Rural depopulation / by G. B. Longstaff.

  • Longstaff, George Blundell, 1849-1921.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Rural depopulation / by G. B. Longstaff. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    The loss in the Essex districts has varied from 7-4 to i8-8 per cent, of the 1851 population; the loss in the Suffolk districts from 8*9 to 26-8 per cent.; the loss in the Norfolk districts from. 9*3 to 19'7 per cent. The twenty districts had an aggregate population in 1851 of 377,312, but this dwindled in forty years to 325,575, involving a loss of 52,081 inhabitants, or i3'8 per cent. [It is curious that in anothei eastern county, Cambridgeshire, while every one of its nine districts increased in 184-1-51 every one oE them decreased in 1851-61, and again every one increased, in 1861-71, and in 1871-81 seven out of nine once more decreased. In tlie decade last completed the movement was more nearly balanced, five districts increasing and four decreasing.] Contrast with this a like examination of four typical south western counties,—Dorset, Devon, Wilts, and Somerset—now chiefly devoted to grazing. The four counties in question comprise sixty-five registration districts ; it appears that:— In the decennium 1801-11. all increased. '11-21 ,, '21-31 two decreased. „ '31-41 four „ '41-51 twenty-four decreased. „ '51-Gl forty-two „ ,, '61-71 twenty-three ,, ,, '71-81 forty-seven ,, „ '81-91 thirty-nine ,, The amount of the movement was as follows :— In the decennium 1801-11 the aggregate gross loss was ^ u '11-21 „ / '21-31 „ 347 '31-41 J,9i8 '41-51 „ 14,055 '51-61 „ 3^.781 '61-71 „ 14.071 '71-81 „ 45.373 „ '81-91 „ 25.970 In Wessex then the rural exodus began ten years earlier than in East Anglia, and it began more gradually. In the two decades 1851-61 and 1861-71 the numbers were curiously alike in the two groups of districts chosen, but during the last twenty years the volume of the migration has been about twice as great in the west as in the east. Table VIII shows that nine western districts have in fifty years lost on an average 22-2 per cent, of their initial population. While Table IX shows that seven other western districts have in forty