Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T18:38:47.507Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Growth of Population in Eighteenth-Century England: A Critical Reappraisal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

Peter Razzell
Peter Razzell
Affiliation:
Research Fellow at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine at Oxford University.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Population growth in eighteenth-century England was due mainly to a fall in mortality, which was particularly marked during the first half of the century. The fall affected all socioeconomic groups and does not appear to have occurred for primarily economic reasons. In addition to an explanation involving the introduction of smallpox inoculation, the major hypothesis considered in this article is that the significant improvement in domestic hygiene associated with the rebuilding of housing in brick and tile brought about a major reduction in mortality.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , December 1993 , pp. 743 - 771
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Armytage, George, ed., Allegations for Marriage Licenses … at London (Harleian Society, Vol. 24, London, 1886).Google Scholar
Bannerman, W. B., ed., Allegations for Marriage Licenses in the Archdeaconry of Sudbury (Harleian Society, Vol. 69, London, 1918).Google Scholar
Barley, M. W., The English Farmhouse and Cottage (London, 1961).Google Scholar
Barley, M. W., “Rural Housing in England” in Thirsk, Joan, ed., The Agrarian History of England and Wales (Cambridge, 1967), vol. 4, pp. 696–766.Google Scholar
Blagg, T. M., and Wadsworth, F. A., eds., Abstracts of Nottinghamshire Marriage Licenses (British Record Society Index Library, Vol. 58, London, 1930).Google Scholar
Breckon, Bill, and Parker, Jeffrey, Tracing the History of Houses (Newbury, England, 1991).Google Scholar
Clark, Peter, and Souden, David, Migration and Society in Early Modern England (London, 1987).Google Scholar
Clarke, William, The Natural History of Nitre London, 1670).Google Scholar
Coale, A. J., and Demeny, P., Regional Model Life Tables and Stable Populations (Princeton, 1966).Google Scholar
Colyton Parish Register (Devon and Cornwall Record Society, Exeter, 1928).Google Scholar
Cowper, J. M., ed., Canterbury Marriage Licenses Canterbury, 1876, 1892, 1894, 1896, 1898, 1905, 1906).Google Scholar
De Saussure, Caesar, A Foreign View of England in the Reigns of George I and George II London, 1902).Google Scholar
Dobson, Mary, “The Last Hiccup of the Old Demographic Regime: Population Stagnation and Decline in Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Century South-East England,” Continuity and Change, 4 (No. 3, 1989), pp. 395–428.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drake, M., “An Elementary Exercise in Parish Register Demography,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 14 (12 1962), pp. 427–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elliott, Vivien B., Mobility and Marriage in Pre-Industrial England (Ph.D. diss., University of Cambridge, 1978).Google Scholar
Emmison, F. G., Essex Wills, 1558–1565 Washington, DC, 1982).Google Scholar
Enumeration Abstract, 1841 Census Parliamentary Papers, 1843, 27).Google Scholar
Finlaison, John, Report on Life Annuities (Parliamentary Papers, 1829, 3).Google Scholar
Fry, Edward A., Calendars of Wills … Relating to … Devon and Cornwall, Vols. 1 and 2 (Exeter, 1908, 1914).Google Scholar
Glass, D. V., “Population and Population Movements in England and Wales, 1700 to 1850,” in Glass, D. V. and Eversley, D. E. C., eds., Population in History (London, 1965), pp. 221–46.Google Scholar
Glass, D. V., ed., London Inhabitants Within the Walls London Record Society, Vol. 2, London, 1966).Google Scholar
Haines, Michael R., “Conditions of Work and Mortality Decline,” in Schofield, R. S., Reher, David, and Bideau, Alain, eds., The Decline of Mortality in Europe (Oxford, 1991), pp. 177–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartland Parish.Register (Devon and Cornwall Record Society, Exeter, 1930–1934).Google Scholar
Henning, Basil Duke, ed., The House of Commons 1660–1690 (London, 1983).Google Scholar
Hibbert, Christopher, The English: A Social History, 1066–1945 (London, 1987).Google Scholar
Hodgetts, E. A. B., ed., The Rise and Progress of the British Explosives Industry (London, 1909).Google Scholar
Hollingsworth, T. H., “The Demography of the English Peerage,” Population Studies, 18 (Suppl., 07 1964), pp. 1–108.Google Scholar
Houston, Rab, “Mortality in Early Modern Scotland: Life Expectancy of Advocates,” Continuity and Change, 7 (No. 1, 1992), pp. 47–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jennings, G. H., ed., The Diary of a Georgian Shopkeeper (Oxford, 1979).Google Scholar
Jones, E. L., and Falkus, M. E., “Urban Improvement and the English Economy in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” in Borsay, Peter, ed., The Eighteenth Century Town, 1688–1820 (London, 1990), pp. 116–158.Google Scholar
King, Gregory, Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions upon the State … of England, 1696 London, 1810).Google Scholar
Laslett, Peter, “Parental Deprivation in the Past: A Note on the History of Orphans in England,” Local Population Studies, 13 (Autumn 1974), pp. 11–18.Google Scholar
Laslett, Peter, and Harrison, John, “Clayworth and Cogenhoe,” in Bell, H. E. and Ollard, R. L., eds., Historical Essays 1600–1750 Presented to David Ogg London, 1963), pp. 157–84.Google Scholar
Lee, R. D., “Inverse Projection and Back Projection: A Critical Appraisal, and Comparative Results for England, 1539 to 1871,” Population Studies, 39 (07 1985), pp. 233–48.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lee, R. D., and Lam, D., “Age Distribution Adjustments for English Censuses, 1821 to 1931,” Population Studies, 37 (11 1983), pp. 445–64.Google ScholarPubMed
Leeson, Francis, A Guide to the Records of the British State Tontines Isle of Wight, England, 1968).Google Scholar
Lindert, Peter H., “English Living Standards, Population Growth, and Wrigley-Schofield,” Explorations in Economic History, 20 (04 1983), pp. 131–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manchester Cathedral Parish Register Lancashire Parish Register Society, Vol. 89, 1949).Google Scholar
Namier, Lewis, and Brooke, John, eds., The House of Commons 1754–1790 (London, 1964).Google Scholar
Ralph, Elizabeth, and Williams, Mary, eds., The Inhabitants of Bristol in 1696 Bristol Record Society, Vol. 25, (Bristol, 1968).Google Scholar
Razzell, P. E., “The Evaluation of Baptism as a Form of Birth Registration Through Cross-Matching Census and Parish Register Data: A Study in Methodology,” Population Studies, 26 (03 1972), pp. 121–46.Google Scholar
Razzell, P. E., “Further Evaluation of Anglican Baptism as a Form of Birth Registration Through Cross-Matching Census, Parish and Civil Registration Data” (Unpublished paper, London, 1974).Google Scholar
Razzell, P. E., The Conquest of Smallpox (Firle, England, 1978).Google Scholar
Registrar-General's Ninth Annual Report, Appendix (Parliamentary Papers 1849, 21).Google Scholar
Registrar-General's Twenty-First Annual Report (Parliamentary Papers, 1860, 29).Google Scholar
Registrar-General's Fifty-Eighth Annual Report (Parliamentary Papers, 1897, 21).Google Scholar
Schofield, R. S., “Age-Specific Mobility in the Eighteenth-Century Rural English Parish,” Annales de Démographie Historique (1970), pp. 261–74.Google Scholar
Schofield, R. S., “Traffic in Corpses: Some Evidence from Banning, Kent, 1788–1812,” Local Population Studies, 33 (Autumn 1984), pp. 49–53.Google Scholar
Schofield, R. S., “Through a Glass Darkly: The Population History of England as an Experiment in History,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 15 (Spring 1985), pp. 571–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedgwick, Romney, ed., The House of Commons 1715–1754 London, 1970).Google Scholar
Smith, S. A., Extracts from (302) Wills Proved in P.C.C. Relating to the Parishes of Shute and Colyton (London, 1901).Google Scholar
Souden, David, Pre-Industrial English Local Migration Fields Ph.D. diss., University of Cambridge, 1981).Google Scholar
Steel, D. J., General Sources of Births, Marriages and Deaths Before 1837 (National Index of Parish Registers, Vol. 1, 1976).Google Scholar
Tate, W. E., The Parish Chest (Chichester, England, 1983).Google Scholar
The British State Tontine of 1693: List of Nominees (London, British Library, Ref. 514.k.2).Google Scholar
Thorne, R. G., ed., The House of Commons 1790–1820 (London, 1986).Google Scholar
Vann, Richard, and Eversley, David, Friends in Life and Death Cambridge, 1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willis, Arthur J., ed., Canterbury Marriage Licenses (Canterbury, 1967, 1969, 1971).Google Scholar
Wilson, Francesca, Strange Island (London, 1955).Google Scholar
Wright, Lawrence, Clean and Decent (London, 1960).Google Scholar
Wrigley, E. A., “Mortality in Pre-Industrial England: The Example of Colyton, Devon, over Three Centuries,” Daedalus, 97 (Spring 1968), pp. 546–80.Google ScholarPubMed
Wrigley, E. A., “Baptism Coverage in Early Nineteenth Century England: The Colyton Area,” Population Studies, 29 (07 1975), pp. 299–316.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wrigley, E. A., and Schofield, R. S., “English Population History from Family Reconstitution: Summary Results 1600–1799,” Population Studies, 37 (07 1983), pp. 157–84.Google ScholarPubMed
Wrigley, E. A., and Schofield, R. S., The Population History of England, 1541–1871 (London, 1989).Google Scholar