Final Lab with Comments

History and Environmental Studies 361

Fall 2000

Environmental History: Nature and Industrialization in Britain, 1780-1914

A table showing the numbers of RDs with in and out migration would help here. Be precise.

There are mistakes in prose to attend to: omitted words mainly.

Key to a map: “As map 1 shows, . . . .”

In the South West of England in the period between 1851 and 1911 was characterized by a general trend of a low percentage of out-migration for the entire region. Though we cannot determine where people moved, the numbers of people leaving registration districts were almost exclusively higher than the numbers entering. In the decades 1851-1861, 1861-1871, 1881-1891, and 1901-1911, the common rate of [out migration] populations leaving was consistently 1-15% (please note that the decades 1881-1891 and 1891-1901 are missing in this analysis, my final analysis will be more inclusive). All of these decades had four to twenty-eight districts with higher rates of out-migration than 15%. In this sixty-year span they only a small handful of the districts had rates of in-migration. Of those few districts with in-migration, they were primarily on the coastline of the south shore.

Between 1871 and 1881 the highest number of districts had high levels of out-migration. This period had a single district showing in-migration. The districts with high out-migration, 35-65%, were oriented on the tip of the peninsula, in a cluster in the western central area and in a few coastal southern districts with a diagonal trail toward London.

1861-1871 is the decade with a lull in out-migration. In the region, five of approximately sixty districts have different migration rates than the standard 1-15% out-migration.

Figure 1. Percentage population change due to migration in the years 1851-1861 and 1861-1871.Note that the area of interest is from Bristol south and westward. In the first map of Figure 1. please note that there are many districts with higher levels of out migration than the standard 1-15%. In the second map for 1861-1871, this section of England is almost entirely homogeneous with an out-migration rate of 1-15%.*

Map 1

Put notes in separate paragraph. Larger font for Map titles. Show on the map. It strikes me that the two periods show a reduction in the extent and intensity of out migration in certain areas; otherwise a continuing trend of moderate change.

Figure 2. Percentage population change due to migration in the years 1871-1881 and 1901- 1911. Note that the period 1871-1881 is the highest rate of out migration for the 60 year span, in the most districts. This is no longer the trend twenty years later when only a small ring of districts have the same medium rate of out-migration.*This point should be in your text and developed. It corresponds with the onset of the agricultural depression.

*Due to lack of information about specific towns or sections I did not overload the maps with

labels. I have since found some of this information and it will be included in final maps for this class.

The beginning and the end of this sixty year span show similar numbers of districts with out-migration rates over 15%. A curious pattern in these maps concerns the districts with higher than 15% rates of migration. During different decades different districts have this higher rate of migration, and they rarely overlap twice. Between 1851 and 1861 we see the highest change in migration to 35-65% to be the northern central districts, however in 1901-1911 it is the further western districts with higher rates. In fact most of the districts or their nearest neighbor, has a 35% or over out-migration at some point, with the exception of the southeastern coastal districts which never have rates so high.

Now that the patterns of migration change have been described, we look to literature to explore regional changes that may attribute to these changes. Most of the records of the agricultural changes in this time period are between the years 1871 and 1914, therefore that will be the main periods that I will refer to. This unfortunately will not provide insight to the earlier maps. Between 1871 and 1914 the major shift to note is the change from declines in crops such as wheat, paralleled with the increase of livestock. From 1871-1914 the overall amount of sheep in the region went down, in unit sheep per 100 acres. 1871 had the highest rate of sheep, as was the case for much of the entire country, by 1914 this declined to a midlevel of sheep per acres in the northwestern area of the south west region, the highest sheep per acre remained in the eastern parts of the region.

Strikes me that the major point here is the impact of the agrarian depression and the resulting shift from wheat and cereals to livestock (meat and dairy). Cows were somewhat opposite. In 1871 cows had mid to low levels per hundred acres in the southwest, by 1914 cow populations increased uniformly. The far west of the region had less cows at both time periods than the eastern counties, however they all rose in number cows per hundred acres.

As the number of cows grew the rate of tillage decreased uniformly, but the amount of grasstill (grown for cattle,) increased uniformly with the exception of one northern coastal county (Somerset). Of the land dedicated to growing roots, wheat, oats and barely the percentage of wheat and barley grown had an overall decrease while the roots and oats took higher percentages. Both of the latter are used for livestock (Jones et al, 1974).

In terms of the affects of these agricultural changes on the region population migration, links with this available data is difficult. None of the patterns in these agricultural changes correlate with the migration change rates. This perhaps would have to be reviewed statistically to effectively determine no connection. None is visually apparent. [It’s unclear here how much detail you have in your inspection of changes in agriculture. Include the maps, either as good photocopies, or, better, as good scanned images. If your agricultural information is not local but regional then you can’t analyze the migration data at the RD level but must do it at the regional level.] The movements also do not correspond to the rises in land tax, which affected different counties of this district differently, but with an overall increase.

Livestock in many ways require less labor than field crops, though roots and oats

were grown in higher abundance and that required laborers, all farming grew more mechanical after the 1860’s, further decreased labor demands. There may have not been enough work in farming to maintain population’s need to work. This may be the cause of general out-migration, but I have no documentation to show it. {this is good and heads in the right direction. Read the documents on agricultural laborers in the packet, including the piece by Thomas Hardy, which is written by a famous novelist who lived and wrote in Devon and who was sympathetic to the problems facing rural people.]

The socio-economic changes of farming perhaps a great affect on population movement. Until the later 1800’s much of the grazing land in the town had a public right of way, these were called open fields. One could graze their livestock on these open fields until it became increasingly more privatized. This could also have limited people without land to maintain a living in these rural areas (Jones et al, 1974).

Literature:

*Jones, E. L. 1974. Agriculture and the Industrial Revolution. New York, NY John Wiley & Sons.

Pooley and Turnbull. 1988. Migration and Mobility in Britain since the 18^th Century. London, England UCL Press

Shirlaw, D.W. 1966. An Agricultural Geography of Great Britain. New York, NY. Pergamon Press

*Cited

[You touch upon some points that have considerable promise: the unusually high level of out migration in the 1880s and the shift from cereal production to livestock. You need to get better control over these promising ideas and develop them clearly from the outset of your presentation and eventual paper. I highly recommend that you read the labs of Mary and Ioli. Both are good examples of good analysis and writing in which the descriptions of the demographic patterns and their likely explanations are presented more as a inter-related story than you provide here. Another way of putting this is that you must have your conclusions in mind before writing, so you know from the beginning of your draft or essay ‘the story” you’re going to tell.

Evaluation: satisfactory/poor