The Population Of Britain In The Nineteenth Century

This book provides a clear interpretation of the causes of demographic change in Britain in the nineteenth century. It combines an examination of migration, marriage patterns, fertility and mortality with a guide to the sources of population data available to historians and demographers. Illustrated with tables and figures, it is the only available summary of this field for students, and includes a detailed bibliography for those wishing to pursue the subject further.

This concise volume for students reviews the literature on the population history of Britain and Ireland.

Whilst in certain quarters it may be fashionable to suppose that there is no such thing as society historians, they have had no difficulty in finding their subject. The difficulty, rather, is that an outpouring of research and writing is hard for anyone but the specialist to keep up with the literature or grasp the overall picture. In these three volumes, as is the tradition in Cambridge Histories, a team of specialists has assembled the jigsaw of topical monographic research and presented an interpretation of the development of modern British society since 1750, from three perspectives: those of regional communities, the working and living environment, and social institutions. Each volume is self-contained, and each contribution, thematically defined, contains its own chronology of the period under review. Taken as a whole they offer an authoritative and comprehensive view of the manner and method of the shaping of society in the two centuries of unprecedented demographic and economic change.

One of the most striking features of the demography of twentieth century Britain and its constituent countries has been the persistence of rates of population growth far lower than those of the nineteenth century. By the 1980s even the absolute size of the population had begun to decline. Why has this happened? And why have falling rates of population growth been accompanied by equally dramatic changes in the geography of human residence? In an attempt to answer these questions, the book traces the evolution of trends in levels of fertility, mortality and migration and considers the nature of the forces responsible for these trends.

The Demography of Victorian England and Wales uses the full range of nineteenth-century civil registration material to describe in detail for the first time the changing population history of England and Wales between 1837 and 1914. Its principal focus is the great demographic revolution which occurred during those years, especially the secular decline of fertility and the origins of the modern rise in life expectancy. But Robert Woods also considers the variable quality of the Victorian registration system; the changing role of what Robert Malthus termed the preventive check; variations in occupational mortality and the development of the twentieth-century class mortality gradient; and the effects of urbanisation associated with the significance of distinctive disease environments. The volume also illustrates the fundamental importance of geographical variations between urban and rural areas. This invaluable reference tool is lavishly illustrated with numerous tables, figures and maps, many of which are reproduced in full colour.

First published as part of the best-selling The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain, Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew's Very Short Introduction to Nineteenth-Century Britain is a sharp but subtle account of remarkable economic and social change and an even more remarkable political stability. Britain in 1789 was overwhelmingly rural, agrarian, multilingual, and almost half Celtic. By 1914, when it faced its greatest test since the defeat of Napoleon, it was largely urban and English. Christopher Harvie and Colin Matthew show the forces behind Britain's rise to its imperial zenith, and the continuing tensions within the nations and classes of the 'union state'. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

This large-scale comparative endeavor, complete in two volumes, reflects increasing concern with the population factor in economic and social change worldwide. Demographers, on their side, have been focusing on history. In response to this, Population in History represents the work of two practitioners that have begun to work together, using their combined approaches in an attempt to assess and account for population growth experienced by the West since the seventeenth century. There is a long record of interest in the history of population. But the interest now displayed is likely to be both more persistent and far more fruitful in its consequences. New studies have been initiated in many countries. And because the studies are more informed and systematic than many of those of earlier periods, they are already provoking the further spread of research. A much more positive part is now also being played by national and international associations of historians and demographers. It is not unlikely that, within the next fifteen or twenty years, the main outlines of population change in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries will be firmly established for much of Europe. Previous research has tended to appear in specialist journals and academic publications. This volume is intended to provide a more easily accessible publication. It has been thought appropriate to include some earlier work, both because of its intrinsic interest and because it provided the background and part of the stimulus to the later research. Of the twenty-seven contributions to this outstanding volume, seven are unabridged reprints of earlier work; the remaining contributions are either entirely new or represent substantial revisions of work published elsewhere. D. V. Glass was professor of sociology at the University of London. At the time of his death he was a fellow of the Royal Society and a fellow of the British Academy as well as a foreign associate of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences. Most of his later work and research was focused on demography. D. E. C. Eversley was reader in social history at the University of Birmingham. Some of the books he co-authored include Introduction to English Demography from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century and Social Theories of Fertility and The Malthusian Debate.

THE POPULATION OF GREAT BRITAIN This series of studies, of which the present volume is the first, is issued by the Research De partment of The London Press Exchange Ltd., as a contribu tion to the factual background of post-war problems affecting British industry and commerce, and the distribution of British products. no ST. MARTINS LANE LONDON - W. C. a THE POPULATION OF GREAT BRITAIN CURRENT TRENDS AND FUTURE PROBLEMS MARK ABRAMS PUBLISHED FOR THE LONDON PRESS EXCHANGE LTD BY GEORGE ALLEN UNWIN LTD 40 MUSEUM STREET W. C. i CONTENTS I THE PRE-WAR SITUATION The nineteenth century 7 The measurement of population growth, p. 9 Death rates, p. 9 Migrfajtfn, jx ity Birth rates and repro duction rates 1 1 Changes since the eighties 13 The importance of age composition 4 Economic measurement of population 16 II THE WAR PERIOD i III POST-WAR PROSPECTS 21 IV CONSEQUENCES, CAUSES AND REMEDIES . . 23 Some economic consequences, p. 2 5 Employment prospects inparticular occupations, p. 26 effects on taxation, p. 28 effects on the trade cycle 28 Some suggested causes, p. 30 Changes in fecundity, p. 30 changes in nuptiality, p 3 changes in social values and interests 3 The economics of parenthood 33 Some suggested remedies, p. 34 Laissez-aller, p. 34 repressive measures, p-35 positive measures, p. 36 child allowances 37 The limitations of child allowances 39 V THE FUTURE SOME ESTIMATES 41 Appendix i The new birth and marriage statistics . 46 Further reading 5 POPULATION TRENDS 1911 1961 15,8 ii 1111 1938 1946 1951 -1961 THE PRE-WAR SITUATION IN the summer of 1939 the estimated population of Great Britain i. e., England, Wales and Scotland was 46,467,000. In terms of the worlds total population that was hardly a substantial figure it constituted less than three per cent, of the globes inhabitants and as a national total was exceeded by at least half-a-dozen other units China, India, U. S. S. R., U. S. A., Japan and ESTIMATED POPULATIONS Germany. DECEMBER, 1938 U. S. S. R. U. S. A. . . Japan . . Germany Great Britain Brazil .. Italy France . . 170,000,000 130,000,000 73,000,000 69,000,000 46,000,000 44,000,000 43,000,000 42,000,000 Excluding Austria, Sudeten and, Memel The nineteenth centuty It was the product, however, of 150 years of unprecedented growth. There are no reliable counts of Britains population before the nine teenth century, but it is probable that for several hundred years the number of people in this country fluctuated round the five million mark. Then in the middle of the 1 8th century as the industrial and transport revolutions started Britain on her career as the worlds workshop, carrier and entrepot, the popu lation began to grow rapidly. Between the beginning and the end of the i gth century, in spite of a steady drain of emigrants to the colonies and the United States, Britains population more than trebled. Almost certainly this was achieved, not by any increase in the number of child ren born to the average woman but by a steady fall in the death rate made possible by advances in medical science and communal sanitation. In 1801, in the middle of the Napoleonic Wars, the first census was taken in this country. The returns for Great Britain showed a total 7 population of 10,500,000. By i8ai, after the war and its subsequent depression had been passed, the figure had grown to 14,092,000, and a generation later, that is, at the mid point of the century, it had passed the 20,000,000 mark. In fifty years Britains population had doubled in the subsequent fifty years almost the same over-all rate of growth was maintained and the new century opened with a population of 37,000,000. This appearance of unchecked growth, however, was misleading. In the last decade of the I9th century, although the total population continued to increase, the rate of increase began to slow down appreci ably. The twentieth century, so far, has not checked this new develop ment Britains population continues to grow but at an ever-diminishing rate...