In Victorian England and Wales, where one lived had an especially important bearing not only on when one died, but also on how one died. We have already seen many examples of this, from Farr's law, considered in chapter 5, to the geographical variations in infant and childhood mortality illustrated in chapter 7. But the distinctive morbidity and mortality environments created by industrialisation, occupational specialisation, urban growth and residential segregation and proximity in conjunction with the effects of climate, relief and aspect are of fundamental importance for our understanding of the ways in which life expectancy began to improve during the Victorian era. Until the decline of infant mortality after 1900, the range of mortality levels experienced in different geographical areas was not only roughly constant, but also greater than the difference between the national levels for England and Wales in the 1840s and the 1890s. To make the same point in a different way: suppose a pregnant woman living in the area with the worst mortality in the 1840s or 1850s was to be given a choice of moving either in time or in space. While her own life chances would undoubtedly also be enhanced, for the sake of her soon to be born child she should certainly opt to move in space – from Lancashire to Devon, perhaps – unless, that is, she was able to travel forward in time to the middle of the twentieth century.