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Before the transition: fertility in English villages, 1800–1880

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Barry Reay
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Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , May 1994 , pp. 91 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

ENDNOTES

1 Wrigley, E. A. and Schofield, R. S., ‘English population history from family reconstitution: summary results 1600–1799’, Population Studies 37 (1983), 185–205Google ScholarPubMed; Wilson, C., ‘Natural fertility in pre-industrial England, 1600–1799’, Population Studies 38 (1984), 225–40Google Scholar; Wilson, C., ‘The proximate determinants of marital fertility in England 1600–1799’, in Bonfield, L., Smith, R. M. and Wrightson, K. eds., The world we have gained (Oxford, 1986), ch. 8.Google Scholar

2 Teitelbaum, M. S., The British fertility decline (Princeton, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Woods, R. I., ‘Approaches to the fertility transition in Victorian England’, Population Studies 41 (1987), 283–311CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Haines, M. R., ‘Social class differentials during fertility decline: England and Wales revisited’, Population Studies 43 (1989), 305–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

3 Knodel, J. E., Demographic behavior in the past (Cambridge, 1988), 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Wrigley, and Schofield, , ‘English population history’, 183.Google Scholar

5 Ibid, (based on 13 parishes); Wilson, C., ‘Marital fertility in pre-industrial England: new insights from the Cambridge Group family reconstitution project’ (based on 26 parishes) (paper prepared for the ‘Conference on demographic change in economic development’, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, 12 1991).Google Scholar

6 Vann, R. T. and Eversley, D., Friends in life and death (Cambridge, 1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 See Macfarlane, A., Harrison, S., and Jardine, C. J., Reconstructing historial communities (Cambridge, 1977)Google Scholar; Sharpe, P., ‘The total reconstitution method: a tool for classspecific study’. Local Population Studies 44 (1990), 41–51.Google Scholar

8 For other examples of the use of the total reconstitution method, see Reay, B., ‘Sexuality in nineteenth-century England: the social context of illegitimacy in rural Kent’, Rural History 1 (1990), 219–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Reay, B., ‘The context and meaning of popular literacy: some evidence from nineteenth-century rural England’, Past and Present 131 (1991), 89–129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Woods, R., The population of Britain in the nineteenth century (London, 1992), 46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Anderson, M., Population change in north-western Europe, 1750–1850 (London, 1988), 41–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Ibid., 49–52; Anderson, M., ‘The social implications of demographic change’, in Thompson, F. M. L. ed., The Cambridge social history of Britain 1750–1950, vol. 2: People and their environment (Cambridge, 1990), 32–4.Google Scholar

12 Wilson, , ‘Natural fertility’, 239–40Google Scholar; Woods, , ‘Approaches’, 283Google Scholar; Wilson, C. and Woods, R., ‘Fertility in England: a long-term perspective’, Population Studies 45 (1991), 399–400.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

13 Wilson, and Woods, , ‘Fertility’, 399.Google Scholar

14 Woods, , Population, 48Google Scholar; Seccombe, W., ‘Starting to stop: working-class fertility decline in Britain’, Past and Present 126 (1990), 153CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Woods, , ‘Approaches’, 291Google Scholar. The means of deliberate control were abortion (about which we have little statistical information), coitus interruptus or withdrawal, abstinence, and contraceptive devices (probably rarely used in the nineteenth century): Woods, , ‘Approaches’, 291Google Scholar; Seccombe, , ‘Starting to stop’, passim;Google ScholarWoods, , Population, 49Google Scholar; McLaren, A., A history of contraception (Oxford, 1990), ch. 6.Google Scholar

15 Woods, R., ‘Working-class fertility decline in Britain’, Past and Present 134 (1992), 201–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 For this area, see my The last rising of the agricultural labourers (Oxford, 1990), esp. pt 1Google Scholar: ‘The setting’.

17 I have followed the conventions of family reconstruction set out by Wrigley, E. A., ‘Family reconstitution’, in Wrigley, ed., An introduction to English historical demography (New York, 1966), ch. 4Google Scholar; and Knodel, , Demographic behaviorGoogle Scholar. There were nonconformists in the area in the second half of the century – Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist – but many of them used the Church of England for their rites of passage and there are also surviving Methodist registers of births which could be drawn on. Vaccination registers provided dates of birth for part of the period. So it was possible to complete forms for some nonconformist families, those who would normally escape the net of family reconstitution. Coordination with the decadal census returns for individual parishes provided some added confirmation of births and deaths.

18 Wilson, , ‘Natural fertility’, 227.Google Scholar

19 Ibid., 236.

20 Wrigley, and Schofield, , ‘English population history’, 162Google Scholar; Wrigley, E. A. and Schofield, R. S., The population history of England 1541–1871 (Cambridge, 1989 edn), 255.Google Scholar

21 See the summary Table 7 in Mills, D. R., Aspects of marriage: an example of applied historical studies (The Open University Social Science Publications, Milton Keynes, 1980), 21.Google Scholar

22 Schofield, R., ‘English marriage patterns revisited’, Journal of Family History 10 (1985), 8–9, 19.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

23 If we were to use the age of 20 rather than 19 as a cut-off point, the proportion of young brides would be even higher: 40 to 50 per cent of brides at the labouring level were aged 20 or younger.

24 Of course they may have responded by not marrying at all. But because of geographical mobility it is impossible to calculate meaningful celibacy rates at the parish level. The impact of social and economic developments upon nuptiality is something of a scholarly minefield. For an introduction, see Smith, R. M., ‘Fertility, economy, and household formation in England over three centuries’, Population and Development Review 7 (1981), 595–622CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Weir, D. R., ‘Rather never than late: celibacy and age at marriage in English cohort fertility, 1541–1871’, Journal of Family History 9 (1984), 340–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goldstone, J. A., ‘The demographic revolution in England: a re-examination’, Population Studies 49 (1986), 5–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Levine, D., Reproducing families (Cambridge, 1987)Google Scholar; and Hill, B., ‘The marriage age of women and the demographers’, History Workshop 28 (1989), 129–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Wilson, and Woods, , ‘Fertility’, 414.Google Scholar

26 Knodel, J., ‘Demographic transitions in German villages’, in Coale, A. J. and Watkins, S. Cotts eds., The decline of fertility in Europe (Princeton, 1986), 358.Google Scholar

27 Knodel, , Demographic behavior, 261.Google Scholar

28 See Wilson, , ‘Natural fertility’, 233–4Google Scholar. The highest is Bottesford with 0.90.

29 I used the method outlined in Wilson, , ‘Natural fertility’, 232Google Scholar. My adjustments were different, of course.

30 See Knodel, J. and Wilson, C., ‘The secular increase in fecundity in German village populations’, Population Studies 35 (1981), 60CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, Table 2; Knodel, , Demographic behavior, 268Google Scholar, Table 10.4.

31 Knodel, and Wilson, , ‘Secular increase’Google Scholar; Knodel, , Demographic behavior, 284–6Google Scholar; Netting, R., Balancing on an alp (Cambridge, 1981), 145–68.Google Scholar

32 Knodel, J., ‘Family limitation and the fertility transition: evidence from the agepatterns of fertility in Europe and Asia’, Population Studies 31 (1977), 223–4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

33 Knodel, J., ‘Natural fertility in pre-industrial Germany’, Population Studies 32 (1978), 489.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

34 Vann, and Eversley, , Friends, 178–85.Google Scholar

35 Following the procedure outlined by Wilson, , ‘Natural fertility’, 232.Google Scholar

36 Ibid., 234.

37 Ibid., 230.

38 Knodel, , Demographic behavior, 257, Table 10.2.Google Scholar

39 Knodel, J., ‘Natural fertility: age patterns, levels and trends’, in Bulatao, R. A. and Lee, R. D. eds., Determinants of fertility in developing countries, vol. 1 (New York, 1983), 65–70.Google Scholar

40 Compare with the graphs in Knodel, , Demographic behavior, 256, Figure 10.1.Google Scholar

41 Dyson, T. and Murphy, M., ‘The onset of fertility transition’, Population and Development Review 11 (1985), 399–440CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Knodel, , Demographic behavior, 284–6.Google Scholar

42 Yet again I depend upon the work of Knodel: Knodel, , ‘Demographic transitions’Google Scholar, and Knodel, , Demographic behaviorGoogle Scholar, ch. 12. See also the discussion in Anderton, D. L. and Bean, L. L., ‘Birth spacing and fertility limitations’, Demography 22 (1985), 169–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Wilson, , ‘Natural fertility’, 234–6Google Scholar; Knodel, , Demographic behavior, 291, Table 11.2.Google Scholar

44 Knodel, , Demographic behavior, 293.Google Scholar

45 Following Knodel, I have divided the sample into final numbers of confinements per woman, and have calculated the intervals per woman. This avoids swamping the sample with the intervals of women with large families and avoids obscuring those with smaller completed families who may well have been practising some form of family limitation.

46 Garrett, E. M., ‘The trials of labour’, Continuity and Change 5 (1990), 121–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Simon Szreter will be arguing something similar in a forthcoming re-analysis of the 1911 fertility census. Vann and Eversley have raised the possibility of spacing behaviour among newly married Quakers in pre-industrial southern England: Vann, and Eversley, , Friends, 162.Google Scholar

47 The 1911 material comes from the figures provided in Anderson, , ‘Social implications’, 43Google Scholar, Table 1.4.

48 Knodel, , ‘Demographic transitions’, 373.Google Scholar

49 By Cleland, J. and Wilson, C., ‘Demand theories of the fertility transition’, Population Studies 41 (1987), 16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 Knodel, , ‘Demographic transitions’, 373.Google Scholar

51 Wrigley, E. A., ‘Population growth: England, 1680–1820’, Refresh 1 (1985), 3.Google Scholar

52 See Teitelbaum, , British fertility declineGoogle Scholar, ch. 6. He seemed eager to explain away the rise.

53 Ibid., 225.

54 van de Walle, E. and Knodel, J., ‘Europe's fertility transition: new evidence and lessons for today's developing world’, Population Bulletin 34 (1979), 1–43Google Scholar. Woods, (‘Approaches’, 309)Google Scholar also stresses the rapid change in England in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s.

55 My article can also be read as part of a wider literature which is starting to question the uniformity of the European fertility decline as presented by the demographers of the Princeton European Fertility Project: see , J. and Schneider, P., ‘Demographic transitions in a Sicilian rural town’, Journal of Family History 9 (1984), 245–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Levine, D., ‘Recombinant family formation strategies’, Journal of Historical Sociology 2 (1989), 89–115CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gillis, J. R., Tilly, L. A., and Levine, D. eds., The European experience of declining fertility: a quiet revolution, 1850–1970 (Oxford, 1992)Google Scholar. As Levine has put it, we should think of ‘multiple paths’, ‘not one but many fertility declines’: Levine, D., ‘Moments in time: a historian's context of declining fertility’, in Gillis, Tilly, and Levine eds., European experience of declining fertility, 329.Google Scholar