L’Acadie

The electoral comté de l’Acadie was established by the reforms of 5 October 1829 and covered a vast area extending 32 kilometres along the western bank of the Richelieu and varied between 13 and 25 kilometres wide. To the south it bordered the United States and was adjacent to the comté de Chambly to the north-east. The comté was bordered to the west by the seigneurie de Beauharnois[1] and the township of Hemmingford. [2] In the 1830s, it contained six seigneuries and a small area held in frankpledge and common soccage. The comté included the parishes of Saint-Cyprien, Saint-Valentin and Saint-Édouard and parts of the parishes of Sainte-Marguerite-de-Blairfindie, Saint-Rémi and Saint-Philippe. Colonised following the War of American Independence, in the decades before the Rebellions, its socio-economic structure was dominated by the agricultural sector and showed little economic diversification. [3]

The comté, covered in place by marshes, was under-developed by Lower Canadian standards; it seems that the difficult conditions for colonists partly explain this situation. [4] The region showed uneven development between different seigneuries and between different farmers on the same fief. However, Acadie had several prosperous farmers among its 11,419 residents in 1831 even if conditions for the majority were poor. [5] Its seigneurs vigorously exploited their habitants and placed heavy economic burdens on both owners of land and tenant farmers.[6] Habitant debt was a chronic problem throughout the region.[7] The seigneurs undoubtedly contributed to levels of distress in Acadie and the seigneurial question became a political issue of major importance during the 1830s. Greer argues that evidence of the worsening relationship between the habitants and the seigneurs in Acadie can be found in the seven anti-seigneurial petitions its deputies presented to the Assembly between 1831 and 1836.[8] Divided between its Catholic French Canadian majority (72.3% heads of household in 1831) and a strong anglophone minority, the comté saw friction between the two linguistic groups. [9] This provided a basis for the growing radicalism of Patriotes and, in many respects the experience of Acadie was typical of the situation in the Montreal district.[10]

The seigneuries in Acadie, however, demonstrate the problem of trying to make generalisations about the area. The seigneuries of De Léry[11] and Lacolle[12], although both were owned by William Penderleath Christie, illustrate the problem. [13] De Léry was a strong settlement with 5,437 habitants in 1831, almost all French Canadian Catholics while Lacolle was less populated with only 2,150 habitants of whom 63% were Anglo-Protestants. The two seigneuries were the only ones in Acadie to have been granted under the French regime and to be managed by the agent William McGinnis.[14] The loyalist American settlers at Lacolle experienced relatively prosperous farming and paid the highest seigneurial royalties in Lower Canada during the 1830s. De Léry, by contrast, was not as prosperous and in 1835, several habitants were dispossessed because of arrears.[15] The remaining four seigneuries were, until 1820, part of the canton of Sherrington but they were included in Acadie as a government solution to litigation between the seigneur of Lasalle and the rightful owners of the canton. In 1837, the seigneurie of Saint-Georges (2,198 habitants largely French Canadian in 1831) was the property of seigneur François Languedoc, deputy of the comté from 1831 to 1834. The seigneuries of Twaite (346 habitants largely French Catholics) and Saint-James (502 habitants of varied ethnic origins) had been held since 1825 by John Boston, a Montreal lawyer and an important loyalist. Finally the seigneurie of Saint-Normand (437 habitants, more than 90% French Catholics) had been the fief of Collin McCallum since 1835. It appears that the level of both droits d’entrée and seigneurial dues were high across all of the seigneuries in Acadie.[16]

With 398 identified Patriotes, the comté de l’Acadie was strongly mobilised, particularly in the parish of Saint-Cyprien and in the village of Napierville,[17] areas with a strong French Canadian petite bourgeoisie who played a central role in the radical movement. [18] Based on the list of 2,100 Patriote names compiled by Bernard, Patriote support in the comté consisted largely of habitants (91% for the comté as a whole but higher in Saint-Valentin and Lacolle with 97% and 96% respectively. Anglophones were significantly under-represented in the Patriote organisation in the comté. Cyrille-Hector-Olivier Côté[19], a young doctor from Napierville and Lucien Gagnon[20], a 42 year old prosperous peasant from Pointe-à-la-Mule led the movement in Acadie. Côté had not only been deputy for Acadie since 1834 at the age of twenty four, but played a leading part in the planning of the rebellions in 1837 and 1838 and acted as treasurer and general of the camp at Napierville. Under the pseudonym of ‘Agricola’, he took a radical position on seigneurial tenure.[21] Lucien Gagnon, famous for his violent temper, was less important than Côté although he was primarily responsible for mobilising Pointe-à-la-Mule and was an important recruiter for the Frères Chasseurs.[22]

The comté de l’Acadie was an important area of Patriote activity in both 1837 and 1838 and saw considerable military action. On 12 July 1837, an anti-coercive assembly took place at Napierville, the most important Patriote demonstration in the comté during 1837, according to La Minerve attended by 4,000 people.[23] The Patriote assembly was attended by Papineau, O’Callaghan, T.S. Brown, Côté, Gagnon and Merritt Hotchkiss[24] who like Côté was deputy for the comté and passed twenty resolution including one especially critical of the seigneurial system. On 24 July, there was also a loyalist meeting organised in the village of Napierville by Joseph Brisset and the seigneurs François Languedoc and John Boston.[25]

Two months later on 10 September 1837, a further Patriote assembly at Napierville denounced the dismissal of magistrates and militia officers by the colonial government and demanded that pressure should be exerted on loyalists to resign their posts.[26] Following this assembly and the reorganisation of the local militia, there were several charivaris, orchestrated by Côté, against a number of loyalists including Dudley Flowers[27], a lieutenant in the militia, curé Amiot of Napierville and Doctor Timoléon Quesnel, a local magistrate.[28] A delegation from Acadie, which only arrived at the last minute, attended the assembly at St-Charles on 23 October 1837 where Côté’s call to arms caused consternation among the more moderate Patriotes.[29]

The village of Pointe-à-la-Mule acted as the centre for Patriote initiatives in Acadie led by Gagnon, Côté and François Paradis.[30] Operations were largely aimed at intimidating and disarming loyalists and Captain George Phillpotts in a report to Colborne described the situation in Acadie as terrible. [31] An arrest warrant was delivered to Côté’s address. By mid-November, Pointe-à-la-Mule had become the site of an armed camp from where, led by François Nicolas and Amable Daunais, an attack on the soldiers at St-Jean was planned for late November. However, their force was too small and their contribution to the rebellion was to execute Joseph Chartrand, a loyalist volunteer from St-Jean was visiting the parish of L’Acadie and was accused of being a government spy. Tried by court-martial in the local schoolhouse, he was found guilty, tied to a tree and shot.

Côté and Gagnon had been among the first Patriote leaders to cross into Vermont on 20 November in search of weapons where they had been joined at Swanton by other fugitives but also welcomed by French Canadians already settled there. [32] Gagnon was soon back across the border gathering men and weapons and made his way back to Swanton with 66 recruits. With Patriotes already there and a few Vermonters, his force numbered around 200 men. On the evening of 6 December, about 84 Patriotes carrying substantial munitions moved across the border towards the town of St-Césaire where rumour placed Wolfred Nelson establishing a new camp. Gagnon had already succeeded in alarming Loyalists in the whole region and Colborne immediately dispatched troops and cannons to St-Armand. However, before his troops reached the border, the Patriotes were ambushed by 300 Missisquoi Volunteers led by Captain Oran J. Kemp at Moore’s Corner, a little crossroads between St-Armand and Philipsburgh.[33] During the twenty minute skirmish, five Patriotes including Bouchette were captured and one killed and the rest retreated across the border. This reverse put an end to the rebellion in 1837 and in February 1838 loyalist forces in the area were reinforced when 300 Glengarry Volunteers occupied Napierville.[34]

The comté de l’Acadie played a role in Robert Nelson’s attempt to invade Lower Canada from the United States in November 1838. At the head of French Canadian refugees and American volunteers, he planned to invade southern Lower Canada and then to march on Montreal. The majority of the Chasseurs gathered at Napierville on 4 November for the most important Patriote gathering during the rebellions. [35] Also, depending on the estimates, between 1,500 and 5,000 Chasseurs gathered in the parish of Saint-Cyprien. They were guided by a large flag with two blue stars hanging from the maypole of a local militia captain.[36] A hundred loyalists were imprisoned, including militia Captains C. Fortin and P. Gamelin and merchants T. Thompson, W. Wilson, L. Odell and Orange Tyler until freed by Colborne’s troops on 10 November.

Around midnight on 3 November, Robert Nelson and a dozen supporters including Charles Hindenlang and another called Touvrey, both soldiers of fortune who had served in the French army sailed northwards on Lake Champlain to the Canadian border. [37] Nelson had some $20,000 in cash, the remnants of the Chasseurs treasury, a six-pounder cannon and 250 rifles and ammunition. Both the force and the supplies were less than he expected. There had already been a decline in active American support for the movement because of the increased patrols on both sides of the border. Nelson was unperturbed expecting that the regulars garrisoned in Montreal would be drawn away by an invasion of the upper province. He seems to have learned little from the previous February. Much like De Lorimier at Beauharnois, rebel successes were in people’s minds rather than on the battlefield, propaganda to persuade hesitant Hunters south of the border to commit themselves to action.

Nelson landed at Vitman’s Quay, three miles north of the border and twenty miles from Napierville, about 1.00 am on 4 November to a silent welcome. There was no Patriote army but there were large numbers of loyalist volunteers at Hemmingford, fifteen miles to the west, at Lacolle six miles north and at Odelltown three miles away and regulars were stationed at Ile-aux-Noix. With difficulties, the small party hid the armaments and headed north arriving at Napierville about 9.00 am where Côté was waiting with nearly 3,000 men though only a tenth had arms. Nelson again proclaimed the independence of Lower Canada, Côté was made commander-in-chief and Hindenlang organised the companies and battalions. By the morning of 5 November, patrols were scouring the country for recruits and food and later that day, Hindenlang’s organisation complete, the army marched by Nelson in grand review. The following night, a force of 500 under the command of Côté, Gagnon, Touvrey and a Polish colonel Oklowski headed south towards Vitman’s Quay to retrieve Nelson’s guns. It swung to the west of Lacolle to avoid volunteers but between Lacolle and their destination blundered into a small volunteer force that was dispersed with hardly a dozen shots. This was sufficient to rouse the loyalist forces in Lacolle, the Lacolle Frontier Volunteers but the Patriotes continued to Vitman’s Quay to find the arms intact. With volunteers converging from Hemmingford in the west, from Lacolle and from the east across the Richelieu, the Patriotes tried to force their way through to Napierville. Yet, within fifteen minutes, they had scattered leaving eleven dead and the weapons and Côté and almost the entire Chasseur force headed south towards the border. By the morning of Wednesday 7 November, a few stragglers made their way back to Napierville and news quickly spread through the camp. By the evening, of the 3,000 who had gathered there, only 1,200 remained.

This defeat led Nelson, on Thursday 8 November to decide to try to retrieve the weapons presumably still in Lacolle and at 9.00 am, led his men south. By dusk, his force had fallen to 600 men and he ordered a night encampment and then rode off into the darkness, he later argued, to make his own reconnaissance. Hindenlang had sent out armed patrols and one apprehended Nelson who was dragged back to the camp. Nelson protested that he had not been making for the border but his officers were hard to convince and the camp was in uproar. A semi-trial followed at which he was finally able to allay Patriote suspicions of betrayal and on the morning of Friday 9 November, the army continued its march south. Hindenlang commanded the centre, the left surrounded Nelson and the right spread out through the fields along the road. However, at Odelltown, 200 loyalist volunteers were waiting with the Patriote cannon standing in front of the church. After two hours of indecisive fighting, the loyalists, now reinforced, surged forward to push the Patriotes out of the cluster of barns and buildings round the church and after five more sorties in the next hour the remaining Patriotes were exhausted and low on ammunition. Hindenlang moved to the left to consult Nelson, but he had not been seen for two hours. With volunteers arriving from Hemmingford and from Clarenceville across the Richelieu, the last of the Patriotes fled leaving fifty dead and as many wounded. By dusk, Nelson, who had slipped away from the battle, was safely across the border but Hindenlang was captured and taken north to Montreal. The battle of Odelltown was the decisive battle of the rebellion. With the rout of the Chasseur forces and Nelson’s flight across the border, the rebellion had failed. [38]

Repeating what occurred in 1837, before Colborne arrived at Napierville the following day, Pierre-Remi Narbonne[39] surrendered to Lewis Odell.[40] The actions of loyalists and regular troops in 1838, unlike the previous year, were repressive and brutal in Acadie. In Napierville, for example, eighty houses were destroyed and in the parish of Saint-Cyprien 170 Patriotes were arrested. This did not represent the end of the Patriote agitation and secret assemblies took place at Pointe-à-la-Mule in the spring of 1839 and the seigneurie of Lacolle was the target of punitive incursions from March 1839 until June 1843. The comté de l’Acadie is important in trying to understand the character of rebellion in 1837 and 1838. Its particular socio-economic structure, the radicalism of its habitants and Patriote leaders as well as the importance of the military operations that occurred there placed Acadie at the centre of the Lower Canadian political crisis of the 1830s. [41]

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[1] Bouchette, Joseph, Description topographique du Canada 1815, (Éditions Élysée), 1978, pp. 111-114 on the seigneurie de Beauharnois.

[2] Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, 1986, p. 42; Courville, Serge, dir., Paroisse et municipalité de la région de Montréal au XIXe siècle (1825-1861), Répertoire documentaire et cartographique, (PUL), 1988, p. 51; Laporte, Gilles, Patriotes et Loyaux: Leadership régional et mobilisation politique en 1837 et 1838, (Septentrion), 2004, pp. 207-225.

[3] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 54, 62.

[4] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 63, 64.

[5] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 63, 64; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 43.

[6] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 43.

[7] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, p. 77.

[8] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 243; ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 79, 121, 124, 130.

[9] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 146.

[10] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, p. 142; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 43, 55

[11] Ibid, Bouchette, Joseph, Description topographique du Canada 1815, p. 175.

[12] Ibid, Bouchette, Joseph, Description topographique du Canada 1815, pp. 178-180.

[13] Ibid, Noel, Françoise, The Christie Seigneuries: Estate Management and Settlement in the Upper Richelieu Valley, 1760-1854. See also, DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 184-186.

[14] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 44 -46; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 43.

[15] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 44.

[16] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 46-50; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 44.

[17] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 46-50; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 85.

[18] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Rebellions de 1837-1838: Les Patriotes dans La Memoire Collective et Chez Les Historiens, p. 297.

[19] DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 208-211; Messier, pp. 118-119.

[20] DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 333-335; Messier, pp. 199-200.

[21] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 249.

[22] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 46-50; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, pp. 90-91.

[23] Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, (VLB), 1987, pp. 135-143.

[24] Messier, p. 240.

[25] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, p. 156; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, pp. 254-255. Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 148-152.

[26] Ibid, Bernard, Jean-Paul, Assemblées publiques, résolutions et déclarations de 1837-1838, pp. 194-196.

[27] On Flowers, see DCB, Vol. 7, p. 239.

[28] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 158-159; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, pp. 213, 219, 222, 224, 242.

[29] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, p. 89.

[30] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 158-159; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 161.

[31] Senior, Elinor Kyte, Redcoats & Patriotes: The Rebellions in Lower Canada 1837-38, (Canada’s Wings Inc), 1985, p. 79.

[32] Bernard, Jean-Paul, ‘Vermonters and the Lower Canadian rebellions of 1837-1838’, Vermont History, Vol. 58, (1990), pp. 250-263.

[33] Bouchette, Robert-S.-M., Mémoires de Robert-S.-M. Bouchette 1804-1840, originally published in the Revue Canadienne, republished, Montreal, (1903), pp. 41-44, gives a participant’s account of Moore’s Corner. ‘Robert-Shire-Milnes Bouchette’, DCB, Vol. 10, pp. 77-78. Ibid, Senior, Elinor Kyte, Redcoats & Patriotes: The Rebellions in Lower Canada 1837-38, pp. 144, 154.

[34] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 158-159; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 161.

[35] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 158-159; ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 168.

[36] Ibid, Greer, Allan, The patriots and the people, p. 305.

[37] ‘Charles Hindenlang’, DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 411-412.

[38] Senior, Elinor Kyte, ‘The battles of Lacolle and Odeltown, 1838’, Journal annuel de la société historique de la vallée de la Chateauguay/Chateauguay valley historical society annual journal, Vol. 13, (1980), pp. 13-20.

[39] See DCB, Vol. 7, pp. 412, 484-485, 514; Messier, pp. 350-351.

[40] Ibid, Gendron, Mario, Tenure seigneuriale et mouvement patriote: le cas du comté de l’Acadie, mémoire présenté à l’Université du Québec à Montréal comme exigence partielle de la maîtrise en histoire, pp. 177, 178. Lieutenant-Colonel Lewis Odell (1782-1843) commanded the 2^nd Battalion Arcadian Militia and was in the Battle of Odelltown, 9 November, 1838.

[41] The Union Act of 1840, section 19 stated that ‘the said Counties of L’Acadie and Laprairie shall be united into and form one county to be called the County of Huntingdon...’

Fertility

Fertility levels had already stabilised by the 1830s.[1] The lower marriage age that had contributed to the increased natural growth of the early industrial revolution gave way after the depressed 1820s and 1830s to later marriage, a slight increase in the proportion of women who never married and lower birth rates of 35-36 per thousand women in the 1840s compared with over 40 per thousand around 1800.[2]

Sex education was as contentious then as it is today and for young girls was usually assigned to their mothers. However, this was increasingly felt to be an unsatisfactory approach and by the 1890s, there was considerable support for girls being taught ‘some of the necessary physical facts’. The content of that education remained a difficult question. The Reverend Edward Lyttleton was quite clear in 1900 that more sex education was needed but that girls required less information than boys. He argued,

...for most girls it would be enough for the parent to advise that the seed of life is entrusted by God to the father in a very wonderful way, and that after marriage he is allowed to give it to his wife. [3]

The problem was that sex education was inextricably linked to different views about female sexual character and the religious emphasis on moral restraint. There were certain limitations on marriage. First, new appliance methods of birth control (the rubber condom, Dutch cap and douche) were invented, marketed and adopted during the last decades of the nineteenth century but they were rather expensive for general use until after 1914. Since marital fertility was reduced, it must be assumed that some combination of sexual abstinence, coitus interruptus, accurate use of the safe period and induced abortion were the most likely means by which family limitation was brought about. [4]

Nineteenth and early-twentieth century writings on birth control provide a revealing source for attitudes towards female sexuality and social roles. Advocates of birth control were seen as supporters of atheism, depravity and social unrest especially by organised religion and the medical profession. Effective birth control shattered the link between sexuality and reproduction and created the real possibility of greater sexual freedom and control for women as well as helping to reduce family size. Michael Ryan, an evangelical physician argued in 1837,

None can deny that, if young women in general were absolved from the fear of consequences, the great majority of them…would rarely preserve their chastity. [5]

Chastity according to Ryan was a consequence of fear of pregnancy. Birth control brought the possibility of unrestrained female sexuality and with it the breakdown of sexual control and social order. Medical opposition to birth control was expressed in a mixture of warnings about the injurious results for health and the associated moral decline. The Lancet, virulent in its condemnation of contraception commented in 1869

A woman on whom her husband practises what is euphemistically called ‘preventative copulation’, is, in the first place necessarily brought into the condition of mind of a prostitute… [6]

There was, however, an unresolved problem in medical thinking grounded in class. Self-denial was recommended as fertility control. However, the working-class could not be expected to show restraint such was ‘the natural predominance of the animal life in the illiterate.’ [7] Doctors were generally unwilling to recommend contraception but also assumed that there was little restraint in working-class sexuality. This reinforced the widespread anxiety in the assumed sexual depravity and unrestrained breeding of the poor. Medical conservatism was illustrated when H.A. Allbutt was struck off the medical register for publicising birth-control methods in his popular The Wife’s Handbook in 1887. There were, however, strong public advocates of birth control and of the right of women to choose whether and when to have children. Francis Place and Richard Carlisle popularised methods of contraception in the 1820s. The publicity surrounding the Bradlaugh-Besant trial in 1876 was a major boost to the birth-control cause and opponents in the middle and upper classes felt increasingly pressure from what they called ‘the evil in our midst’.

Abortion was probably the most important female initiative in family limitation in this period, particularly among the very poor. In the 1890s and early 1900s, the British Medical Journal traced the diffusion of abortion involving the use of lead plaster from Leicester to Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield and though some of the larger Yorkshire towns. By 1914, abortion was common in 26 out of the 104 registration districts north of the Humber. Among northern textile workers, poverty and the need to work probably played the most important part in the decision to seek an abortion, but it is also important to recognise that working-class women saw abortion as a natural and permissible strategy. Withdrawal was undoubtedly the main method by which the decline in working-class fertility was achieved. One of the main reasons for this was the cost of sheaths: 2/- to 3/- for a dozen when the average weekly wage for labourers did not rise above 20/- a week. Withdrawal was a cheaper, if less reliable, method. It also raises the issue of women’s sexual dependency and that some degree of male co-operation was necessary.

Secondly, despite religious and cultural beliefs that delayed the adoption of family limitation in some sectors of society, increasing secularisation caused barriers to be broken down. The argument that family limitation represented the diffusion of birth control from the professional and upper middle-classes (the maid learning from her mistress) to the lower classes does not stand up to close examination. Among the first to limit family size were ‘skilled’ non-manual and commercial workers such as shopkeepers, and clerks who were also prominent among cautious late-marriers. There were considerable differences in marital fertility between different types of area in 1891. Relatively low birth rates in textile districts and residential towns, with large numbers of single women in domestic service and middle-class households, contrasts with earlier and more universal marriages with larger families among iron and steel-making and coal-mining communities where the abundant use of high-paid boys and young men in the mines reduced incentives to limit families, while fewer opportunities for female employment and the stereotyping of women meant that girls married earlier.[8]

Thirdly, social factors such as the availability of marriage partners in areas of high emigration or persistent out-migration throughout rural England limited marriage levels and affected births.[9] Limitations on marriage in certain occupational groups, for example, living-in domestic servants and farm labourers, also affected local fertility patterns.[10] The general increase in the mean age of marriage to about 25.8 years for women and some two years higher for men by 1850, and further increased from the 1870s, also reflected changing economic circumstances and the desire for more spending power and independence. [11] There were considerable differences between industrial areas, where there were more and earlier marriages and rural areas where marriages tended to be later and between different social classes. Urban labourers and miners married young; prudent white-collar workers, shopkeepers and the middle-class postponed marriage until they felt able to afford it. Many single children who moved to the city, whether as a domestic servant or an industrial or office worker often lived for a time in lodgings before taking on family responsibilities. Hence the large number of households with lodgers reflected in census enumerators’ books.

Fourthly, economic incentives to limiting the number and spacing of births were strong where women were prominent in the workforce. In the mills of Lancashire or West Yorkshire or in the Potteries women might delay having children or have a smaller family and return to work as soon as possible. Increasing numbers of women involved in shop and, from the 1890s, office work might also have deferred marriage and limited their families. Among the middle-class, the increasing expense of raising children with rising costs for domestic servants and school fees, as well as a growing desire for greater freedom and more money to spend on luxuries and entertainment, were obvious incentives to having fewer children. Even within geographical areas there were often significant differences in rates of marriage. In London, there was a very close relationship between the proportion of women married and the percentage of women employed in domestic service. In Hampstead the proportion married was 0.274 while in Poplar, in the East End, it was 0.638 in 1861 and little had changed by 1891.

As child mortality gradually declined from the 1860s, there was less need for large families and more incentive to put space between births so as to avoid excessive pressure on mothers and households. The average family size fell from 6.2 children in the 1860s, to 4.1 for those marrying in the 1890s and to 2.8 for the 1911-marriage cohort. The rapid decline in the average age at which the mother’s last child was born, from age 41 to 34 over this period is a clear reflection of deliberate spacing and limitation of births within marriage. In the nineteenth century marriage set the bounds for sexual activity. This does not mean that illegitimacy, bridal pregnancy, prostitution and adultery were uncommon, especially in certain localities, but it does give marriage a direct demographic importance that is all but lost today. Illegitimacy or bastardy existed in the nineteenth century and in East Anglia and eastern England in general was sufficiently large for one to begin to doubt the importance of marriage as a social and legal event.[12] But elsewhere in England, and especially off the coalfields, non-marital fertility was low enough in 1851 at only 5% or 6% of births were illegitimate for the institution of marriage still to be accepted as having particular importance as a regulator of fertility rates. By 1911, only 4% of all births were illegitimate in England and Wales. It can be asked whether the forces that resulted in decline in marital fertility also led to the reduction of non-marital fertility. [13]

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[1] Wrigley, E.A., ‘Explaining the rise in marital fertility in England in the “long” eighteenth century’, Economic History Review, Vol. 51, (1998), pp. 435-464.

[2] Soloway, R.A., Demography and Degeneration, (University of North Carolina Press), 1990 and Szreter, Simon, Fertility, class and gender in Britain 1860-1940, (Cambridge University Press), 1996 deal with the controversial question of declining fertility in contrasting ways. Woods, R. and Smith, C. W., ‘The decline of marital fertility in the late nineteenth century: the case of England and Wales’, Population Studies, Vol. 37, (1983), pp. 207-225 and Woods, R., ‘Social class variations in the decline of marital fertility in late 19^th century London’, Geografiska Annaler, Vol. 66, (1984), pp. 29-38 are important papers. Gillis, J.R. et al., (eds.), The European Experience of Declining Fertility: A Quiet Revolution, 1850-1970, (Blackwell), 1992 and Lestheaghe, R. and Wilson, C., ‘Modes of Production, Secularization and the Pace of the Fertility Decline in Western Europe 1870-1930’, in Coale, A.J. and Watkins, S.C., (eds.), The Decline of Fertility in Europe, (Princeton University Press), 1986, pp. 262-291 provide a European perspective..

[3] Lyttleton, Edward, The Training of the Young in the Laws of Sex, (Longman, Green), 1900, p. 85.

[4] Banks, J.A., Feminism and Family Planning in Victorian England, (Liverpool University Press), 1964, McLaren, A., Birth Control in Nineteenth-Century England, (Croom Helm), 1977 and Soloway, R.A., Birth Control and the Population Question in England 1877-1930, (University of North Carolina Press), 1982 provide a useful introduction to a vexed subject.

[5] Ryan, Michael, The Philosophy of Marriage, in its social, moral and physical relations: With an Account of the Diseases of the Genito-urinary Organs, which Impair Or Destroy the Reproductive Function, and Induce a Variety of Complaints: with the Physiology of Generation in the Vegetable and Animal Kingdoms..., (John Churchill), 1837, p. 12.

[6] ‘Checks on Population’, The Lancet, 10 April 1869, p. 500.

[7] Ibid, ‘Checks on Population’, p. 500.

[8] Williams, N. and Galley, C., ‘Urban-rural Differentials in Infant Mortality in Victorian Britain’, Population Studies, Vol. 49, (1995), pp. 401-420 and Williams, N. and Mooney, G., ‘Infant mortality in an “age of great cities”: London and the English provincial cities compared, c.1840-1910’, Change and Continuity, Vol. 9, (1994), pp. 185-212.

[9] Anderson M. & D.J. Morse, ‘High Fertility, High Emigration, Low Nuptiality: Scotland’s Demographic Experience, 1861-1914’, Population Studies, Vol. 47, (1993), pp. 5-25, 319-343.

[10] Seccombe, W., ‘Starting to Stop: Working Class Fertility Decline in Britain’, Past and Present, Vol. 126, (1990), pp. 151-180 and debate with R. Woods, Past and Present, Vol. 134, (1992), pp. 200-211. See also Seccombe, W., Weathering the storm: working-class families from the industrial revolution to the fertility decline, (Verso), 1993.

[11] Lewis, Jane, (ed.), Labour and Love: Women’s experience of home and family 1850-1940, (Basil Blackwell), 1986 is a good starting-point on the experience of home and family. Lane, Penny, Victorian Families in Fact and Fiction, (Macmillan), 1997 provides a novel analysis of the issues. O’Day, Rosemary, The Family and Family Relationships 1500-1900, (Macmillan), 1995 takes a longer perspective. Banks, J.A., Victorian Value: Secularism and the Size of Families, (Routledge), 1981 is concerned with the implications of changing gender-ratios in the late nineteenth century and continues the argument about birth control. Gillis, J.R., For Better, For Worse; British marriages, 1600 to the present, (Oxford University Press), 1985, takes a long perspective on marriage while Dyhouse, Carol, Feminism and the Family in England 1880-1939, (Cambridge University Press), 1991 looks at the politics of the family.

[12] Levene, Alysa, Williams, Samantha and Nutt, Thomas, (eds.), Illegitimacy in Britain, 1700-1920, (Palgrave), 2005 contains several relevant papers; see also Crafts, N.F.R., ‘Illegitimacy in England and Wales in 1911’, Population Studies, Vol. 36, (1982), pp. 327-331.

[13] Anderson M. ‘Fertility Decline in Scotland, England and Wales and Ireland: Comparisons from the 1911 Census of Fertility, Population Studies, Vol. 52, (1998), pp. 1-20.

Mortality

Levels of mortality changed little between the 1820s and the 1870s after which they moved hesitantly downwards to the turn of the century. There were three major factors influencing health and mortality. First, socio-economic forces such as rising real wages and improved living standards and diet offered some improvement though not to the urban poor. Secondly, bio-medical factors offered few major breakthroughs in curative medicine before the late nineteenth century despite better hospital provision and improved treatment and containment of epidemic diseases especially those of childhood such as scarlet fever, diphtheria and measles. Finally, environmental conditions put great pressure on the larger towns in which an increasing proportion of the population lived but improvement was restricted. Only with effective legislation to improve sanitation, water supply and housing and to apply effective measures of preventive medicine, especially the control of epidemic diseases were these gradually eliminated.[1] Medical science may have changed slowly but improving public and private medicine and, from 1850 onwards, more and better-run hospitals improved health and life expectancy, especially among the middle-classes.[2] The introduction of school medical services in the 1900s helped through regular eye, dental and hair inspections since head lice were a universal scourge in poorer areas.[3]

While most epidemic diseases resisted cure, prevention and treatment could limit their impact. During the epidemic years of 1831-1832, 1847-1849 and in the 1860s average mortality of about 22 per thousand rose to 24-25 per thousand. Excess mortality in large cities and industrial areas was reflected in the contrast, identified by William Farr, between the ‘Healthy Districts’ (rural and suburban areas) that had an average life expectancy at birth of 51.5 years in the late 1830, and the ‘Poor Districts’ (unhealthy inner cities and many industrial areas) where it was less than 29. This gap narrowed from the 1880s when it began a slow fall to 47.5 and 66.3 years for County Boroughs and Rural Districts respectively in 1911. The close link between high population density, overcrowding and death rates, especially among infants and children underlined the continuing important of environmental and socio-economic factors in health and mortality.

The wide discrepancies in life expectancy and the principal reason for failing to improve this until after 1890 was high levels of infant mortality. Child deaths began to decline erratically from 1830 and more steadily from the 1860s; only from 1900 was there a parallel fall in infant mortality. In late nineteenth century England between 15% and 20% of deaths occurred to those under the age of one year with about 25% for those under five years. Infant mortality in the unhealthiest cities was more than double than in healthy rural areas and twice that of suburban areas. In Glasgow, intra-urban mortality in the 1870s ranged from 21 to 46 per thousand with even wider discrepancies between wards of 69 to 166 per thousand. The mortality of infants born to unmarried mothers was substantially higher than that of legitimate children and roughly one third of all infant deaths occurred during the first month of life.[4]

Over three-quarters of the fall in mortality between 1848 and 1901 was brought about by a decline in diseases such as scarlet fever, diphtheria and measles and those caused by infected water and food such as typhoid, cholera and, most significantly, dysentery and diarrhoea, a major cause of child deaths in summer months. There was also considerable improvement in the prevention of respiratory tuberculosis thanks to better housing, nutrition and nursing. There was no improvement of other bronchial deaths, including pneumonia and influenza, to which growing air pollution undoubtedly contributed. Even in the countryside substantial differences in mortality reflected environmental and nutritional contrasts. In the Fens, for example, damp and humid summer heat tainted food and increased mortality in areas where babies were weaned young.  Where children were breast fed and/or had access to fresh milk, as in many areas of upland England infant mortality was often below average.

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[1] Woods, Robert and Shelton, Nicola, An atlas of Victorian mortality, (Liverpool University Press), 1997 provides a graphic representation. Winter, J.M., ‘The Decline of Mortality in Britain, 1870-1950’, in ibid, Barker, T. and Drake, M., (eds.), Population and Society in Britain, pp. 101-120 and Millward, R. and Bell, F.N., ‘Economic Factors in the Decline of Mortality in Late Nineteenth Century Britain’, European Review of Economic History, Vol. 2, (1998), pp. 263-288 consider the evidence.

[2] Hardy, A., Health and Medicine in Britain since 1860, (Longman), 2001 and The Epidemic Streets: Infectious Disease and the Rise of Preventive Medicine 1856-1900, (Oxford University Press), 1993.

[3] Houlbrooke, R., (ed.), Death, Ritual and Bereavement, (Routledge), 1989 contains some useful papers and Barnard, S.M., To Prove I’m not Forgot: Living and Dying in a Victorian City, (Manchester University Press), 1990 provides a specific case study on Victorian attitudes to death. Woods, Robert, ‘Physician, heal thyself: the health and mortality of Victorian doctors’, Social History of Medicine, Vol. 9, (1996), pp. 1-30 looks at the medical profession.

[4] Woods, Robert, ‘On the historical relationship between infant and adult mortality’, Population Studies, Vol. 47, (1993), pp. 195-219 and Children remembered: responses to untimely death in the past, (Liverpool University Press), 2006 and Woods, R., et al., ‘The causes of rapid infant mortality decline in England and Wales, 1861-1921’, Population Studies, Vol. 42, (1988), pp. 343-366 and Vol. 43, (1989), pp. 113-132. See also, Williams N. & Mooney, G., ‘Infant Mortality in an “Age of Great Cities”: London and the English Provincial Cities Compared, c.1840-1910’, Continuity and Change, Vol. 9, (1994), pp. 175-212, Reid, A., ‘Locality or Class? Spatial and Social Differentials in Infant and Child Mortality in England and Wales, 1895-1911’, in Corsini, C.A. & Viazzo, P., (eds.), The Decline of Infant and Child Mortality: The European Experience 1750-1990, (Martinus Nijhoff), 1997, pp. 129-154 and Graham, D., ‘Female Employment and Infant Mortality: Some Evidence from British Towns, 1911, 1931 and 1951’, Continuity and Change, Vol. 9, (1994), pp. 212-246.

Malthus

In 1803, Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) published a second edition of his An Essay on the Principles of Population, a work that had been first published anonymously five years earlier.[1] The main tenets of his argument were radically opposed to contemporary thinking. He drew attention to the consequences of untrammelled population growth, arguing that it would double every twenty-five years and that existing resources would not rise sufficiently to support such growth. Although the ultimate check on population for Malthus appeared to be want of food arising from the different ratios according to which population and food supplies increased, the immediate checks ‘are all resolvable into moral restraint, vice and misery’. Of these, the ‘positive checks’, as Malthus called them, included

...all unwholesome occupations, severe labour and exposure to the seasons, extreme poverty, bad nursing of children, great towns, excesses of all kinds, the whole train of common diseases and epidemics, wars, plague and famine.[2]

The ‘preventive checks’ could largely be equated with ‘restraint from marriage which is not followed by irregular gratifications’, while

...promiscuous intercourse, unnatural passions, violations of the marriage bed and improper arts to conceal the consequences of irregular connections, are preventive checks that clearly come under the head of vice.[3]

In England, Malthus argued, the checks on population were much affected by social class, the opportunities for employment and the physical, especially urban, environment. Self-imposed restraint on marriage operated with ‘considerable force throughout all the classes of the community’. The population model Malthus developed was one in which the rate of demographic growth was influenced by mortality, fertility and net migration. When the rate of population growth begins to rise there will be an increase in the price of food that will reduce the level of real wages. Lower real wages might lead to increased mortality or affect the prospects of marriage that will automatically increase the level of temporary or permanent celibacy. As a result, fertility will fall and the growth of population slow down as it would if mortality were to be increased. This is called a self-regulation or homeostatic system.

There is much in what Malthus wrote that is relevant to the post-1830 period but during the nineteenth century ways were found to escape from the weight of Malthus’ law.[4] First, the association between population growth rates and food prices appears to have been broken even during Malthus’ lifetime. Secondly, while the relationship between mortality and real wages persisted, the latter began a long-term improvement. Mortality was probably reduced as a result, though difference between classes persisted. Improved standards of living were only one of many potential reasons for falling mortality. Thirdly, marital fertility took the place of nuptiality as the principle influence on changes and variations in general levels of fertility. Family limitation came to be widely practised. Finally, the closed system described by Malthus was thrown open to new forms of destabilising influences. Cities grew at the expense of villages and the Empire at the expense of Britain.

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[1] Malthus, T.R., An Essay on the Principle of Population, Or, A View of Its Past and Present Effects on Human Happiness: With an Inquiry Into Our Prospects Respecting the Future Removal Or Mitigation of the Evils which it Occasions, various editions. Winch, Donald, (ed.), An Essay on the Principle of Population, (Cambridge University Press), 1992 is an annotated version of the 1803 edition while Gilbert, Geoffrey (ed.), An Essay on the Principle of Population, (Oxford University Press), provides an accessible copy of the 1798 edition. Winch, D., Malthus, (Oxford University Press), 1987 is a good short discussion.

[2] Ibid, Winch, Donald, (ed.), An Essay on the Principle of Population, p. 23.

[3] Ibid, Winch, Donald, (ed.), An Essay on the Principle of Population, p. 24.

[4] See, Komlos, John, ‘The industrial revolution as the escape from the Malthusian trap’, Journal of European Economic History, Vol. 29, (2000), pp. 307-331 and Thomas, Brinley, ‘Escaping from constraints: the industrial revolution in a Malthusian context’, in Rotberg, R.I. and Rabb, Theodore Kwasnik, (eds.), Population and history: from the traditional to the modern world, (Cambridge University Press), 1986, pp. 169-193.

Why did economic change occur in Britain between 1780 and 1850?

Historians face significant problems in examining the industrial revolution.[1] First, there is the problem of what precisely the ‘industrial revolution’ was. Secondly, its national nature has been questioned. How far was there a British industrial revolution or was economic change essentially local or regional? Thirdly, there is the question of timing. When did the revolution begin? When did it end? Finally, historians increasingly recognise the diversity of economic experiences and the existence of both change and continuity of experience in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The ‘industrial revolution’ is increasingly seen as a metaphor for the changes that took place in the British economy between 1780 and 1850. While it would be perverse to refrain from using a term ‘hallowed by usage’, it is important to recognise that change occurred slowly in most industries and rapidly in a handful. Contemporaries were aware that they were living through a period of change. Robert Southey wrote in 1807

...no kingdom ever experienced so great a change in so short a course of years.[2]

Cotton, iron and coal expanded and the spread of steam power were important but undue emphasis on them neglects the broader economic experiences of Britain. Similarly, the question ‘Why did the industrial revolution take place in Britain rather than France or Germany?’ misses the crucial point that economic change did not occur in Britain as a whole. [3] Growth was regional and industrialisation took place in particular locations like Lancashire, the Central Lowlands of Scotland and South Wales and around Belfast. Explaining the industrial revolution is a very difficult undertaking since economic change had an effect, however small, on all aspects of society. Some circumstances that were present in Britain made change possible and, in that sense, can be said to be causal. Others held back progress but change occurred despite them. [4]

What was ‘economic growth’ in the late eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries and what were its major characteristics? The main indicator of long-term growth is the income the country receives from goods and services or gross domestic product. During the eighteenth century, GDP grew slightly from just under 1% per year to just over it. Between 1800 and 1850, growth remained at over 2% per year. Growth in GDP depends on three things: increases in labour, capital investment and productivity. Growing population accounted for the increase in labour after 1780 and grew at around 1% per year between 1780 and 1800 and 1.4% for the next fifty years. Increased capital investment was also evident after 1780. Between 1780 and 1800, capital investment rose by 1.2% per year. This rose slightly to 1.4% between 1800 and 1830 and, largely because of investment in railways to 2% between 1830 and 1850. Increasing productivity is more difficult to estimate. Statistical information is far from reliable leading to major discrepancies in modern estimates. For example, the production of coal in the late-eighteenth century is estimated to have grown annually at 0.64% or alternatively at 1.13%, twice that speed. The statistics also show only part of the picture and it is very difficult to extrapolate from specific data on specific industries to the economy as a whole. Total figures also blur the important differences between the experience of different industries and regions. It was not until the development of the railways after 1830 that the notion of a British economy, as opposed to localised or regional economies had real meaning. [5]

If it is possible to identify a single cause for the industrial revolution, then a strong case can be made for population increase. Between 1780 and 1850, the population of England and Wales increased from over 7 million to nearly 18 million. This led to mounting demand for goods like food and housing. Nevertheless, the increase in demand for other goods such as more manufactured goods or more efficient means of communication did not necessarily follow from population expansion. The problem is one of timing. When did population growth and economic growth occur and did they correspond? Although historians broadly accept that population grew from the mid-eighteenth century, they do not agree about the economic growth. If population growth stimulated demand, you would expect economic and population growth broadly to coincide. However, they did not. Accelerated economic growth began in the last quarter of the eighteenth century while the maximum rate of population growth on mainland Britain was not achieved until after 1810.

Population began to expand after 1750 and some historians argue that this provided the final ingredient necessary to trigger off industrialisation. Berg and Craft have shown that the origins of higher growth rates went back to the early decades of the century. In this scenario, population growth came after the beginnings of economic growth. [6] The impact of population growth causes problems for historians who argue for economic growth from the 1780s and those who see growth as something that began earlier in the century. It had favourable effects on economic growth in three important respects. First, population growth provided Britain with an abundant and cheap supply of labour.[7] It stimulated investment in industry and agriculture by its effects on increased demand for goods and services. Finally, urbanisation made it profitable to create or improve services. For example, the building of the canal from the Bridgewater coalmines at Worsley to Manchester in the early 1760s took advantage of growing demand for domestic coal that made canal investment cost-effective. The role of population growth in the origins of Britain’s industrial revolution was far from straightforward.

Britain was a relatively wealthy country in the mid-eighteenth century with a well-established system of banking.[8] This enabled people to build up savings and provided them with capital to invest.[9] Between 1750 and 1770, there was growing investment in roads, canals, and buildings and in enclosing land.[10] This process was sustained after 1780 through to the 1850s with continued investment in transport and enclosure and in the expansion of the textile and iron industries, and after 1830 by the development of railways. The annual rate of domestic investment rose from about £13 million in the 1780s to over £40 million by the 1830s. The ratio of gross investment to the gross national product rose from 6% in the 1770s to 12% by the 1790s and it remained at this level until 1850. Widespread capital investment was largely confined to a small, though important part of the economy rising in farming, communications and textiles, especially cotton and in iron and steel. Other areas of the economy were often undercapitalised relative to these industries.

Capital investment in farming was largely on enclosures, drainage and buildings.[11] Landowners ploughed back about 6% of their total income into the land. This rose to about 16% during the French wars when high wheat prices encouraged investment in enclosure. This fell back after 1815 with the onset of depression and did not revive until the 1840s. In the 1780s, a third of all investment was in farming but by 1850, this had fallen to an eighth. By contrast, there was a rapid growth of investment in industry and communications. Annual investment in industry and trade rose from £2 million in the 1780s to £17 million by 1850. Between 1780 and 1830, there was an annual investment of £1.5 million on canals and roads and for the improvement of docks and harbours. These figures were dwarfed by investment in railways that peaked at £15 million per year in the 1840s, some 28% of all investment. The increase in the availability of investment capital allowed economic growth to occur.

Britain was already a well-established trading nation.[12] Colonies were important sources of raw materials as well as markets for manufactured goods.  London was a major centre for the re-export trade. The slave trade played a major role in the development of Liverpool and Bristol and its profits provided an important source of capital for early industrialisation.[13] By the 1780s, the export trade was expanding annually by 2.6%. Cotton production depended on international trade and was responsible for half the increase in the value of exports between 1780 and 1830.[14] Cotton accounted for just over half Britain’s exports by 1830 and three-quarters of all exports were associated with textiles. This represented a narrow trading base and helps to explain why the British economy underwent depression in the 1830s and early 1840s. British factories were over-producing for European and global markets already saturated with textile goods. The result was some changes in the nature of exports with iron growing from 6% in the 1810s to 20% by 1850 and the growing importance of coal.

In the 1780s, Europe was a major market for British goods and this remained the case in 1850. However, there were important changes in the destination of British goods. The United States increasingly became a focus for exports of manufactured goods and for importing raw cotton.[15] This process was helped by the opening up of the Latin American markets in the early nineteenth century.[16] India was a huge market for cotton goods. Similar possibilities existed in the Middle East and South America. Britain increasingly shifted trade towards less developed economies that provided growing imports of tropical products to Britain and other industrialised countries like Germany and France. Overseas trade has been highlighted by some historians as a primary cause of economic growth. The growth of export industries at a faster rate than other industries was closely linked to foreign trade.[17]

To what extent was the growth in trade between 1780 and 1850 central to Britain’s economic development? It stimulated a domestic demand for the products of British industry. For example, in 1767, 16,000 sheep and 14,000 cattle passed through the Birdlip Hill Turnpike in Gloucester en route from south Wales to London. The coastal traffic of coal into London from the north-east rose from one million to three million tons per year between 1720 and 1790.[18] International trade gave access to raw materials that both widened the range and cheapened the products of British industries. It provided purchasing power for countries to buy British goods since trade is a two-way process. Profits from trade were used to finance industrial expansion and agricultural improvement. It was a major cause of the growth of large towns and industrial centres. The role of British trade must, however, be put into perspective. Changes in the pattern of British trade between 1780 and 1850 such as the export or re-export of manufactured goods in return for imports of foodstuffs and raw materials were relatively small and industrial developments from the 1780s consolidated already existing trends. Exports may have helped textiles and iron to expand but they made little impact on the unmodernised, traditional manufacturing sectors.

By 1750, Britain was already a highly mobile society. Travel may have been slow and, on occasions dangerous but it was not uncommon. Within a hundred years, the British landscape was scarred by canals and railways and traversed by improved roads and the movement of goods and people quickened dramatically. Turnpike roads and the emergence of a sophisticated coaching industry, canals with their barges carrying raw materials and the manufactured goods of the industrial revolution, new harbours and the railways were symbolic of ‘progress’ as much as factories and enclosed fields.

From the 1550s, the parish had responsibility for maintaining roads. This may have been adequate for dealing with local roads but the major or trunk roads were not maintained very well. Local people thought that the people who used these roads should pay for their upkeep. The result was the development of turnpike roads, financed by private turnpike trusts, which people were charged a toll to use. Britain’s road system in the mid-eighteenth century was extensive but under-funded. Just over £1 million was spent annually. This was, however, insufficient to maintain the road system necessary to growing trade and manufactures. Turnpike roads, the first established in 1663, grew slowly in the first half of the eighteenth century.  About eight new trusts were established each year. From the 1750s, this went up to about forty a year and from the 1790s, to nearly sixty. By the mid-1830s, there were 1,116 turnpike trusts in England and Wales managing slightly more than a sixth of all roads, some 22,000 miles. Parallel to this organisational development, there were improvements in the quality of road building associated particularly with Thomas Telford and John Loudon Macadam.[19]

What contribution did turnpike and parish roads make to improved communication in Britain between 1780 and 1850? Spending on parish roads did not increase markedly though there was a significant growth in spending by turnpike trusts. This reached a peak of £1.5 million per year in the 1820s. The problem was that improvements to the road system were patchy and dependent on private initiatives. Despite this, there were significant reductions in journey times between the main centres of population. In the 1780s, it took ten days to travel from London to Edinburgh; by the 1830s, 45 hours. This led to a dramatic increase in the number of passengers carried by a rapidly expanding coaching industry. The road system transported all kinds of industrial material and manufactured goods. There was a significant growth of carrier firms after 1780. In London, for example, there were 353 firms in 1790 but 735 in the mid-1820s and a five-fold increase in the number of carriers in Birmingham between 1790 and 1830. These firms were, however, unable to compete with the canals or the railways and concentrated on providing short distance carriage of goods from canals and railway stations to local communities. The major problem facing early industrialists was the cost of carrying heavy, bulky goods like coal or iron ore. The solution was to use water, rivers, coastal transport and from the 1760s, canals.[20]

The first phase of canal development took place in the 1760s and early 1770s beginning with the construction of the Bridgewater canal. The second phase, in the 1790s, has rightly been called ‘canal mania’ with the completion of several important canals and the setting-up of fifty-one new schemes. By 1820, the canal network was largely completed linking all the major centres of industrial production and population. Canals dramatically enhanced the efficiency of the whole economy by making a cheap system of transport available for goods and passengers. The price of raw materials like coal, timber, iron, wood and cotton tumbled. The needs of farming, whether for manure or for access to markets for grain, cheese and butter, were easily satisfied where farmers had access to canals. Canals were a means of overcoming the fuel crisis that threatened to limit industrial growth by making cheap, abundant coal supplies available.[21] The building of canals also created massive employment and spending power at a time when growing industries were looking for mass markets. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of canals to Britain’s industrial development between 1780 and 1830.[22]

From 1830, railways were the epoch-making transport innovation. Between 1830 and 1850, 7,000 miles of track was laid with railway ‘manias’ in the 1830s and between 1844 and 1847 when investment was at its peak. Their economic importance lay in their ability to move both people and goods quickly that no other single mode of transport had previously been able. They offered lower costs and greater speed attracting passengers, mail and high-value goods. Mail went to new railways in six months and coaches running in direct competition lost out. Canals were able, by cutting their rates and improving their services, to continue to carry goods for several years. In 1840, the volume of traffic carried by canal from Liverpool to Manchester was more than twice that carried by railway.

The decline of the coaching industry was, however, rapid. In 1824, about fifty coaches went through Dunstable in Bedfordshire. Pigot’s Directory, 1839 clearly shows the effects of the opening of the London-Birmingham railway the previous year. The number of coaches was greatly reduced and only twelve coaches a day passed though in early 1838. Local carriers fared better and the directory noted that Deacon’s conveyances from The King’s Arms went to and from Leighton Buzzard to meet the trains from London and Birmingham. Dunstable suffered greatly during 1838-1839 from the decline of the coaching industry and the more general slump in the economy. Twenty years later, Charles Lambourn noted that

...the people were panic-struck and dismay was visible on every countenance, the hope of their gains was pain…it was a fearful time…[23]

This was later supported by William Derbyshire

A period of great depression ensued, upon the extinction of the traffic of the road, which continued for some years; but after awhile, the business men of the town, directed their whole attention to the extension and development of the Straw trade, which had existed in Dunstable for more than 200 years, although it had hitherto been carried on to a very limited extent…[24]

His view of the effects of dramatic end of road traffic may well be based on the experiences of his own family but evidence from both Pigot’s Directory and the 1841 census suggest the slump was short-lived.

The Victorians had no hesitation in assuming a direct link between railways and economic growth though historians are today far less convinced. There was increased demand for coal and iron. In the 1840s, 30% of brick production went into railways and between 1830 and 1845, some 740 million bricks were used in railway construction. Towns grew up round established engineering centres at Swindon, Crewe, Rugby and Doncaster. Food could be transported more cheaply and arrive fresher. There is, however, no doubting their social and cultural impact of railways. 64,000 passengers were carried in 1843 rising to 174,000 by 1848 with an increase in the third-class element from 19,000 to 86,000 in the same period. The Great Exhibition of 1851 reinforced this increased mobility of population.[25]

Between 1780 and 1850, great output was achieved by the transport industry, as in manufacturing industry, by applying a rapidly increasing labour force to existing modes of production as well as using new techniques and applying steam-driven machinery. Historians have emphasised the importance of canals and railways that respectively in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in reducing transport costs. However, coastal and river traffic and carriage of goods and people by road remained important and the horse was the main means of transport well beyond 1850.

British society in the eighteenth and nineteenth century was profoundly conservative. How was a society with highly traditional structures able to generate changes in so many areas of economic life? First, by 1780, British society was capitalist in character and organisation. Its aristocracy was remarkably ‘open’, allowing the newly rich and talented to ‘climb’. The most successful merchants, professional and businessmen in each generation were funnelled off into landed society. Success brought wealth and the ultimate proof of success in business was the ability to leave it. In France, where social mobility was discouraged there was political and social discontent and ultimately political revolution. In Britain, where social climbing was not obstructed, there was an industrial revolution.[26]

Secondly, Britain was already a highly market-oriented society.[27] Imports, whether smuggled or not, were quickly moved to market. There were 800 market towns in England and Wales in the 1780s reflecting the intensity of production and the ability of particular areas to specialise in particular products. Domestic goods, both agricultural and manufactured, were bought and sold directly at the network of markets or through middlemen, who acted as a channel between producer and consumer. Until 1830, the key to economic growth was the growing home demand for consumer goods. Growing consumption influenced trade and economic growth. Possessing and using domestic goods enhanced social status or displayed social rank.  Lower food prices after 1780 may well have stimulated a consumer boom: people had more disposable income. There was a dramatic increase in the number of permanent shops in major urban centres and many of the characteristics of modern advertising emerged with circulars, showrooms and elaborate window displays.[28] Changing patterns of consumption created an environment in which manufacturers could exploit known and growing demand.[29]

Finally, entrepreneurial skill and ‘enterprise’ played a major role in the development of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century economy.[30] An ideology approving of bourgeois innovation was crucial and new and its development was a consequence of the social and intellectual foundations established by the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, what Mokyr calls the Industrial Enlightenment, Jack Goldstone the Engineering Culture[31] and Deirdre McCloskey, the Bourgeois Revaluation.[32] Entrepreneurs were responsible for three things. They organised production and brought together capital (their own or others’) and labour. They selected the geographical site for operations, the technologies to be used, bargained for raw materials and found markets for their products. They often combined the roles of financiers, capitalists, work managers, merchants and salesmen. Three main explanations for the place of entrepreneurs in leading economic change have been identified by historians. First, there was a gradual though incomplete change in the ways people viewed social status from one where it was the result of birth to one where it related to what individuals achieved. Status was based more on what you did, less on who you were. This was a reflection of the openness and mobility of British society. [33] Secondly, Nonconformity seems to have been a crucial experience for many of the first-generation entrepreneurs encouraging a set of values outwardly favourable to economic enterprise. Finally, entrepreneurs were able effectively to exploit advances in technology and industrial organisation. Most entrepreneurs were not pioneers of major innovations or inventions but realised how best to utilise them. James Watt would not have been successful but for the entrepreneurial skills of Matthew Boulton. This allowed them to manufacture and market goods effectively within a highly competitive consumer society. Entrepreneurial success was based on such successful transactions, not necessarily on a multi-talented genius who could do it all. British society did not prevent entrepreneurs from using their talents and motivation.[34]

There was no blueprint for the ‘industrial revolution’. Population growth stimulated demand that entrepreneurs were able to satisfy. Developments in transport led to reductions in the cost of production making manufactured goods cheaper. Investment in industry often brought good returns. The state made little attempt to control growth. Foreign trade brought raw materials and profits that could be invested in enterprise. The social structure was adaptable and relatively flexible. Each of these factors helped create an environment in which change could occur.

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[1] On the debate on the nature of the ‘industrial revolution’, Fores, Michael, ‘The Myth of a British Industrial Revolution’, History, Vol. 66, (1981), pp. 181-198, and a vigorous response Musson, A.E., ‘The British Industrial Revolution, History, Vol. 69, (1982), pp. 252-258, can be supplemented with ibid, More, Charles, Understanding the Industrial Revolution, pp. 9-28, 158-173, ibid, King, Steven and Timmins, Geoffrey, Making sense of the Industrial Revolution: English economy and society 1700-1850, pp. 10-66.

[2] Southey, Robert, Letters from England, (Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme), 1808, p. 73.

[3] Crafts, N.F.R., ‘Industrial Revolution in England and France: Some Thoughts on the Question ‘Why was England First?’’ and comment by Rostow, W.W., Economic History Review, Vol. 30, (1977), pp. 429-441 and ‘Economic Growth in France and Britain, 1830-1910: A Review of the Evidence’, Journal of Economic History, Vol. 54, (1984), pp. 49-67.

[4] Wrigley, E.A., Continuity, chance and change: the character of the industrial revolution in England, (Cambridge University Press), 1988 and ibid, Crafts, N.F.R., British economic growth during the industrial revolution, provide an excellent summary of the problems of studying the ‘industrial revolution’.

[5] On the problems of measuring growth see, Berg, M. and Hudson, P., ‘Rehabilitating the industrial revolution’, Economic History Review, Vol. 45, (1992), pp. 24-50, Crafts, N.F.R., ‘British economic growth 1700-1831: a review of the evidence’, Economic History Review, Vol. 36, (1983), pp. 177-199, Crafts, N.F.R. and Harley, C.K., ‘Output growth and the British industrial revolution: a restatement of the Crafts-Harley view’, Economic History Review, Vol. 45, (1992), pp. 703-730, Harley, C.K., ‘British industrialization before 1841: evidence of slower growth during the industrial revolution’, Journal of Economic History, Vol. 42, (1982), Heim, C. and Mirowski, P., ‘Interest rates and crowding out during Britain’s industrial revolution’, Journal of Economic History, Vol. 57, (1987), pp. 117-139, Hoppit, J., ‘Counting the industrial revolution’, Economic History Review, Vol. 43, (1990), pp. 173-193, Jackson, R.V., ‘Rates of industrial growth during the industrial revolution’, Economic History Review, Vol. 45, (1992), pp. 1-23, Mokyr, J., ‘Has the industrial revolution been crowded out? Some reflections on Crafts and Williamson’, Explorations in Economic History, Vol. 24, (1987), pp. 293-318, and Williamson, J. G., ‘Why was British growth so slow during the industrial revolution?’, Journal of Economic History, Vol. 44, (1984), pp. 687-712 and Crafts, N.F.R., ‘Productivity Growth in the Industrial Revolution: A New Growth Accounting Perspective’, Journal of Economic History, Vol. 64, (2004), pp. 521-535

[6] Berg, Maxine, The age of manufactures: industry, innovation and work in Britain 1700-1820, (Basil Blackwell), 1985, 2^nd ed., (Routledge), 1994, Berg, Maxine and Hudson, Pat, ‘Growth and change: a comment on the Crafts-Harley view of the industrial revolution’, Economic History Review, 2^nd ser., Vol. 47, (1994), pp. 147-149.

[7] Tranter, Neil L., ‘Population, migration and labour supply’, in Aldcroft, Derek H. and Ville, Simon P., (ed.), The European economy, 1750-1914: a thematic approach (Manchester University Press), 1994, pp. 37-71 provides a long-term perspective.

[8] Collins, M., Banks and Industrial Finance in Britain 1800-1939, (Cambridge University Press), 1995, pp. 14-24 provides a succinct discussion of developments to 1870. Crouzet, F., (ed.), Capital Formation and the Industrial Revolution, (Methuen), 1967 contains valuable papers. See also, Capie, Forrest Hunter, ‘Money and economic development in eighteenth-century England’, in ibid, Prados de la Escosura, Leandro, (ed.), Exceptionalism and industrialisation: Britain and its European rivals, 1688-1815, pp. 216-32.

[9] Finn, M., The character of credit: personal debt in English culture 1740-1914, (Cambridge University Press), 2003.

[10] Ginarlis, J. and Pollard, Sidney, ‘Roads and Waterways 1750-1850’, in ibid, Feinstein, C. H. and Pollard, Sidney, (eds.), Studies in capital formation in the United Kingdom, 1750-1920, pp. 182-224.

[11] Holderness, B. A., ‘Agriculture 1770-1860’, in ibid, Feinstein, C. H. and Pollard, Sidney, (eds.), Studies in capital formation in the United Kingdom, 1750-1920, pp. 9-34

[12] Mathias, Peter and Davis, John Anthony, (eds.), International trade and British economic growth: from the eighteenth century to the present day (Blackwell Publishers), 1996 contains valuable papers. Crouzet, François, ‘Britain’s Exports and Their Markets, 1701-1913’, in Emmer, Pieter C., Pétré-Grenouilleau, Olivier and Roitman, Jessica V., (eds.), A deus ex machina revisited: Atlantic colonial trade and European economic development (Brill), 2006 provides a longer-term perspective.

[13] Morgan, Kenneth, Slavery and the British Empire: From Africa to America, (Oxford University Press), 2007 and Slavery, Atlantic Trade and the British Economy 1699-1800, (Cambridge University Press), 2000 provide a good synopsis of current thinking.

[14] Edwards, M.M., The growth of the British cotton trade, 1780-1815, (Manchester University Press), 1967.

[15] Nash, R. C., ‘The organization of trade and finance in the British-Atlantic economy, 1600-1830’, in Coclanis, Peter A., (ed.), The Atlantic economy during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: organization, operation, practice, and personnel, (University of South Carolina Press), 2005, pp. 95-151.

[16] Platt, D.C., Latin America and British Trade, 1806-1914, (Oxford University Press), 1972

[17] For the development of shipping see, Davies, R., The Rise of the English Shipping Industry, (Macmillan), 1962 and Hope, R.A., A New History of British Shipping, (John Murray), 1990.

[18] Clark, Gregory and Jacks, David, ‘Coal and the Industrial Revolution, 1700-1869’, European Review of Economic History, Vol. 11, (1), (2007), pp. 39-72 and Hausman, William J., ‘The English coastal coal trade, 1691-1910: how rapid was productivity growth?’, Economic History Review, 2^nd ser., Vol. 40, (1987), pp. 588-602 and ‘A model of the London coal trade in the 18^th century’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 94, (1980), pp. 1-14.

[19] Albert, W., The turnpike road system in England, 1663-1840, (Cambridge University Press), 1972 and Pawson, E., Transport and economy: the turnpike roads of 18^th-century Britain, (Academic Press), 1977.

[20] Ward, J.R., The finance of canal building in 18^th-century England, (Oxford University Press), 1974.

[21] See also the role of coastal traffic, Ville, S., ‘Total factor productivity in the English shipping industry: the north-east coal trade, 1700-1850’, Economic History Review, Vol. 39, (1986), pp. 355-370 and ‘Shipping in the port of Sunderland, 1815-1845’, Business History, Vol. 32, (1990), pp. 32-51.

[22] Turnbull, G., ‘Canals, coal and regional growth during the industrial revolution’, Economic History Review, Vol. 40, (1987), pp. 537-560.

[23] Lambourn, Charles, The Dunstapalogia, (James Tibbet,) 1859, p. 208

[24] Derbyshire, W. H., The History of Dunstable, 2^nd ed., (Tibbet), 1882, p. 97.

[25] Auerbach, Jeffrey A., The Great Exhibition of 1851: a nation on display, (Yale University Press), 1999 and ‘The Great Exhibition and historical memory’, Journal of Victorian Culture, Vol. 6, (1), (2001), pp. 89-112.

[26] Laqueur, Thomas W., ‘Literacy and Social Mobility in the Industrial Revolution in England’, Past & Present, Vol. 64, (1974), pp. 96-107 and Sanderson, Michael, ‘Literacy and Social Mobility in the Industrial Revolution in England: A Rejoinder’, Past & Present, Vol. 64, (1974), pp. 108-112.

[27] Hatton , T.J. et al., ‘18^th-century British trade: homespun or empire made?’, Explorations in Economic History, Vol. 20, (1983), pp. McKendrick, N., ‘Home demand and economic growth: a new view of the role of women and children in the Industrial Revolution’, in McKendrick, N., (ed.), Historical perspectives: studies in English thought and society in honour of J.H. Plumb, (Cambridge University Press), 1974, pp. 152-210 and Mokyr, J., ‘Demand versus supply in the industrial revolution’, Journal of Economic History, Vol. 37, (1977), pp. 981-1008.

[28] Berg, Maxine and Clifford, Helen, ‘Selling Consumption in the Eighteenth Century: Advertising and the Trade Card in Britain and France’, Cultural and Social History, Vol. 4, (2007), pp. 145-170.

[29] Weatherill, Lorna, Consumer behaviour and material culture in Britain, 1660-1760, 3^rd ed., (Routledge), 1997, Wagner, Tamara S. and Hassan, Narin, (eds.), Consuming culture in the long nineteenth century: narratives of consumption, 1700-1900, (Lexington Books), 2007.

[30] Burns, T. and Saul, S.B., (eds.), Social Theory and Economic Change, (Tavistock Press), 1967 is a useful collection of papers, providing useful summaries of Hagen E.H., On the Theory of Social Change, (Dorsey Press), 1962 and McClelland, D., The Achieving Society, (Van Nostrand), 1961. The debate on capitalism is best approached through Holton R.J., The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism, (Macmillan), 1985 and Marshall, G., In Search of the Spirit of Capitalism: an essay on Max Weber’s Protestant ethic thesis, (Hutchinson), 1982. Payne, P.L., British Entrepreneurship in the Nineteenth Century, (Macmillan),   1974, 2^nd edition, 1988 is a good bibliographical essay. Campbell, R.H. and Wilson, R.G., (eds.), Entrepreneurship in Britain 1750-1939, (A & C Black), 1975 is a short collection of contemporary writings with  an extremely useful introductory essay

[31] Goldstone, Jack A., Why Europe? The Rise of the West in World History 1500-1850, (McGraw-Hill), 2008 and ‘Engineering Culture, Innovation and Modern Wealth Creation’, in C. Karlsson, C., Johansson, B. and Stough R.R., (eds.), Entrepreneurship and Innovations in Functional Regions, (Edward Elgar), 2008, pp. 23-49.

[32] McCloskey, Deirdre N., The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics form an Age of Commerce, (University of Chicago Press), 2006, the first of six volumes. See http://www.deirdremccloskey.com/index.php for drafts of forthcoming work.

[33] Miles, Andrew, ‘How open was nineteenth-century British society?: social mobility and equality of opportunity, 1839-1914’, in Miles, Andrew and Vincent, David, (eds.), Building European society: occupational change and social mobility in Europe, 1840-1940, (Manchester University Press), 1993, pp. 18-39.

[34] Daunton, Martin J., ‘The entrepreneurial state, 1700-1914’, History Today, Vol. 44, (6), (1994), pp. 11-16.