It is clear that socio-economic status (SES) is an important factor to consider when examining human skeletal health. To date, limited research has been undertaken to investigate the effect of SES on skeletal growth and metabolism using a combination of dental indicators of stress and bone metabolism data from cortical histology. Here, we apply a palaeophysiology approach to investigate how the adult human skeleton (n = 17) responds to childhood ill health in two distinct socio-economic status groups from an English Medieval population (11-16^th centuries AD).  We use linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) as a proxy for childhood non-specific physiological health disruption, and osteon population density (OPD) indicating bone remodeling as a proxy for adult cortical bone density. Data for LEH were from unworn anterior maxillary and mandibular permanent dentition, whereas OPD data derive from posterior cortical midshaft femur. Inferential statistics reveal a strong and significant positive (r = 0.929, p = 0.003) correlation between LEH and OPD in the higher status group only. Findings suggest that higher status individuals develop a robust and healthy adult skeleton regardless of their childhood ill health. Results also indicate that the level of severity of childhood physiological stress is correlated with a relative increase in bone density. Our preliminary results suggest that differences in SES can be detected from, and influence, skeletal growth.