Digest of the English census of 1871 / compiled from the official returns and edited by James Lewis.

  • Great Britain. Census Office.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Digest of the English census of 1871 / compiled from the official returns and edited by James Lewis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    10,718,880 out of an aggregate for the entire country of 10,917,389, leaving only about 200,000 as the rural population of England. Instead, however, of accepting this startling result as a proof that his estimate was at fault, he proceeded gravely to deduce the following curious inferences :—‘ Wherefore it is certain and necessary that the growth of the city must stop before the said year 1840, and will be at its utmost height in the next preceding period, 1800, when the number of the city will be eight times its present number, viz. 5,359,000 and when (besides the said number) there will be 4,466,000 to perform the said necessary rural works ’—of tillage and other agricultural labour. “The Census abstracts for the year 1801 show that the population for that year, within the area of the Bills of Mortality of 1726—a larger area than Petty’s estimate embraced—was 746,233, and in the year 1841 the number had increased to 1,353,345 ; so that in every respect Petty’s conclusions turned out to be erroneous. The truth is, that the rate of increase of the population of London has followed the frequent enlargement of its borders; thus, if we take the interval between 1801 and 1851—half a century —we find that, confining ourselves to the area within the Mortality Bills of 1626, the increase was 60 per cent. ; if we take the larger area included within the Bills of 1726, the increase was 113 per cent.; and on the area of the present registration division the increase was 146 per cent. As the area lias been increased the rate of increase has expanded, from the natural reason that when a certain maximum density of population has been reached there must be an overflow into the adjacent districts, which remain, perhaps, outside the metropolitan limits for a while, but eventually become merged in the mass. “The point now to be considered is whether, looking at the present area of London, there is any ground for supposing that the population within its bounds will continue to increase at a rate equal to that hitherto observed on the same area—that is to say, whether in forty or fifty years’ time we may safely reckon upon an agglomeration of six millions of people in the metropolis. “ Population is either stationary or absolutely decreasing in the City proper, the heart of the mass ; in the outside ring the rate of increase ranged between 1851-61 from 16 to 23 per 1,000 per annum. There is ample room upon the 75,362* acres of metropolitan area to accommodate six millions of people if they were properly distributed, so that there will probably be no occasion for altering the present registration boundary in the next fifty years. We have now on an average 40 persons to an acre, but the general distribution is so unequal that while in some localities there is only 1 person to an acre, in others there are 300. “ Whatever may be the cause, the fact is beyond question that the population of London has increased, during the last twenty years at a rate which has gradually declined. Between 1841-51 the ratio of increase was 19-7 per 1000 annually, and between 1851-61 it was 17'3 per 1,000 per annum. If these two average ratios be interpolated in a regular series according to a progressive law of increase of population, it will be found that the increment between 1841-2 was at the rate of 208 per 1,000, between 1851-2 of 18-3 per 1,000, between 1856-7 of 17’1 per 1,000, between 1861-2 of 15‘9 per 1,000, and be- tween 1866-7 of 14*6 per 1,000. At this rate the population of London would amount to something less than 4,300,000 persons by the end of the present century ; whereas, according to the rate of increase between 1851 and 1861, the population would double itself in forty years, and would amount to more than five and a half millions in 1901, upwards of a million in excess of the number given by the rate of increase over the longer interval from 1841-61. “ Population cannot increase indefinitely in London or elsewhere ; and the rate of increase depends on a variety of circumstances, none of which can be foreseen. Changes in the social and political condition of the people ; indisposition to marriage, or a growing tendency to late marriages ; augmentation or dimi- nution of the duration of life; cessation or increase of migration ; abundance or scarcity of the means of subsistence—all or any one of these causes might come into operation, and the effect on the increase of the population would soon be apparent. Mr. Hepworth Dixon tells us how the influx of emigrants into New England helps to neutralize the effect of the rapidly increasing ‘preventive cheek’ on births. In London the moralists are bewailing the indisposition of our young men to enter into matrimony, and if their complaint be well founded we shall assuredly have an eventual decline in our population, unless there be a countervailing access of country people or foreigners. Another important matter to bear in mind is, that the increased facilities which are afforded by the railways for conveying persons to country residences, or to towns within a short distance of London, have materially affected the metropolitan rate of increase already, and the effects will be more an. more apparent in future years. Then, again, the increasing prosperity of some of the principal cities of the kingdom will render them formidable rivals in attracting the aspiring youth of the country, e growth of some of these cities is much more rapid than that of the metropolis ; and there is this to e Sai<^ that, whereas we have had a long spell of expansion, they have only just begun their career. * Exclusive of the water area of the Thames within the Metropolitan limits.
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