Extract from "The Cheshire Township of Kelsall 1841-1891": An Example of Demographic Change

Findings 2

Household Demographics

The number of inhabited dwellings rose by 20% between 1851 - 1891 indicating that new houses had been built. The average and median number of persons remained fairly constant between 4 and 7 persons respectively, though farmers maintained larger households of between eight and thirteen toward the end of the 19^th century. Scard (1981) recorded that farm families were often large and it was common for tenant farmers to have some of the children working on the farm to help keep labour costs low.

These figures are similar to those given by Anderson (1980) who indicates a family size (varying between 1860 and the end of the 19^th century) from three to six per household.

Anderson's (1990) preliminary analysis of the 1851 census sample suggested that non-conjugal family kin were clustered in small employer households, the households of the self-employed and in the households of farmers. Table 6 indicates this was true for Kelsall with 75% of the residency status of non-conjugal kin meeting this criterion. By 1891 although the number of non-conjugal kin with residency status in Kelsall had increased by 100% the ratio of 3:1 remained.

The dominance of the commercial enterprises and craft occupations in having residing non-conjugal kin could be to support the business and reduce the level of hired labour. The percentage for farmers is deemed to be a result of less overall labour given that the number of farmers did not substantially alter during the period of review.

The number of other kin (beyond the conjugal unit) residing in the dwellings remained higher than those found by Anderson (1983). Other kin in Kelsall shared 40% of households in 1851 falling to 25% in 1891; this figure being closer to Anderson's 1851 finding's of 27% of households in rural areas.

Servants

The second large group of non-family members are servants. Servants were considered to be important as their existence provides an indication of social status of the employer. Throughout the period of the report those employed in domestic service continued to grow. Graph 1 indicates that farmers remained the dominant employers for live-in servants, but that as commercial enterprise took hold and more persons of independent means who could afford to employ domestic servants were attracted, their influence began to decline. Graph 2 shows that females changed to the dominant gender "in service" as the demand for agricultural labour reduced by 50% coincident following the post1861 agricultural labour watershed.

Copyright D G Dickson 1998