Wrigley 2007

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Economic History Review, 60, 1 (2007), pp. 3569

Economic History Society 2006. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main

Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Oxford, UK and Malden, USAEHRThe Economic History Review0013-0117Economic History Society 200620076013569Articles

ENGLISH COUNTY POPULATIONS IN THE LATER 18TH

CENTURYE. A. WRIGLEY

English county populations in the

later eighteenth century

1

By E. A. WRIGLEY

SUMMARY

When directing the first English census John Rickman was intent not only ondiscovering the size of the population in 1801 but also on tracing past trendsboth nationally and for individual counties. He returned to the latter investiga-tion on several later occasions, notably in the 1830s. There have been many

subsequent attempts to improve upon his national estimates, but his estimatesof county totals have continued to be used extensively, either unchanged orslightly modified. Rickman was aware that his estimates were subject to widemargins of error. For the later eighteenth century it is possible to produce newestimates which are probably substantially more accurate, taking advantage ofthe fact that after Hardwickes Act (1753) the registration of marriages inAnglican parish registers, unlike that of baptisms and burials, was virtuallycomplete. They show that the contrast between population growth rates inindustrial counties and those in which agriculture continued to predominatewere significantly more marked than suggested by Rickmans estimates. Thesame exercise that produces county estimates also yields hundredal totals,

which will in future allow a more refined account of relative growth and stag-nation to be made.

lthough much attention has been given in recent years to tracing thehistory of national population trends, regional and local growth rates

have been comparatively neglected. This does not reflect disinterest, butarises either from the apparent lack of new data on which to base anyrevision of existing estimates, or from a failure to devise a better method ofmaking use of existing data. This article represents an attempt to providenew and more trustworthy estimates of English county populations for the

period 17611801.

2

John Rickman, who directed the taking of the first four censuses, wasinterested in attempting to trace the past history of the population of Britainno less than in recording the contemporary situation. His work has longremained the starting point for those interested in this topic; indeed, it has

1

The work underlying this essay was made possible by an ESRC grant (RES-000-23-0131), entitled

Male occupational change and economic growth in England 17501851.

An earlier draft was greatly improved by the comments made by Peter Kitson and Leigh Shaw-Taylor.Later comments from the Reviews

anonymous referees were much appreciated.

2

In the early censuses England was taken to include Monmouth, but in this article all data referring

to England exclude Monmouth. England therefore consists of 39 counties, or 41 if the three Ridingsof Yorkshire are treated as equivalent to counties, as in this article.

A

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Economic History Review

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frequently simply been reproduced either in its original form or with slightmodification. Perhaps the most widely quoted set of estimates in recentdecades has been that published by Deane and Cole almost half a centuryago.

3

Their county totals mirror those of Rickman, except that they argued

that his estimates for Devon and Middlesex were not credible and sub-stituted their own, and that they constrained the county totals to matchnational population totals that differed from those of Rickman.

4

The absolutecounty totals therefore differ from those of Rickman, but if a rank order ofcounties is drawn up reflecting the relative population growth rates between1751 and 1801 to be found in the two series, the order of counties in thetwo lists is identical apart from the placing of Middlesex.

5

While recognizingthe weaknesses of Rickman-based estimates of county populations, mostscholars have felt that there was no alternative but to make use of them.

6

Rickman based his estimates on the annual totals of baptisms, burials,

and marriages secured as part of the census exercise. These returns, usuallyreferred to as the PRA (Parish Register Abstracts) were the product ofenquiries made of all Anglican incumbents. In 1801, in conducting the firstcensus, he had asked for returns of the annual totals of baptisms, burials,and marriages, not only for the immediate past but for a scattering of yearsearlier in the eighteenth century. These returns settled the argument aboutwhether the population of the country was broadly stationary as Malthusand others believed, or whether it was increasing.

7

It was immediately clearnot only that numbers were rising, but also that the growth was rapid. In1802 Rickman published estimates of the scale and timing of growth of both

the national population and the counties in the eighteenth century.

8

In eachof the next three censuses he required similar returns for the precedingdecade, producing thereby continuous annual totals for all three series from1780 onwards. He had long been interested in attempting to reconstructpopulation totals for the whole period of parochial registration. He was veryconscious of the fact that the 1801 returns had been defective in that manyparishes had been missed, and in any case he had no returns for any periodbefore 1700. In the 1830s, therefore, he planned a more ambitious and

3

Deane and Cole, British economic growth

, tab. 24, p. 103 and associated text.

4

Deane and Cole preferred Brownlees estimates of national totals. A discussion of the methods

employed and the assumptions made by scholars such as Finlaison, Farr, Griffith, and Brownlee, all of

whom produced estimates of national population growth in the eighteenth century, may be found inWrigley and Schofield, Population history of England

, app. 5. It should be noted that all these scholars

depended on the returns secured by Rickman but corrected his data in different ways.

5

It might be expected that Deane and Coles revision of Devon would also have changed the rankorder of counties, but Devon was the slowest growing country in both their county series, and therefore

left the rank ordering of counties unaffected.

6

For example, Lee, in the course of a stimulating discussion of regional growth patterns, having madeit clear that he thought Deane and Coles growth estimates unconvincing, added: But they remain the

only estimates of eighteenth-century regional population. Lee, British economy since 1700

, p. 127.

7

The nature and the notable duration of the controversy are discussed in Glass,Numbering the people

,and well illustrated in his two companion volumes, Population controversy

and Development of population

statistics.

8

Rickman, Observations on the results of the Population Act.

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better grounded exercise. In 1836 he asked incumbents for annual totals ofbaptisms, burials, and marriages for three-year periods centring on 1570,1600, 1630, 1670, 1700, and 1750. He hoped that this exercise wouldenable him to make authoritative estimates of the size of the population at

these dates. As one element in the 1831 PRA returns he had asked forinformation about the date from which the registers survived in each parish,and he was therefore well informed about the proportion of parishes withsurviving registers at each date. His method in making use of the newreturns was to assume that baptism, burial, and marriage rates had beenconstant in each county throughout the whole pre-census period; to makeseparate estimates of population totals at each date based on the three typesof event and on this assumption; and to derive best estimates of the popu-lation total for each county at each date by averaging the three resultingtotals.

9

National totals were then obtained by summing the totals for each

county.

10

There were many potential sources of error in Rickmans procedures, ofwhich he was well aware. A prolonged constancy in the baptism, burial, andmarriage rates was most unlikely. Even if the rates

had been constant,registration coverage was not. In particular the spread of nonconformity inthe eighteenth century meant that many baptisms were not recorded inAnglican registers. Other deficiencies exaggerated the problem substan-tially.

11

The same was true of burials, though the marked deterioration beganat a later date.

12

In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries marriageregistration was at times very seriously defective.

13

The mere fact that the

population estimates derived from the three series often differed substan-tially implied that the assumptions underlying Rickmans method wereunsound. Furthermore, although estimates based on events over a three-year period were less liable to distortion from shocks and random fluctua-tions than those based on a single year, a serious epidemic or a severeharvest failure might easily result in a misleading estimate even if the basicmethod had been sound. Yet Rickmans county estimates, for all theirdeficiencies, have been very widely used in the absence of any method orbody of data which might be expected to produce more reliable results. One

9

There is a fuller account of Rickmans procedures in Wrigley and Schofield, Population history of

England

, pp. 5724.

10

A summary of Rickmans methods and results, including the text of the letter that he sent to selected

incumbents in 1836, may be found in 1841 Census

, Preface, pp. 347. Rickman himself had died in

1840. His executors passed on the documents containing his calculations to the Home Office. EdmundPhipps and Thomas Vardon, acting on behalf of the first Registrar General, Thomas Henry Lister, who

had also died very recently, published the table in the census and briefly described Rickmans method

of calculation. Their text suggests some reserve about Rickmans results. They wrote: We may, at afuture, period, enter into a consideration of the merits of the calculation, deeming it sufficient for the

present to state that there is reason for supposing the estimate hereby arrived at to be an approximation

to the truth: ibid., p. 35.

11

Wrigley and Schofield, Population history of England

, tab. 4.6, p. 101, and accompanying discussion.

12

Ibid., pp. 8996.

13

Ibid., app. 4.

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reason, indeed, for their continued use is that his method produced countytotals as well as national totals, whereas most later research has concentratedsimply on the estimation of national totals.

Reliable county population totals are valuable for many purposes, espe-

cially in a period of unusually rapid population growth, such as the latereighteenth century. In this article their value will be illustrated by consid-ering their significance in the context of the changing occupational structureof England in the later eighteenth century.

I

The type of economic growth taking place in England in the later eighteenthcentury implies that its occupational structure was changing in sympathy.Agriculture remained by far the largest single industry, but its relative

importance was declining steadily, while many secondary and tertiary occu-pations expanded rapidly. Adult male employment in agriculture grew onlyslightly in the first half of the nineteenth century and there is little reasonto suppose that matters were greatly different in the preceding half-century.

14

Since many of the occupations in which numbers were risingrapidly were highly concentrated in limited areas, county population growthrates might be expected to differ substantially as a result. Change in thenational occupational structure will arise from some combination of struc-tural change in given areas and the rates of growth of population in thoselocalities compared with other areas. The relative importance of these two

factors remains to be established for England in the later eighteenth century,and this article is intended to help set the scene in that connection. It ispossible at one extreme to imagine a situation in which occupational struc-ture changed everywhere in a roughly similar fashion so that differences inpopulation growth rates in different parts of the country would make littledifference to the national picture. At the other extreme, it is possible forthere to be major changes in the national occupational structure eventhough in each component area it remained unchanged, provided that theoccupational structure in the component areas differed and that they expe-rienced markedly different population growth rates.

Table 1 illustrates the possible scale of change as a result of differentialrates of growth. It is artificially simple. An imaginary population is dividedbetween those who make a living from agriculture and those who dependon other sources of income. In rural counties, 70 per cent of the populationdepend on agriculture, 30 per cent on other activities, while the comparablefigures in the non-rural counties are 20 and 80 per cent respectively. Atthe beginning of the period, 70 per cent of the population live in ruralcounties and only 30 per cent in non-rural counties, which implies that in

14

There is a discussion of trends in adult male agricultural employment in the early nineteenth centuryin Wrigley, Men on the land. See esp. tab. 11.12, p. 332.

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the country as a whole 55 per cent of population depends on agriculture,while the remaining 45 per cent are outside the agricultural sector. Fiftyyears later the population has risen by 35 per cent overall, but the population

in the rural counties has risen only from 70 to 75, while that in the non-rural counties has doubled from 30 to 60. As a result, in the country as awhole the share of the agricultural population has fallen to 48 per cent ofthe total, while the other figure has risen to 52 per cent. A further 50 yearselapses: the rural population again increases modestly from 75 to 80, thenon-rural population again doubles from 60 to 120, and the overall patternchanges further, with only 40 per cent of the population making a livingfrom agriculture and 60 per cent from secondary and tertiary occupations.There has been no change in the occupational structure of the populationeither in the rural or the non-rural areas. Differential growth rates

alone account for the changing balance between agriculture and otheroccupations.

While table 1 fails, of course, to do justice to the complexity of changein any historical economy, it makes it clear that the issue of differentialregional population growth rates is important if effective use is to be madeof many of the available sources that throw light on occupational structurein the past because they often enable the percentage distribution

of occupa-tions to be assessed but not the absolute numbers

involved. For example,Anglican baptism registers sometimes consistently record the occupation ofthe father of a child at baptism. Where this is the case the relative size of

different occupations can be specified, but, though it may be clear that, say,2 per cent of men were shopkeepers or grocers c

.1780 rising to 4 per cent

Table 1.

An illustration of the possible effect of differential growth rates on overalloccupational structure

Totalpopulation

Occupational split:agricultural/other

Agriculturalpopulation

Otherpopulation

At time x

Rural counties 70 70/30 49 21

Non-rural counties 30 20/80 6 24Total 100 55 45

At time x +

50

Rural counties 75 70/30 52.5 22.5Non-rural counties 60 20/80 12 48

Total 135 64.5 70.5

At time x +

100

Rural counties 80 70/30 56 24

Non-rural counties 120 20/80 24 96

Total 200 80 120

Percentage distr ibution: agricultural/other

Time x 55 45

Time x +

50 48 52Time x +

100 40 60

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50 years later, the size of the adult male population at the two dates, andtherefore the totals involved, may be unknown. To the degree that there wasa markedly different pattern of population growth between those Englishcounties which were, and remained, primarily agricultural and those coun-

ties in which the bulk of the population from an early date were dependenton manufacturing or service employment, little change in local

occupationalpatterns may mask important changes in the national

picture.

15

II

It was opportune to reconsider county population trends in the later eigh-teenth century because the Cambridge Group for the History of Populationand Social Structure is undertaking an ESRC-funded research project intothe changing occupational structure of England in the period 17501850,

16

and much of the available source material is drawn from sources that enablethe relative importance of different occupations in a given period to beassessed, but not the size of the occupied population. For the second halfof the period the census provides information about population size andtherefore growth trends in different parts of the country, and thus resolvesthe problem, but for the first half any estimates of population size and trendsmust remain largely dependent on Rickman unless new estimates are made.

The opportunity to generate improved county estimates arises from a factwith which Rickman himself was familiar, and that is indeed reflectedin his instructions to incumbents at the time of the first census. In 1801 he

asked for totals of baptisms and burials for the years 1700, 1710, and everysubsequent tenth year to 1770, and for all years from 1780 to 1800, butrequired marriage totals only for each year from 1754 onwards, and nonefor earlier years, knowing that from 1754 marriage registration was virtuallycomplete, whereas earlier, it was seriously defective. Hardwickes Act of1753 made it impossible to contract a valid marriage in England unless itwas celebrated in an Anglican parish church according to the Prayer Bookand recorded in the parish register in a prescribed form.

17

The only groupsexempted from the provisions of the Act were Jews, Quakers, and membersof the royal family. From 1754 onwards marriage registration therefore was

in principle fully reliable, in stark contrast with baptism and burial registra-tion. The number of births and deaths substantially exceeded the numberof baptisms and burials recorded in the Anglican registers, and coveragedeteriorated markedly in the later decades of the century.

15

An example of the importance of this consideration may be found in Woodss intriguing discussion

of mortality trends in nineteenth-century England. For much of the century expectation of life at birthchanged very little in England as a whole, but Woods showed that mortality might improve significantly

in each type of settlementrural, small town, large city, metropolis, etc.but because there was much

more rapid growth of population in the least-healthy settlement types, local improvement would not bemirrored nationally. Woods, Effects of population redistribution.

16

See note 1 above for details of the grant.

17

26 George II, cap. 33.

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In certain circumstances, therefore, the use of marriage data may offera more reliable and exact guide to population trends than estimates basedon all three types of events recorded in parish registers in the manner ofRickman. If, for example, the annual total of marriages were known with

precision for each county, and if, further, it were safe to assume that themarriage rate had remained essentially unchanged in the half-century pre-ceding the 1801 census, it would be a straightforward matter to calculatecounty population totals covering the whole period following the inceptionof Hardwickes Act. The difficulty that there were substantial fluctuationsin marriage totals from year to year could be overcome, or at least greatlyreduced, by basing estimates of earlier population totals on the averagefrequency of marriages over a block of years centring on a convenientcensus date.

This possibility was not overlooked in the past. In his observations on the

results of the first census, Rickman wrote:

A great variation in the annual amounts of marriages is caused by the circum-stances of the times, and especially by the price of provisions; so that no safeinference concerning the increase or diminution of population can be drawnfrom the comparison of any single years with each other; but the average amountof the marriages for five years together, or for a longer period, is the best ofevidence on the subject, because the register of marriages may be deemedperfectly correct.

18

Rickman repeated this observation in the prefaces to each of the subsequentcensuses which he directed. Again, Deane and Cole produced estimates ofcounty totals for 1781 using two different methods, one of which was basedon 11-year averages of marriage totals centring on 1801 and 1781. Theynoted that the estimate based on marriage data alone represents the closestapproximation to the truth.

19

The use of marriage totals from the PRA as a basis for inferring popula-tion trends, however, is not as straightforward as might appear at first sight.Several of the problems stem from the nature of the 1801 census and itsdefects. The Act that made provision for the census specified that Justicesof the Peace should require the overseers of the poor within their jurisdic-tions to appear before them no sooner than 10 April nor later than 30 April1801 in order to present returns made under the Act for the parishes forwhich they were responsible.

20

Yet the census (both the EnumerationAbstract and the PRA) was ordered to be printed on 21 December ofthe same year. The whole work of assembling and collating the returns,therefore, was accomplished in no more than eight months, though therewas no previous experience to call upon. It is little wonder that the census

18

Rickman, Observations on the results of the Population Act

, p. 4.

19

Deane and Cole, British economic growth

, p. 102.

20

41 George III, cap. 15.An act for the taking an account of the population of Great Britain, and of theincrease or diminution thereof

.

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volumes are neither internally consistent nor complete.

21

In the case of thePRA, county totals do not always equal the sum of the hundred totals and,similarly, the printed national totals sometimes differ substantially from thesum of the county figures.

22

This imposes a significant burden of comparison

and revision before the best use can be made of the marriage data. A moreserious problem is posed by the fact that returns for several hundred par-ishes are missing. It is essential to attempt to identify the parishes that weremissed and to compensate for them. In order to make clear the necessityfor such corrections, to describe how they were attempted, and to deal withother sources of potential error, it is convenient next to describe the strategyadopted in generating the new estimates to be presented.

III

In principle the method employed might appear simple. County popula-tion totals are to be estimated for the census years 1761, 1771, 1781,and 1791. In order to produce these totals, 13-year averages of marriagetotals are calculated centring on each of the census years and for 1801(for example, the marriages for 175567 providing an average for 1761,and so on). The ratio of the average centred on 1761 to the average for1801 will then establish the relative size of the population of the countyin question. Thus if, for example, the population total in 1801 wereknown to be 50,000 and the ratio were 0.7 the implied population in1761 would be 35,000. But credible estimates cannot be produced so

simply. They can only be produced if several initial problems are recog-nized and solved.

A first difficulty with the method lies in its implicit assumption that thecrude marriage rate (CMR) did not change over time, which is not capableof demonstration in the absence of censuses before 1801. Suppose that thecrude marriage rate was falling in the later eighteenth century, then the

21

In some counties returns arrived only after the main body of material had been sent to the printer.

The population of Wiltshire, for example, was returned as 185,107, but of this total 20,839 personswere living in parishes for which the returns arrived chiefly in January 1802, as an aggrieved note in the

census text makes clear. These parishes were listed as an addendum to the main return for the county.

22

The accuracy of the printed county totals compared with the sum of the constituent hundreds

varied greatly. In some counties there were only occasional inconsistencies. In Buckinghamshire, forexample, there were discrepancies in six years between 1754 and 1800 (1754, 1759, 1767, 1768, 1770,

and 1798). In Derbyshire, in contrast, the sum of the hundredal totals failed to match the printed county

total in every year except 175563 and 1771. Occasionally, the discrepancy was very large indeed,usually because of a misprint. The printed total for Devon in 1792, for example, is 1,619, while the

sum of the hundredal totals is 2,619. There are comparable problems when the national total is

compared with the sum of the printed county totals. Disagreement between the two figures wasuncommon before 1766 (other than in 1761). From 1767 to 1781 in each year the national total fell

short of the sum of the county totals by a figure in the range between 1,000 and 1,500, except for 1780

(2,288). There was then a further period of generally good agreement, broken by a few major errors,probably attributable to poor proofing. In 1790 the printed total exceeded the sum of the county totals

by 4,000, while in 1797 it fell short of the latter by 2,000. In the PRAs printed in subsequent censusesthe agreement was always very close, indeed in most years there was exact agreement.

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population in 1761 would be overstated using this method since a givenpopulation would have contracted more marriages per head at the earlierdate than at the later one. Assuming a constant rate would exaggerate thetrue population total and cause the population growth rate to be underes-

timated. If the crude marriage rate were rising, of course, the oppositewould be the case. This difficulty, however, is not insuperable since theequivalent of census population totals exist as a result of the use of thetechnique of inverse projection in conjunction with the estimates of annualtotals of births and deaths produced by an earlier research project of theCambridge Group (marriage data were not used in the inverse projectionexercise).23 The sum of the county population totals for any date before1801 can therefore be constrained to match those produced by inverseprojection, thus counteracting any distortion produced by assuming con-stant crude marriage rates.

Although a general change in the level of the crude marriage rate can becontrolled by using inverse projection totals, changes in the relative level ofthe rate between different counties might still present a problem. The issueof the stability of the relative levels of county crude marriage rates over timecannot be addressed directly in the later eighteenth century in the absenceof county population totals not themselves derived from marriage data(which would involve circularity of argument). Their stability relative to eachother, however, can be tested during the early decades of the nineteenthcentury since the successive censuses provide both county population totalsand marriage totals from the PRA. The rates for 1801, 1811, and 1821 are

set out in table 2. They are based on the average number of marriages over13-year periods centred on the dates in question. The national populationtotals at each date were taken to be those obtained by inverse projection.They are higher than the census totals. The early censuses undercountedchildren and omitted men serving in the army and navy. Rates based uponthem are therefore too high. Moreover, the scale of the undercount variedbetween censuses.24 County totals at each census date were increased in thesame ratio as the national total to preserve internal consistency.

It should be noted that in table 2 and all later tables, Durham andNorthumberland have been modernized. The county of Durham included

the hundreds of Islandshire and Norhamshire, which were enclaves ofterritory within Northumberland. Islandshire, indeed, was the northern-most area within Northumberland immediately south of Berwick-on-Tweed. At its nearest point it was 50 miles from the rest of Durham. Thesetwo hundreds continued to be treated as part of Durham in the first fivecensuses, but, to preserve comparability over a longer time period, it isconvenient to include them within Northumberland. There is an additional

23 The population totals in question may be found in Wrigley et al., English population history,

tab. A9.1, pp. 6145.24 Wrigley and Schofield, Population history of England, tab. A6.7, p. 595.

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advantage to this decision in that marriage totals in a wide district alongthe Scottish border were misleadingly low throughout much of the latereighteenth century and, indeed, into the following century. This circum-stance is discussed below.25 Confining the problem to one county rather

25 See pp. 334 below.

Table 2. County crude marriage rates in 1801, 1811, and 1821

CMR 1801 CMR 1811 CMR 1821

Bedfordshire 8.55 8.02 8.11

Berkshire 6.95 7.05 7.14Buckinghamshire 7.85 7.55 7.31

Cambridgeshire 8.52 8.29 8.44

Cheshire 8.19 7.82 8.38Cornwall 7.77 7.19 7.37

Cumberland 7.21 7.36 6.24

Derbyshire 7.59 7.09 7.44

Devon 9.16 8.99 7.87Dorset 7.45 7.08 7.08

Durham 8.66 7.90 8.14

Essex 8.05 7.43 6.82Gloucestershire 8.47 8.71 9.23

Hampshire 9.79 9.70 7.99

Herefordshire 6.02 6.47 6.21Hertfordshire 6.53 5.96 5.83

Huntingdonshire 8.62 7.88 7.89

Kent 9.06 8.48 7.57Lancashire 9.90 8.98 9.37

Leicestershire 8.29 7.83 8.42

Lincolnshire 8.37 8.01 7.64

Middlesex 11.11 10.49 10.28Norfolk 7.95 7.72 7.86

Northamptonshire 7.59 7.72 7.80

Northumberland 6.84 6.73 6.67Nottinghamshire 9.05 8.13 8.93

Oxfordshire 7.29 7.05 7.12

Rutland 6.85 6.86 7.29

Shropshire 7.19 6.60 7.11Somerset 7.86 7.50 7.26

Staffordshire 8.76 8.29 8.83Suffolk 8.11 7.68 7.49

Surrey 8.06 7.64 7.92

Sussex 8.23 7.67 7.29

Warwickshire 8.72 8.82 9.11Westmorland 7.20 7.04 6.79

Wiltshire 7.17 7.23 7.29

Worcestershire 7.57 7.45 7.90Yorkshire, ER 10.49 9.14 8.42

Yorkshire, NR 7.01 6.99 6.73

Yorkshire, WR 8.42 8.37 8.58

England 8.59 8.23 8.20

Sources: Marriage totals were taken from Parish Register Abstracts of the censuses of 1801, 1811, 1821, and 1831.

The national totals were taken to be the sum of the totals for the individual counties. For derivation of population

totals see accompanying text.

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than two is a further benefit of the rearrangement. A similar point shouldbe noted in relation to the three Yorkshire Ridings. In the 1831 census theLiberty of St Peter of York disappeared and its constituent parishes weredistributed to hundreds in all three Ridings. The population totals for

the three Ridings in 1821 and 1831 are therefore not directly comparablewithout adjustment. For simplicity, and to facilitate future comparisons,therefore, I have attempted to provide for the three Ridings rates and totalsas the three were constituted after the abolition of the Liberty of St Peterof York.

The national rates in 1811 and 1821 were almost identical (8.23 and8.20 per 1,000 respectively) though the rate in 1801 was somewhat higherat 8.59. The simplest way in which to test the stability of the relative levelof the county marriage rates is to produce a rank ordering of the countiesfor each of the three dates and then test the extent of change from one date

to the next. For example, Westmorland was ranked ninth in 1801 (orderingfrom the lowest rate to the highest), seventh in 1811, and sixth in 1821. Ittherefore moved two places between 1801 and 1811 and one place duringthe next decade. The average change in rank number among the 41 coun-ties in the decade 180111 was 2.73; in the next decade it was 4.59, butfor reasons discussed in the next paragraph, the latter was distorted by thespecial circumstances of four counties, Devon, Hampshire, Kent, and theEast Riding of Yorkshire. If these four are excluded from the calculation,the average falls to 3.81. A higher figure in the second decade is to beexpected, because rates changed less in this decade than in its predecessor

so that a small absolute change could result in a relatively marked changein ranking. These averages suggest a relative stability in ranking betweencounties. The same conclusion is suggested by a different statistic. In 20 ofthe 37 counties (excluding the four rogue counties), the rank changes inthe two decades were in opposite directions (or in one or both decadesthere was no change of rank). In the remaining 17 counties both changeswere in the same direction. In seven of these cases the changes were bothsmall (where small is taken to be three places or fewer). In six countiesthere was one small and one large change in the same direction. In onlyfour counties were there big changes in same direction in both decades. In

these four cases the overall change between 1801 and 1821 was marked;the rankings of Essex, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, and Sussex changedby 13, 13, 11, and 10 over the two decades. At the other extreme, in 11 casesthe ranking in 1821 was the same as in 1801 or had changed by only oneplace. Changes in the relative positions of the counties, therefore, thoughnot trivial, were for the most part limited on the evidence afforded by therates in the early nineteenth century.

Consider next the four rogue counties. In each case the crude marriagerate in 1801 was far higher than in 1821. In three cases this was clearly awartime effect. These were Devon, Hampshire, and Kent, where the rates

for 1801 and 1821 were respectively: 9.2 and 7.9 per 1,000, 9.8 and 8.0,and 9.1 and 7.6. In each case it is demonstrable that the aberrantly high

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46 E. A. WRIGLEY



rate at the earlier date was linked to exceptional activity in those ports whichwere major naval bases, such as Deptford, Woolwich, Chatham, and Sheer-ness in the case of Kent; Portsmouth in the case of Hampshire; and Ply-mouth in the case of Devon. In Plymouth the average annual number of

marriages rose from 461 in the 13-year period centring on 1791 to 869 inthe period centring on 1801. The comparable totals for Devon as a wholewere 2,646 and 3,226. Thus of the rise for the county as a whole (580) overthree-quarters (438) was accounted for by a wartime boom in Plymouth.Broadly similar considerations apply in the other two cases. Almost one halfof the rise in the total of marriages over the same period in Hampshireoccurred in Portsmouth. The crude marriage rate for the period centringon 1801 was 19.9 per l,000 in Plymouth, and 18.0 per 1,000 in Portsmouth.These are exceptionally high figures. The East Riding of Yorkshire displaysa similar pattern to that found in the naval counties; the reason is less clear

in this case, though Hull also had a high marriage rate.26 In all four casescomparison of their rates in 1801 with the rates in neighbouring countiesunderlines the improbability that the high rates were other than a temporaryphenomenon. In all four counties the crude marriage rate after the end ofthe war period was far below its wartime level (see table 2).

It is plain that assuming that the marriage rate found in 1801 in thesefour counties also held good for the preceding 40 years would result in asevere overstatement of the rate of growth over the period, since assuminga high marriage rate must depress the size of the population to which itrefers. In order to avoid this it was assumed that the prevailing rate over the

period prior to 1801 should be based on the rate relating to 1821 andtherefore on marriage frequencies over the period 181527. The 1821 ratewas increased in each case by 0.39 per 1,000, the amount by which thenational rate in 1801 exceeded the rate in 1821 (8.59 compared with 8.20).For example, the Hampshire marriage rate in 1821 was 7.99 per 1,000,which becomes 8.38 after adjustment. Using this rate rather than the 1801rate (9.79) means that the population of Hampshire at each census datefrom 1761 to 1791 is 16.8 per cent higher than if the original 1801 ratehad been used (9.79/8.38 = 1.1683).

This procedure is not an ideal solution since there were earlier wars with

comparable, if smaller, effects on naval bases and marriage totals, but itreduces the distortions which would otherwise arise.27

26 The CMR in Hull was 12.9 per 1,000 in 1801.27 The effects of earlier wars are clearly visible. In Portsmouth, for example, the number of marriages

in the eight-year period 175663 was 3,772. In the eight following years this total fell to 2,063. Theearlier wars also caused distortions in the estimated populations in Devon and Kent because other naval

bases were affected in the same way as Portsmouth. It is significant that in tab. 5 in all three counties

the population in 1771 is smaller than in 1761, a pattern rarely found in other counties (there were fiveother counties in which population fell in this decade, including Rutland and Huntingdon, the two

smallest; population rose in the remaining 33 counties). The true totals for Devon, Hampshire, andKent should probably be lower in 1761 and higher in 1771.

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The four counties, however, cannot be treated in isolation. It is reasonableto suppose that the excess of marriages occurring in these counties at theturn of the century would have taken place elsewhere in England but forthe distortions produced by wartime conditions. Just as it is appropriate to

base the calculation of the populations of the four counties at earlier cen-suses on a lowered crude marriage rate, it is also appropriate to raise themarriage rates in the other 37 counties marginally when estimating theirpopulations over the four preceding decades. The scale of the adjustmentshould be such as to produce the same national population totals as wouldhave resulted if the 1801 rates had been used for every county. This impliesthat the rates in the other 37 counties should be increased sufficiently toreduce their populations at each census from 1761 to 1791 by 1.72 per cent,thereby offsetting the increase in the populations of the four counties at thesedates brought about by the substantial reductions in their crude marriage

rates just described.Two further preliminary operations need to be described. First, it was

essential to try to identify the scale of omissions from the 1801 PRA foreach county. At first blush it is not clear that this is necessary. If thepopulation of a county in 1801 is known and its size at earlier dates is tobe estimated from marriage totals for the relevant periods, keyed to the1801 population total, it might be thought that it is only necessary that theproportion of the population covered should not change, and not thatcoverage should be complete because the relative change would be identicalin the two cases.28 But it must not be forgotten that the process involves

comparing marriage totals for two 13-year periods, of which one will be17951807. This period includes data taken from the 1811 PRA for theyears 18017 inclusive. There were few if any parishes missed in the PRAreturns of the second census. In a county where there had previously beena substantial number of missing parishes, adding uncorrected totals for theyears 17951800 to the totals taken from the 1811 census would cause theincrease in marriages between the 178597 period and the 17951807period to be overestimated, since the second group would include a periodof fuller coverage. Hence the growth in population from 1791 to 1801 wouldbe overstated. Account must therefore be taken of missing parishes in the

1801 PRA.Assessing the necessary corrections is a laborious process. The 1801 PRA

listed the parishes in each hundred from which a return had been obtainedand which had been incorporated in the hundred totals at the time that thetext was sent to the printer. This suggests a straightforward solutiontocompare the list of parishes from which a return had been obtained with alist of the parishes in the hundred in question, calculate the size of the

28 As an example, the ratio of 500 to 250 is the same as that between 400 and 200. If 100% of thepopulation is covered (yielding totals of events of 500 and 250 respectively for, say, 1801 and 1761) the

estimated population in 1761 would be exactly the same as if 20% of the population was not coveredat each date (yielding totals of 400 and 200).

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48 E. A. WRIGLEY



missing population as a fraction of the total for the hundred, and inflatethe PRA marriage totals appropriately. Thus, if in a given hundred,five parishes were missing from the returns, containing 8 per cent of thetotal population of the hundred in 1801, the total of marriages for the

whole period 17541800 would need to be increased by 8.70 per cent(100/92 100 = 108.70).29

Unfortunately no such simple solution is feasible because of the short-comings of the 1801 census. The listing of parishes from which a returnhad been secured proved frequently at fault, and the situation was worsenedrather than improved when Rickman made an initial attempt to correctmatters by a follow-up exercise. The range and severity of the problemsinvolved, discussed in the Population history of England, need not berehearsed again here.30 It was then estimated that a total of 632 parisheswere missed.31 Any such estimate can only be approximate. Precision is

beyond reach. Some places, for example, were listed which kept no registersthemselves, but in some instances confusion over the correct naming of aparish complicates judgement, as when a township is listed within a parishwhich kept no registers, but where the parish as a whole may have beenintended. In the present exercise a total of 695 missing parishes was found,a somewhat higher figure than in the earlier survey.32 This total, however,overstates the extent of the overall difference between the number of par-ishes and chapelries in which marriage registers were kept and the numberof returns made by incumbents, because there were also 124 cases in whicha registering unit is named in the list of parishes for a given hundred, but

which belonged to a different hundred. The net total of missing parishes istherefore 571.33 This total is lower than that obtained in the earlier exercise,but probably agrees with it fairly closely since there were a significantnumber of chapelries that maintained baptism and burial registers, butwhere no marriages were celebrated. The misplacement of parishes in thewrong hundred means, of course, that in some cases the published mar-riage totals over the period 17541800 needed to be decreased rather thanincreased as in the illustration given above, if the pre- and post-1800 totalswere to be on a comparable basis. In the event, hundredal totals wereincreased in a total of 307 cases but decreased in a further 63 cases. In the

remaining 232 hundreds there was no reason to alter the published totals

29 Provided, of course, that all the parishes in question maintained marriage registers.30 See Wrigley and Schofield, Population history of England, app. 7, Rickmans parish register returns

of 1801 and 1841.31 Ibid., tab. A7.10, p. 621.32Ceteris paribus it might be expected that the total would be lower rather than higher because of the

restriction of the present exercise to parishes in which marriage registers were kept in the later eighteenthcentury. There were many chapelries that kept baptism and burial registers but where no marriages were

celebrated.33 Rickman, who was keenly interested in trying to establish how many places had been missed in the

1801 PRA returns and the follow-up exercise, made further enquiries in 1811. It is reasonable to

conclude that his final total of missed parishes in England was 713. Wrigley and Schofield, Populationhistory of England, p. 601.

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since all the parishes in the hundred had made returns and there were nosurplus parishes.

The second preliminary operation can be described very briefly. Thesubstantial inconsistencies between the published national totals of mar-

riages and the totals obtained by cumulating the county totals is mirroredby similar inconsistencies between the published county totals and the sumof the totals for their component hundreds.34 In some instances the reasonsfor an inconsistency may be clear, in others there is room for doubt. Theprinciple followed in this exercise was to start with the published totals forindividual hundreds, build county totals from them, and use the cumulationof these county totals to produce national totals. Totals built up in this waywere privileged over published county and national totals unless there wasa compelling reason to do otherwise.

Combining a crude marriage rate with a county marriage total yields an

estimated population total for each census date. For example, the totalnumber of marriages in Bedfordshire, after correction for missing parishes,in 175567 was 5,847, or an annual average total of 450, centring on 1761.Since the crude marriage rate in the county in 1801 (based on marriagesfrom 17951807) was 8.55 per 1,000 (table 2), the implied total in 1761,after adjustment to offset the special treatment of the four counties whosemarriage rates were aberrantly high in 1801, is 51,703.35 Similar calcula-tions for each county enable a national total to be built up. The nationaltotals for 1761 to 1791 produced in this fashion were as follows: 6,145,078,6,662,035, 7,224,944, and 7,865,517. The comparable totals from inverse

projection were: 6,310,338, 6,623,358, 7,206,139, and 7,845,678. Express-ing the former series as a percentage of the latter demonstrates very closeagreement, except in 1761 (the percentages are 97.38, 100.58, 100.26, and100.25). A lower figure for 1761 is to be expected. It is very probablybecause, as the footnotes published in the PRA for 1801 make clear,coverage was defective in a significant number of parishes in the early yearsof the new rgime.36 Final county population totals were obtained using theratios between the two sets of national totals. The Bedfordshire total for1761 of 51,703 derived from marriage data, for example, is increased in theratio 6,310,338/6,145,078 to produce a final figure of 53,093.

The very close agreement between the two sets of national totals listedin the last paragraph implies, of course, that the crude marriage rate variedsurprisingly little in England over the 40-year period in question. It is worthnoting that this conclusion is strongly underwritten by earlier work carriedout at the Cambridge Group, summarized in table 3. Marriage totals were

34 See note 22 above.35 450 (1,000 /8.55) 0.9828 = 51,703. See p. 13 above for explanation of the final adjustment

figure.36 The footnotes refer to a total of more than 230 parishes in which returns were defective. In the

great majority of cases the dates of the period of defective registration show that the problem wasconfined to the early years of registration.

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50 E. A. WRIGLEY



abstracted from a total of 404 English parishes. The totals were re-weightedto offset the fact that they were not a random sample, and then inflated toproduce national totals. Since estimates were made for each year, it is astraightforward matter to produce estimated national rates based on eventsrecorded over the same 13-year periods as were used when making PRA-based calculations. The rates are remarkably stable and, as will be clear fromthe ratios in the final column, they are uncannily close to the national PRA-based rate for 1801. Since it is highly improbable that such close agreementbetween the two series of totals and rates could have arisen by chance, thiscomparison tends to confirm the accuracy both of the PRA-based totals

and those derived from the 404 parish sample.37

IV

It may be helpful to give an illustration of the successive steps involvedin generating county marriage data and estimating county and hundredalpopulation totals.

Table 4 shows marriage totals for the successive 13-year periods centringon census dates for each of the hundreds within Bedfordshire. The toppanel gives the raw totals. The second panel shows the totals after making

adjustments to reflect the proportion of the population of the hundred thatlived in parishes for which no PRA return was included in the 1801 census.In most cases no change was necessary because all the parishes madereturns, but the totals for Barford, Stodden, Willey, and Bedford areincreased in the second panel, in the case of Willey substantially. Willeysoriginal totals were raised by 24 per cent, reflecting the proportion of thepopulation of the hundred living in parishes from which no return was

37 The comparison also provides new and important evidence that the re-weighting of the parishes in

the 404 parish sample on which the reconstruction of national population trends in the Population historyof Englandwas based captures the national pattern accurately.

Table 3. Crude marriage rates based on totals taken from a sample of404 English parishes

Average annual totalof marriages Population

Crude marriagerate per 1,000

Ratio of rate incol. 3 to 8.59a

175567 54,246 6,310,338 8.60 1.002

176577 57,669 6,623,358 8.71 1.015

177587 61,794 7,206,139 8.58 0.999178597 67,246 7,845,678 8.57 0.999

17951807 73,697 8,671,439 8.50 0.991

Sources: Marriages: Wrigley and Schofield, Population history of England, tab. A2.3, pp. 496502. Population totals:

Wrigley et al., English population history, tab. A9.1, pp. 6145.

Note: a The national rate in 1801 was 8.59 per 1,000 (see tab. 2). For comment see associated text.

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Table4.

Anexampleofthed

erivationofaseriesofcountypopulationtotalsforthe

latereighteenthcentury:Bedfordshire

Barford

Biggles-

wade

Clifton

Flitt

Manshead

Redborne-

stoke

Stodden

Willey

Wixam-

tree

Bedford

Bedford-

shire

Co.totals

constrained

byinverse

projection

Pan

el1

17556

7

349

572

261

791

1,1

15

825

345

536

440

408

5,6

42

17657

7

370

560

317

852

1,1

38

932

367

576

454

451

6,0

17

17758

7

393

616

307

819

1,2

29

982

410

582

445

503

6,2

86

17859

7

454

590

305

907

1,3

38

1,0

79

466

598

498

563

6,7

98

17951

807

436

617

317

1112

1,5

57

1,0

35

421

713

486

562

7,2

56

Pan

el2

17556

7

382

572

261

791

1,1

15

825

361

665

440

436

5,8

47

17657

7

405

560

317

852

1,1

38

932

384

715

454

482

6,2

38

17758

7

430

616

307

819

1,2

29

982

429

722

445

538

6,5

16

17859

7

496

590

305

907

1,3

38

1,0

79

487

742

498

602

7,0

44

17951

807

455

617

317

1112

1,5

57

1,0

35

431

781

486

581

7,3

72

Pan

el3

1801totals

4,152

6,532

3,704

7,839

14,680

9,449

3,767

7,128

4,916

4,129

66,298

1761

3,4

85

6,0

56

3,0

50

5,5

76

10,5

13

7,5

32

3,1

52

6,0

67

4,4

51

3,0

97

52,9

79

1771

3,6

95

5,9

29

3,7

04

6,0

06

10,7

30

8,5

09

3,3

53

6,5

19

4,5

93

3,4

23

56,4

61

1781

3,9

25

6,5

22

3,5

87

5,7

74

11,5

88

8,9

65

3,7

46

6,5

87

4,5

02

3,8

18

59,0

13

1791

4,5

34

6,2

46

3,5

64

6,3

94

12,6

15

9,8

51

4,2

58

6,7

68

5,0

38

4,2

73

63,5

42

1801

4,1

52

6,5

32

3,7

04

7,8

39

14,6

80

9,4

49

3,7

67

7,1

28

4,9

16

4,1

29

66,2

98

Pan

el4

1761

3,4

93

6,0

69

3,0

56

5,5

88

10,5

35

7,5

48

3,1

59

6,0

80

4,4

61

3,1

03

53,0

93

53,093

1771

3,5

89

5,7

58

3,5

98

5,8

34

10,4

21

8,2

64

3,2

57

6,3

32

4,4

60

3,3

25

54,8

36

54,836

1781

3,8

22

6,3

51

3,4

93

5,6

22

11,2

84

8,7

30

3,6

48

6,4

15

4,3

84

3,7

18

57,4

66

57,466

1791

4,4

33

6,1

07

3,4

85

6,2

52

12,3

35

9,6

32

4,1

63

6,6

18

4,9

26

4,1

78

62,1

29

62,129

1801

4,1

52

6,5

32

3,7

04

7,8

39

14,6

80

9,4

49

3,7

67

7,1

28

4,9

16

4,1

29

66,2

98

66,298

Source:TheParishRegisterAbstractandth

eEnumerationAbstractofthe1801Census.

Notes:Becauseoftheeffectsofrounding,thecountytotalmaynotalwaysequalth

esumofthehundredaltotals.

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52 E. A. WRIGLEY



obtained. The county marriage totals in panel 2 were those which were usedin estimating the population of the county at each census date. 38

In the third panel the process is taken a step further. The population ofBedfordshire in 1801 is recorded in the census as 63,393. This total is

unsatisfactory because of the undercount of young children and the exclu-sion of men in the armed forces.39 The national population total for 1801published in the census was 8,285,852, but this total needs to be slightlycorrected for several errors, resulting in a revised total of 8,291,531,40

whereas the inverse projection figure was 8,671,439. Therefore the censustotal for Bedfordshire was increased by the ratio between the latter total andthe former, resulting in a revised total of 66,298 in 1801. The top line ofpanel 3 lists the population of each hundred in 1801. The size of eachhundred at each earlier census date is taken to be captured by the ratio ofthe marriage total at that date relative to the total in 1801. Thus the annual

average marriage total for Barford in 1761 was 382, in 1801 455, while thepopulation in 1801 was 4,152. Therefore, the population in 1761 is takenas 382/455 4,152 = 3,485. Hundredal totals are cumulated to produce thecounty totals shown in the final column of the third panel. This mirrors theassumption made when calculating county totals that the marriage rate inany given hundred is unlikely to have varied greatly over the period, eventhough in some instances there clearly were substantial differences in themarriage rate between hundreds in the same county.

The fourth panel completes the process. In the final column the countytotals, which have been constrained to make their sum equal the inverse

projection national totals, are shown in bold. They in turn provide the basisfor constraining the hundredal totals in the third panel to conform to thecounty total. The county totals themselves are set out in table 5. It isessential that the final hundredal totals should sum to the appropriatecounty total to ensure consistency throughout the system. As an example,the panel 3 total for Barford in 1771 is 3,695, and the ratio between thepanel county total and the final county total for that year is 54,836 to56,461. Therefore the Barford total in panel 4 is 3,589.41

The sequence of steps which yields an estimate of the population of acounty for each census date from 1761 to 1801, therefore, depends on a

process that moves up from hundredal marriage totals to the derivation ofcounty totals consistent with the national totals produced by inverse

38 As, for example, the total for 175567, 5,847, quoted above p. 15.39 It is of interest to note that when the work which gave rise to the Population history of Englandwas

in train, an estimate of the impact of these factors was made. It suggested that the published national

total in the 1801 census should be increased by 4.49%, or from 8,285,852 to 8,658,265 (Wrigley andSchofield, Population history of England, tab. A6.7, p. 595). The subsequent inverse projection exercise

produced a gratifying similar total for 1801, 8,671,439 (Wrigley et al., English population history,

tab. A9.1, pp. 6145). The two exercises were, of course, independent of each other.40 On a later occasion I hope to publish a revised, consistent, and integrated series of population data

taken from the first six censuses.41 3,695 54,836/56,461 = 3,589.

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projection, but which also reverses direction, moving down from nationaland county totals to provide estimates of hundredal populations for eachcounty. It is important to produce hundredal totals in parallel with thecounty totals because within counties there were always smaller areas whose

economic and demographic histories varied greatly. Many counties, forexample, included towns or boroughs that are treated as separate units inthe PRA and whose population history can be reconstructed in the sameway. Growth was often vigorous in the towns within a county even thoughit was sluggish in its rural hundreds. By using hundreds as the buildingblocks, units with greater internal homogeneity can readily be produced.Such units may either represent a subdivision of a county, or combineelements from two or more counties. Hundred-based descriptions of bothdemographic and occupational change will be published in due course, butare outside the scope of this article.

V

The focus of attention can now be switched from the logic by which countyand hundredal totals were calculated to considering the results of the exer-cise. Table 5 shows the county populations for each census date from 1761to 1801. It also shows the ratio of the latter to the former, expressed aspercentages, and these in turn are shown sorted in ascending order, withWiltshire the slowest and Lancashire the fastest growing county. Over thisperiod the national population increased by 37.4 per cent.42 Only 12 coun-

ties matched or exceeded this level of increase, while 22 counties grew byless than 25 per cent. At the other extreme there was a small group ofcounties in which growth exceeded 50 per cent, seven in all.

In order to bring out some of the implications of this new set of popula-tion estimates, it is convenient to analyse the contrasting experience ofdifferent counties by considering them in three primary groups, comprising24 counties in all, plus a fourth residual group consisting of those thatremained when the London, industrial, and agricultural groups hadbeen identified. Details are set out in table 6, which is paralleled by figure 1,presenting the data in map form.

The first group consists of three counties in which growth was rapidbecause of the dominant influence of the expansion of London. The secondgroup includes the bulk of the areas in which manufacturing industrywas growing fastest: the textile districts and other centres of industrialexpansion in Lancashire, the West Riding, Cheshire, and Derbyshire; theStaffordshire potteries; the framework knitting and lace manufacturingareas in Nottinghamshire; and the complex of metal working, engineering,and smallwares manufacture in and around Birmingham, which causedrapid growth in Warwickshire. The third group consists of a massive wedge

42 From 6,310,338 to 8,671,439; see tab. 5.

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54 E. A. WRIGLEY



Table5.

Populationgrowth

intheEnglishcounties17611

801

County

1761

1771

1781

1791

1801

Ra

tio

1801/1761

Countiesin

rankorder

Ratio

1801/1761

Bed

fordshire

53,0

93

54,8

36

57,4

66

62,1

29

66,2

98

124.9

Wiltshire

105.9

Berkshire

101,5

88

101,9

39

106,7

09

109,8

74

115,0

71

113.3

Hertfordshire

106.4

Buc

kinghamshire

96,9

49

95,9

36

101,3

42

104,9

02

112,3

67

115.9

Rutland

108.3

Cam

bridgeshire

78,6

46

80,4

97

83,9

02

90,6

62

93,4

40

118.8

Northamptonshire

109.9

Che

shire

140,8

07

158,0

38

169,3

83

182,5

71

200,5

37

142.4

Huntingdonshire

111.1

Cor

nwall

133,9

26

142,1

79

160,8

64

177,8

50

196,8

95

147.0

Norfolk

111.5

Cum

berland

89,3

62

96,8

62

104,7

03

110,6

87

122,6

01

137.2

Berkshire

113.3

Derbyshire

113,8

45

122,5

93

133,6

95

148,2

10

168,5

25

148.0

Herefordshire

113.9

Dev

on

298,8

55

279,6

52

326,0

79

328,0

42

358,7

17

120.0

Buckinghamshire

115.9

Dor

set

99,4

02

97,2

62

103,6

86

107,8

48

120,6

03

121.3

Essex

117.9

Dur

ham

118,0

17

119,7

79

129,7

55

140,8

45

157,7

16

133.6

Westmorland

118.5

Esse

x

200,9

26

202,2

55

209,1

45

214,4

27

236,8

12

117.9

Cambridgeshire

118.8

Gloucestershire

214,7

03

215,5

76

229,9

67

243,4

88

262,3

01

122.2

Oxfordshire

119.4

Ham

pshire

176,2

67

166,6

48

205,1

59

210,4

67

229,7

20

130.3

Worcestershire

119.4

Herefordshire

81,8

82

84,1

15

89,4

22

91,3

47

93,2

78

113.9

Yorkshire,NR

119.6

Her

tfordshire

95,8

68

97,3

89

95,8

29

95,8

88

102,0

48

106.4

Lincolnshire

120.0

Hun

tingdonshire

35,3

70

34,5

54

37,6

19

38,7

05

39,2

89

111.1

Devon

120.0

Ken

t

235,3

60

233,2

01

259,6

18

294,9

44

321,7

18

136.7

Northumberland

120.5

Lan

cashire

301,4

07

353,2

68

429,6

57

534,4

02

703,5

55

233.4

Dorset

121.3

Leic

estershire

107,0

28

107,7

83

116,2

43

127,9

74

136,0

41

127.1

Gloucestershire

122.2

Lincolnshire

181,8

14

188,1

08

193,8

84

204,3

25

218,1

13

120.0

Suffolk

124.8

Sources:seetext.

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Mid

dlesex

574,4

33

652,4

16

692,1

08

776,1

78

855,6

15

148.9

Bedfordshire

124.9

Nor

folk

256,4

67

263,7

45

262,1

06

272,5

03

285,8

97

111.5

Somerset

126.0

Nor

thamptonshire

125,3

82

128,7

98

134,2

19

134,3

45

137,7

94

109.9

Shropshire

126.3

Nor

thumberland

144,6

33

148,1

48

154,6

46

155,5

63

174,2

92

120.5

Leicestershire

127.1

Nottinghamshire

91,2

32

98,2

16

108,1

63

127,4

27

146,7

81

160.9

Hampshire

130.3

Oxfordshire

96,0

55

99,3

54

102,2

75

104,4

26

114,6

43

119.4

Durham

133.6

Rutland

15,8

00

15,1

23

15,7

66

16,6

09

17,1

05

108.3

Kent

136.7

Shropshire

141,5

44

147,3

03

154,7

91

163,1

66

178,7

11

126.3

Cumberland

137.2

Som

erset

227,1

74

234,1

79

253,7

02

274,8

83

286,2

93

126.0

Cheshire

142.4

Staffordshire

159,5

78

175,0

75

194,1

05

218,1

72

250,1

11

156.7

Yorkshire,ER

144.5

Suffolk

176,3

16

183,1

13

194,5

40

199,3

68

220,0

73

124.8

Cornwall

147.0

Surrey

167,4

06

180,6

06

201,9

15

238,1

69

281,3

70

168.1

Derbyshire

148.0

Sussex

103,3

86

109,5

31

126,0

53

141,1

01

166,6

10

161.2

Middlesex

148.9

War

wickshire

138,6

76

152,0

50

178,2

68

215,9

93

217,7

29

157.0

Staffordshire

156.7

Wes

tmorland

36,7

27

38,3

42

37,9

84

41,3

19

43,5

24

118.5

Warwickshire

157.0

Wiltshire

183,4

12

182,4

21

189,8

17

192,6

89

194,1

43

105.9

Nottinghamshire

160.9

Wor

cestershire

123,0

10

130,7

57

131,7

66

139,2

82

146,8

59

119.4

Sussex

161.2

Yorkshire,ER

97,9

76

106,2

32

115,0

64

133,3

47

141,5

88

144.5

Yorkshire,WR

165.3

Yorkshire,NR

138,3

48

148,4

75

158,1

78

156,6

10

165,4

75

119.6

Surrey

168.1

Yorkshire,WR

357,6

67

397,0

02

456,5

44

524,9

42

591,1

83

165.3

Lancashire

233.4

Eng

land

6,3

10,3

38

6,6

23,3

58

7,2

06,1

39

7,

845,6

78

8,6

71,4

39

137.4

County

1761

1771

1781

1791

1801

Ra

tio

1801/1761

Countiesin

rankorder

Ratio

1801/1761

Sources:seetext.

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56 E. A. WRIGLEY



Table6.

Differentialgro

wthratesinthreecountyg

roups

Population

1761

Population

1801

Increase

176118

01

Percentage

increase

PercentageofEnglishtotal

Population

1761

Population

1801

Populationincrease

17611801

Ken

t

235,36

0

321,7

18

86,3

57

36.7

3.7

3.7

3.7

Mid

dlesex

574,43

3

855,6

15

281,1

82

48.9

9.1

9.9

11.9

Surrey

167,40

6

281,3

70

113,9

64

68.1

2.7

3.2

4.8

Lon

dongroup

977,20

0

1,4

58,7

03

481,5

03

49.3

15.5

16.8

20.4

Che

shire

140,80

7

200,5

37

59,7

30

42.4

2.2

2.3

2.5

Derbyshire

113,84

5

168,5

25

54,6

81

48.0

1.8

1.9

2.3

Lan

cashire

301,40

7

703,5

55

402,1

48

133.4

4.8

8.1

17.0

Nottinghamshire

91,23

2

146,7

81

55,5

49

60.9

1.4

1.7

2.4

Staffordshire

159,57

8

250,1

11

90,5

33

56.7

2.5

2.9

3.8

War

wickshire

138,67

6

217,7

29

79,0

53

57.0

2.2

2.5

3.3

Yorkshire,WR

357,66

7

591,1

83

233,5

16

65.3

5.7

6.8

9.9

Industrialgroup

1,3

03,21

2

2,2

78,4

20

975,2

09

74.8

20.7

26.3

41.3

Bed

fordshire

53,09

3

66,2

98

13,2

04

24.9

0.8

0.8

0.6

Berkshire

101,58

8

115,0

71

13,4

83

13.3

1.6

1.3

0.6

Buc

kinghamshire

96,94

9

112,3

67

15,4

18

15.9

1.5

1.3

0.7

Cam

bridgeshire

78,64

6

93,4

40

14,7

94

18.8

1.2

1.1

0.6

Esse

x

200,92

6

236,8

12

35,8

86

17.9

3.2

2.7

1.5

Her

tfordshire

95,86

8

102,0

48

6,1

79

6.4

1.5

1.2

0.3

Hun

tingdonshire

35,37

0

39,2

89

3,9

19

11.1

0.6

0.5

0.2

Lincolnshire

181,81

4

218,1

13

36,2

99

20.0

2.9

2.5

1.5

Nor

folk

256,46

7

285,8

97

29,4

29

11.5

4.1

3.3

1.2

Nor

thamptonshire

125,38

2

137,7

94

12,4

12

9.9

2.0

1.6

0.5

Oxfordshire

96,05

5

114,6

43

18,5

88

19.4

1.5

1.3

0.8

Rutland

15,80

0

17,1

05

1,3

06

8.3

0.3

0.2

0.1

Suffolk

176,31

6

220,0

73

43,7

57

24.8

2.8

2.5

1.9

Wiltshire

183,41

2

194,1

43

10,7

31

5.9

2.9

2.2

0.5

Agr

iculturalgroup

1,6

97,68

6

1,9

53,0

92

255,4

06

15.0

26.9

22.5

10.8

RestofEngland

2,3

32,24

1

2,9

81,2

24

648,9

83

27.8

37.0

34.4

27.5

Eng

land

6,3

10,33

8

8,6

71,4

39

2,3

61,1

01

37.4

100.0

100.0

100.0

Source:seetab.

5

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Figure 1. Population growth 17611801 in three county groups: agricultural,industrial, and LondonNote: The number shown for each county identifies the scale of population growth over the period 17611801:

1 = growth in the range 09.9 per cent, 2 = growth in the range 1019.9 per cent, and so on. Thus the figure forLancashire, 14, indicates growth in the range 130139.9 per cent.

0 20 40 80

km

120 160

Agricultural group

Industrial group

London group

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58 E. A. WRIGLEY



of land stretching from Lincolnshire and Essex in the east to Wiltshire inthe west, including much of the best agricultural land in the country andcovering 29 per cent of its surface area. Each group presents a markedcontrast with the national average. Whereas population in England as a

whole grew by 37.4 per cent between 1761 and 1801, in the London groupof counties the comparable figure was 49.3 per cent, in the industrial group74.8 per cent, and in the dominantly agricultural group 15.0 per cent.At the beginning of the period 15.5 per cent of the national populationlived in the London group, 20.7 per cent in the industrial group, and26.9 per cent in the agricultural group. At the end of the period thecomparable figures were 16.8, 26.3 and 22.5 per cent. There were thereforemarked changes in the relative size of the three groups, a feature which isbrought out more vividly by considering the shares of each group in theoverall growth of population in England as a whole. The London group

accounted for 20.4 per cent of the total national increase, for the industrialgroup the comparable figure was 41.3 per cent, for the agricultural group10.8 per cent. More than three-fifths of the total national increase over theperiod, therefore, took place in the first two groups (61.7 per cent), adramatic exemplification of the extent to which growth was concentratedin a comparatively small group of counties in which agriculture did notfigure prominently. Indeed it was also concentrated within these twogroups; 38.8 per cent of the total national increase took place in justthree counties: Lancashire (17.0 per cent), the West Riding of Yorkshire(9.9 per cent), and Middlesex (11.9 per cent).

It is equally striking that the belt of agricultural counties claimed sucha modest portion of the total increase. Indeed, there is a sense in whichtheir share is overstated. If the populations of the towns and boroughs forwhich the PRA provided separate returns in 1801 are subtracted from thepopulations of this group, their growth rate falls from 15.0 per cent to13.0 per cent (in the towns and boroughs within these counties theincrease was 31.6 per cent). A growth of 15.0 per cent over a 40-yearperiod implies an annual growth rate of only 0.35 per cent per annum. Itis worth noting that these rates were not only low by comparison withmuch of the rest of the country, but were also modest when compared

with many agricultural areas on the continent at the same period. At atime when the population of England as a whole was rising faster thanthat of most other European countries, when some parts of the countrywere experiencing a strikingly rapid expansion based on secondary andtertiary employments, and when English agriculture was characterizedboth by high yields per acre and high output per man, the size of thepopulation supported by agricultural employment changed little (withinthe agricultural counties employment outside agriculture was rising fasterthan employment on the land, so that the purely agricultural growth wasmodest indeed). This was, perhaps, an illustration of the difference

between a market-orientated, capitalist agriculture and peasant economieswhere subsistence sometimes remained an important objective and sons

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might be retained on a family holding even though the marginal familymember produced less than he consumed.43

The contrast in growth rates between the three groups is far toogreat for any but a small part of it to be attributable to differences in

rates of natural increase. The available evidence suggests only modestdifferences in nuptiality and marital fertility in different kinds of par-ishes. Mortality differentials were greater, but since, in general, mortal-ity was greater where population densities were high, as in urban orindustrial settings, rates of natural increase were frequently higher inrural than in urban or industrial parishes.44 The bulk of the differencein growth rates between different areas must be largely attributable tonet migration flows.

How great a contrast is there between the new estimates and earliercalculations? This issue may be approached by comparing the growth pat-

terns arising from the work of Deane and Cole with those produced by thepresent exercise. There is an initial difficulty in that, since the marriagereturns are available only from 1754, they cannot be used to generateestimated county populations for 1751, but Deane and Cole provided noestimates for 1761, the opening date in the tables above. The problem canbe overcome, however, in a rough-and-ready way, by assuming that growthin each county in the decade 175161 took place at the same pace as in176171 and then constraining the resulting county totals to sum to the1751 national population total obtained by inverse projection. This ensuresthat the overall rise in numbers is plausible while preserving the differential

growth rates of the counties. Ratios representing the population increasesover the half-century preceding the first census are shown in table 7 togetherwith those based on the table published by Deane and Cole. The latter isshown in two versions. In column 4 the ratios shown are taken directly from

43 This issue is far too complex to be pursued here, but would repay further examination. Population

growth accelerated generally in Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century. There werenevertheless substantial tracts in which growth was slight or absent. This was probably true of much of

western France, for example. But there were many agricultural areas in which growth was more rapid

than in the group of 14 agricultural counties in central southern England, both in the heartland ofEurope and towards its periphery. The Belgian provinces afford several examples of this, and at a time

when the urban proportion was falling rather than rising. In Norway, a country with only a tiny urban

population, all four dioceses were growing briskly in the second half of the eighteenth century. Such

examples could be multiplied. Comparisons across space raise as many questions as similar comparisonsover time. Population estimates are usually subject to wide error margins, the dates for which estimates

are available seldom coincide, and rural populations did not make their livings exclusively from agricul-

ture. In some cases, rapid growth came from a low base because of previous devastation by war. Yet asystematic investigation of the topic might reveal much of interest about the relative strength of the

influences leading to the release of labour from the land or its retention, and about the extent of the

contrast between England and other countries. Dupquier, La peuplade, fig. 15, p. 80; Klep,Population estimates of Belgium, tab. 15, p. 505; Drake, Population and society in Norway, app.,

tab. 1, pp. 1645. See also Bairoch, Nouvelle distribution des populations, which shows how wide-

spread was the fall in the urban percentage throughout continental Europe in the second half of theeighteenth century, even though total populations were rising rapidly.

44 Evidence bearing on this issue may be found in Wrigley et al., English population history,pp. 18294 (nuptiality), pp. 26879 (mortality), and pp. 5017 (fertility).

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60 E. A. WRIGLEY



Table 7. The new estimates of growth ratios 17511801 compared with thoseof Deane and Cole (growth ratios measured by expressing the population of each

county in 1801 as a percentage of its population in 1751)

New estimates Deane and Cole

(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

CountyGrowth ratio1801/1751 County

Growth ratio1801/1751(original)

Growth ratio1801/1751(adjusted)

Rutland 105.5 Devon 115.5 114.3

Wiltshire 107.2 Northumberland 116.6 115.3

Hertfordshire 110.1 Bedfordshire 118.1 116.7

Huntingdonshire 110.5 Westmorland 119.5 117.9

Devon 114.4 Wiltshire 121.5 119.8

Northamptonshire 115.0 Northamptonshire 121.6 119.9

Berkshire 115.8 Oxfordshire 126.8 124.7

Norfolk 116.8 Cambridgeshire 126.9 124.8Buckinghamshire 116.8 Somerset 126.9 124.9

Herefordshire 119.2 Durham 127.2 125.1

Essex 120.8 Gloucestershire 127.5 125.4

Dorset 120.9 Norfolk 127.5 125.4

Cambridgeshire 123.9 Huntingdonshire 128.1 125.9

Gloucestershire 124.9 Essex 129.5 127.2

Hampshire 125.5 Herefordshire 130.7 128.3

Northumberland 125.7 Berkshire 131.1 128.7

Oxfordshire 125.7 Hertfordshire 131.7 129.2

Westmorland 126.0 Dorset 134.7 132.0

Lincolnshire 126.4 Buckinghamshire 135.7 132.9

Worcestershire 129.3 Suffolk 136.1 133.3

Leicestershire 130.4 Shropshire 137.2 134.3

Yorkshire, NR 130.7 Lincolnshire 140.4 137.3

Bedfordshire 131.4 Middlesex 143.1 139.7

Suffolk 132.0 Rutland 143.7 140.3

Somerset 132.3 Leicestershire 146.5 142.9

Shropshire 133.8 Cornwall 147.3 143.6

Kent 137.9 Cumberland 149.2 145.4

Durham 138.1 Worcestershire 150.1 146.3

Cumberland 151.5 Yorkshire, NR 151.8 147.8

Cornwall 159.0 Derbyshire 165.1 160.0

Yorkshire, ER 159.6 Hampshire 169.0 163.6

Derbyshire 162.4 Nottinghamshire 170.4 164.9

Cheshire 162.8 Warwickshire 172.2 166.6

Middlesex 172.3 Sussex 174.3 168.5

Sussex 173.9 Staffordshire 175.6 169.7Staffordshire 175.1 Cheshire 183.8 177.3

Warwickshire 175.3 Kent 188.2 181.4

Nottinghamshire 176.4 Yorkshire, ER 189.8 182.8

Surrey 184.7 Yorkshire, WR 192.5 185.3

Yorkshire, WR 186.9 Surrey 208.1 199.7

Lancashire 278.7 Lancashire 218.5 209.3

Sources: Tab. 5; Deane and Cole, British economic growth, tab. 24, p. 103

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their table.45 In the next column they have been slightly reduced. Deaneand Coles estimates imply a rise in national population of 50.2 per centbetween 1751 and 1801.46 The comparable rise in the inverse projectionestimates is 46.4 per cent. To make the ratio increases taken from the two

series directly comparable, therefore, it seemed sensible to reduce the per-centage increases by 464/502. Thus the increase of 15.5 per cent for Devonshown in column 4 is reduced to 14.3 per cent in column 5.

The rank order of the two series in table 7 differs substantially, some-times, it would appear, inexplicably. Deane and Cole have Rutlandincreasing by 40 per cent, for example, where the present exercise suggests6 per cent. Or again, Hampshire achieves a growth close to two-thirds inDeane and Cole, a marked contrast with the 26 per cent in the new list(chiefly, of course, because of the assumption made about the prevailingcrude marriage rate before 1801 described above: t

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