Poverty : a study of town life / by B. Seebohm Rowntree.

  • Seebohm Rowntree
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Poverty : a study of town life / by B. Seebohm Rowntree. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    35/490 page 9
    The introduction of the railway about the middle of the century, and the various branches of work which have sprung up in connection with it, have attracted many workmen to the city from other parts of England. Prior to the construction of the North Eastern Railway, “ York was essentially a local capital, in the centre of a large and prosperous agricultural district, full of resident gentry, and relying for its connection with the outer world upon posting and coaches.”4 About 1840 large numbers of Irish began to come over to England, attracted by the prospect of steady work and good pay. The bulk of these settled in the industrial districts—notably in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Bristol, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. Engels, writing in 1844,5 estimated that more than a million had already immigrated, and not far from 50,000 were still coming every year. Some of these Irish found their way to York in 1846-47. Their coming to the city is thus referred to in the Memoirs of the late James Hack Tuke:6 “ During the potato famine many of the wretched Irish, to escape death in their 1884. The population in 1881 of the area as subsequently extended was 61,789 ; whilst at the four preceding censuses it is estimated to have been— 1841 31,911 1851 40,675 1861 45,869 1871 51,039 3 The city was further extended in 1893, the number of persons then added to its population being estimated at 922. 4 York, by James Raine, M.A., D.C.L., p. 202. 5 Condition of the Working Class in England in IS44, by Frederick Engels, p. 90. 0 By Sir Edward Fry, p. 72.
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