Describing Spatial Patterns Over Time: An Example on Net Migration
in Rural Registrations Districts in England and Wales, 1851-1891.
Robert Schwartz 19 October 2005
As the level of rural out migration rose and subsided over the years, it also varied greatly by region, as the following maps shows for 1860s, 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s. (See Map 1.) The impact and adjustments associated with the agrarian depression are visible in the maps for the 1870s and 1880s. In the 1870s, the Eastern counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex were already experiencing high rates of out migration as were the other farming areas of Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, and Devon (See Map 2). In other regions, high rates were more dispersed, touching certain districts of Lincolnshire, West Riding Yorkshire, and Northumberland in the eastern half of the country and a few scattered districts in Herefordshire and central Wales in the west. In still other regions, clusters of districts experienced lower than average rates of out migration; in a few, the population grew as more migrants arrived than left. In both cases, these “privileged” areas enjoyed relative demographic stability, indicating the rural population’s ability to weather the storm and adjust to shifting economic forces. Notable in this respect were certain districts in Lincolnshire, northern and peninsular Wales, and coastal Sussex.
In the 1880s, the areas of high out migration in the 1870s continued to loose population, but the regions sutaining the heaviest losses shifted to include larger parts of Lincolnshire, North Riding Yorkshire, and, above all Shropshire and central and northern Wales in the West. In the South and Midlands, a band of districts running northeasterly from Shaftsbury in Dorset to Daventry in Northampton, and another running southeasterly from Melton Mowebray in Leicestershire to Maldon in Essex sustained large losses as well. As in the 1870s, so in the 1880s districts with lower than average rates of out migration were scattered, as we can see along the southern edge of Hampshire and Sussex and the coast of Essex. In the interior, a group of districts in the extended hinterland of Birmingham, with a marked concentration around Stratford on Avon, suggests that the provisioning of this industrial center anchored a solid rural economy in the surrounding region.
The geographic pattern of the 1890s shows a mixture of continuity and change from the previous decade. Intense and concentrated depopulation persisted in the districts clustered around Woodstock in Oxfordshire and St. Ives in Huntingdonshire, while it spread anew in an arc running through Suffolk and Norfolk, reflecting the continuing hard times in eastern regions where farmers clung to grain growing while reducing their labor force through the use of machinery and the conversion of some arable to pasture. In the West Country, some concentrated losses occurred in the interior of Devon and parts of Somerset and Dorset, while in the North Riding of Yorkshire a similar concentration existed. Elsewhere in the North, in eastern Wales, and in southeastern Sussex and Kent high rates of out migration occurred in few, scattered districts.
But in many other parts of the countryside, the 1890s saw the return to greater demographic stability as out migration began to diminish. After decades of increasing depopulation, the degree of stability reached in central and northern Wales stands out as rather remarkable. The campaign to modernize central Wales through the development of Welsh railways appears to have had the desired effect.[i]
Map 1. Percent Population Change due to Net Migration in Rural Districts of England and Wales, 1851-1901
Map 2. Rural Development in England and Wales
