Isn't knowledge wonderful??

[applecameron]

http://www.plimoth.org/Library/l-short.htm

Because someone, somewhere on a friends list, mentioned Nelson being 5'6". It appears that was quite normal for the time.

Excavations of cemeteries dating back to medieval England have provided a range of heights for both men and women and a mean average for both. Across the sites, the mean average height for males was 171.26 cm. [66.79 inches or 5’ 6 ¾"]. For females, it was 157.55 cm. [61.44 inches or 5’ 1 ½"].

Seventeenth-century London

From bones examined from Farringdon Street in London as well as another study of 17th-18th century femora (thigh bones), the average height of people nearer in time and place to the early Plymouth colonists can be determined. The averages from Farringdon Street are 169.3 cm [66.02 inches or 5’ 6"] for males and 155.2 cm [60.52 inches or 5’ ½"] for females. The wider-ranging 17th & 18th centuries study gives 169 cm [65.91 inches or just under 5’ 6"] for men and 155 cm [60.45 inches or just under 5’ ½"] for women. While it is evident that the height of Londoners changed very little in the 17th and 18th centuries, the same was not true of Americans.

[snip interesting bit about the Colonies]

...A study published in Britain in 1988, using data compiled from 1981, determined that the average height in the modern British population was 173.8 cm. [67.78 inches or 5’ 7 ¾"] for males and 160.9 cm. [62.75 inches or 5’ 2 ¾"] for females. For modern white Americans, the average stature for males is 69.1", or just over 5’ 9", and for women, 63.7", or about 5’ 3 ¾".

Information. God, I love the 'Net.