s made of thick wool,” says Gunn. “They get waterlogged very fast and they find it very hard to get out again once they’ve fallen in.”
These deaths reveal how the most essential forms of unpaid domestic labour – often overlooked in written history – could be both physically punishing and dangerously underappreciated. “Fetching water is such an obvious thing to do that nobody really writes about it,” Gunn notes.
These stats, and the similarities and differences in how many men and women died, reflect the gendered expectations of daily life in Tudor England. Men and women might have commonly had different types of work and social roles, but they both faced risks.
The risks of Tudor hygiene
Coroners’ reports also reveal a stark disconnect between advice offered to the elites of Tudor society compared to working-class realities – especially when it came to personal hygiene.
Medical treatises written for the upper classes often warned against bathing, arguing that hot water opened the pores and made the body vulnerable to disease. Instead, if you had been playing tennis for example, it was suggested that: “it's much better to change your fine linen or silk shirt”.
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Of course that advice was only practical for the wealthy – typically only those toward the top of Tudor society who had silk shirts to change in the first place. For the poor, the solution was simpler, but riskier.
“Poor people don't have the luxury of changing their shirt,” says Gunn. “They just take it off and get in the river instead.”
Why accidental Tudor deaths matter
Far removed from the drama of politics, royal marriages or religious upheaval, the study of accidental death in the Tudor era might seem like a niche pursuit. But for Gunn, these deaths offer some insight that’s invaluable.
Gunn explains that even though it “doesn’t fit in with the big stories of Tudor history”, the study of accidental deaths does “tell you what people were doing all day, which not many other sources do”.
Because these accidents happened to regular people, in the middle of everyday tasks, they reveal moments of routine and labour and daily drudgery rarely documented elsewhere – while highlighting the differences and similarities between ordinary Tudor men and women during the time.
Legal records or sermons might mention farming or trade disputes. But coroners’ reports capture the exact moment when a routine task became fatal. Each case offers a flash of insight into social roles or seasonal rhythms that dictated what life was like for most people living in Tudor England.
Steve Gunn was speaking to Ellie Cawthorne on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
Authors
James Osborne is a digital content producer at HistoryExtra where he writes, researches, and edits articles, while also conducting the occasional interview