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Pre-Famine Ireland and the Theory of European Proto-industrialization: Evidence from the 1841 Census

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Eric L. Almquist
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Abstract

The theory of proto-industrialization holds that a major expansion of rural industry, primarily in textiles, formed a phase precursory to industrialization in many European regions. This phase was characterized by sweeping economic and demographic changes, including increasing population density, land subdivision, and agricultural intensification. Domestic industry boosted marriage rates and may have lowered the average age of marriage of rural dwellers. The present research examines the tenets of this theory for the case of Ireland, a country affected by rural industrialization in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The data are cross-sectional and are drawn primarily from the 1841 census.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , September 1979 , pp. 699 - 718
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1979

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References

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17 1841 Census, County Tables of Marriage.

18 Ibid.

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20 1841 Census, p. xvi.

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22 1841 Census, p. xiii.

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27 1841 Census, p. xiii.

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29 1851 Census, p. X. These data are for the year 1851. The variance would probably be the same for 1841 if statistics were available.

30 1841 Census, Tables of Rural Economy, pp. 454–55.

31 Reportfrom Her Majesty's Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of the Law arid Practice in Re spect to the Occupation of Land in Ireland (Devon Commission) (Brit. Parl. Papers, 1845, vols XIX-XXII), Appendix 94. A conscientious effort has been made to place poor law unions into the proper county. Notes in the commission report were consulted in the reaggregation process.

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34 See Drake, Michael, Population in Industrialization (London, 1969)Google Scholar. For two recent works that do not rely on census data, see Carney, Francis J., “Pre-Famine Irish Population: The Evidence from the Trinity College Estates,” Irish Economic and Social History, 2 (1975), 35–45CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, and Morgan, Valerie, “A Case Study of Population Change over Two Centuries: Blaris, Lisburn 1661-1848,” Irish Economic and Social History, 3 (1976), 5–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 See Banks, Joseph A., Prosperity and Parenthood (London, 1954).Google Scholar

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37 In many regression applications, the units of measurement of the independent variables differ. A direct assessment of the relative effect of the variables is therefore difficult. Standardized regression coefficients, also known as beta weights or path coefficients, allow a direct comparison of the relative contribution of the independent variables, because they are interpreted with reference to standard deviations. A standardized regression coefficient is equal to (Bxy) (Sx/Sy) were Bxy is the ordinary regression coefficient, Sx is the standard deviation of the independent variable, and Sy the standard deviation of the dependent variable. See Blalock, Hubert M., Social Statistics (New York, 1972), p. 453.Google Scholar

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40 1841 Census, p. xxvii.

41 Both hypothesized factors, land subdivision and male nuptiality, relate to Habakkuk's thesis concerning inheritance and migratory patterns in pre-industrial Europe. Habakkuk, Hrothger J., “Family Structure and Economic Change in Nineteenth-Century Europe,” this Journal, 15, 1 (1955), 7–8.Google Scholar

42 See Freeman's, Thomas W.Pre-Famine Ireland (Manchester, 1957)Google Scholar for another discussion of economic regionality in this period.