Abstract
Much of the historical evidence for the changing geography of Britain is by nature fragmentary and by occurrence sporadic, much of it local rather than national. Before the full story of that changing geography can be told more of this evidence will have to be examined. This paper is the outcome of the study of such evidence for the Craven district in the West Riding of Yorkshire. The local evidence comes from a militia muster list of 1803 for the Wapentake of Staincliff and Ewcross, and the national evidence from the enumerators’ books of the Census of Great Britain for 1851. The analysis and comparison of these data help to shed light on the changing occupational structure — and, through it, the changing economic geography — of the region at a most interesting phase of its development.
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References
For an account of this legislation see Hon. J. W. Fortescue. The County Lieutenancies and the Army, 1803–1814 (1909), especially pp. 12–119.
For an account of the development of the Census of Population for Great Britain down to 1851, see Census of Great Britain, 1851 vol. I, Report, esp. lxix–lxxvi; and E. Wrigley (ed), Nineteenth-Century Society Cambridge (1972).
See W. T. Jackman, Transportation in Modern England (1916), vol. II, p. 820. ‘A Reproduction of Collins’ Railway Map of England issued about the middle of the 19th century shows that the following lines serving Craven had been completed: (a) Leeds and Bradford-Keighley-Skipton-Lancaster (with a branch to Settle and thence to Lancaster via Hornby): (b) Preston-Blackburn-Skipton. In process of construction were (i) the Preston-Clitheroe-Settle-Kendal line, with a branch to (ii) Skipton and Askrigg.
The enumerators’ books are subject to a one-hundred year confidentiality constraint. Since this study was originally written, in 1953, the 1861 and 1871 books have been added to the Public Records. The 1841 and 1851 enumerators’ books are in the Home Office Papers (H.O. 107) and those for 1861 and 1871 in the Registrar General’s Records (R.G. 9 and 10, respectively).
See Sir John Clapham, A Concise Economic History of Britain Cambridge (1951), pp. 209–10: ‘When statistical writers began to appear, late in the seventeenth century, they called the members of this agrarian proletariat ‘outservants’ (as opposed to male and female domestic servants), ’cottagers’, or ‘paupers’.
For a full discussion of such problems see W. A. Armstrong ‘The use of information about occupation’, pp. 191–310, in E. A. Wrigley (ed) Nineteenth-Century Society (Cambridge, 1972).
W. Marshall, Rural Economy of Yorkshire (1788), vol. I, pp. 2–3.
For a fuller geographical analysis, see R. Lawton, ‘Population Changes in England and Wales in the Later Nineteenth Century: An analysis of trends by registration districts’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, xliv (1968), pp. 55–74.
G. Rennie, R. Broun and J. Shirreff, The agriculture of the West Riding of Yorkshire (1794), p. 39.
Thus ‘The management from Paitley-bridge to the western extremity of the county, is almost uniformly the same, and grass the sole object’ (Rennie, Broun and Shirreff, op cit., p. 113). Again, Craven is ‘an open and hilly country famous for breeding and feeding great numbers of cattle’ (J. Aikin, England delineated (1800), pp. 59–60). See also the account of a mainly grazing area given by J. Charnock ‘On the farming of Yorkshire’, Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, 1st series, ix (1849). 300.
Victoria history of the county of Yorkshire vol. II (1912), p. 351.
Thus there is mention of the manufacture of ‘shalloons, calimanoes and all sorts of double goods’ at Skipton by Rennie, Broun and Shirreff, op. cit., appendix xi, p. 112.
He lists 44 mills in this area with an aggregate water horse-power of 459 and an aggregate steam horse-power of 196 (E. Baines, History of the cotton manufacture in Great Britain (1835). p. 387).
There were, in aggregate, more power loom than hand loom weavers enumerated in 1851.
See A. H. Shorter, Papermaking in the British Isles, Newton Abbot (1971).
For a fuller account, see W. M. Williams. The Country Craftsman, London (1958).
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© 1973 Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Lawton, R. (1973). The Economic Geography of Craven in the Early Nineteenth Century. In: Mills, D.R. (eds) English Rural Communities. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15516-3_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-15516-3_8
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