# Teeming Millions Origin

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teeming-millions-origin/576859>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 1, 2011, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teeming-millions-origin/576859 "2011-04-01T21:39:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\
**Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teeming-millions-origin/576859/1 "2011-04-01T21:39:43Z")

</div>

For some reason I got to wondering when and where the phrase “teeming millions” originated.

Playing with Google Books I found these:

> [@](#):
>
> Statistical, historical, and political description of the Colony of New South Wales, and its dependent settlements in Van Diemen’s Land …
> 
> William Charles Wentworth - 1819 - 466 pages  
> … the gracious intentions of its all-bounteous Author, by administering to the wants and contributing to the happiness of millions. What a proud sight for the Briton to view his country pouring forth her teeming millions to people new

> [@](#):
>
> The parliamentary debates (Authorized edition): Volume 40
> 
> Great Britain. Parliament, William Cobbett, Thomas Curson Hansard - 1819 -  
> No one could do so without being deeply impressed with sympathy for the teeming millions of the peaceful, patient indus- Sir Hr. Wedderbiirn trial classes of India, and with a desire to do whatever was possible in a Parliamentary …

> [@](#):
>
> NILES’ WEEKLY REGISTER. - Page 27
> 
> H. NILES - 1820  
> The teeming millions of the East Indies only, (to say nothing or other immense tracts of country in Asia and Europe, Mexico and South America) can produce enough to supply two worlds like this, and that they will furnish the majority of …

There are earlier dates but they all seem to be bad OCR or other false hits. There is a hit in “A sermon delivered in Boston, Sept. 16, 1813 By Timothy Dwight, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions” but it wasn’t printed until 1828 and the phrase appears in somebody else’s sermon.

Niles’ Weekly Register was the recordings of Congress, previous to the Congressional Register. So that’s two hits from legislators. That’s a source much more likely to be preserved and reprinted. Makes me wonder whether there wasn’t a contemporary source that they all were drawing on.

Any clues?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2011, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teeming-millions-origin/576859/2 "2011-04-02T04:21:20Z")

</div>

Great Job. I’m sure your Niles Weekly cite is from the correct date.

The Wentworth cite is almost certainly from a later(not much) edition.

The parliamentary debates is from later than 1824.

So, Niles it is!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2011, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teeming-millions-origin/576859/3 "2011-04-02T15:29:44Z")

</div>

Then we’re left with, why 1820?

Here’s a WAG. Malthus published his _An Essay on the Principle of Population_ in 1798, but revised it into a more major work several times in the early 1800s. It was a huge topic in the thinking classes. In addition, Britain’s first properly constructed census took place in 1801 and was followed in 1811. That gave meaningful numbers to play with, one of the ways Malthus added 200,000 words to his original. He took the world and examined it almost country by country for population trends. And in 1820 William Godwin, whose earlier _An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice_ was a work that Malthus was responding to in his essay, followed up with a country-by-country critique in _On Population_. Numbers of others also weighed in with commentaries of their own.

I think that all this gave the first smack-in-the-face realization of how many, many people the world contained. And the rapidly growing cities like London would offer a daily impression of bodies squashed together, yet in motion, that teeming would aptly describe.