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

Other researchers and strategy evolution.

Demographic Aspects of the family.

Fundamental differences in some of the conclusions offered by Hareven (1991) and Anderson (1983) are intriguing. Hareven's position is that "the family" is a "kinship" group that interacted with local practices & migratory demands. Hareven speculated about the strategies and choices that populations experienced suggesting considerable geographic mobility as they exercised control over their own lives in response to changing social and economic conditions.

Anderson's opposite view centred on the instability within the household group thus preventing such aspirations.

Analysis of the Kelsall data leans more toward the view expressed by Hareven using as evidence the apparent migration of whole families as they changed agricultural employers. Nominal Record Linkage identified individuals who moved from Armstrong's Class III to Class II seeming to confirm that there are quantifiable instances of social mobility.

Mobility and Migration

Jackson (1989) proposes that a systems approach be used to analyse migration. This view concentrates upon the networks that are involved within migration, and that migration was also intra-rural rather than just rural-urban. The sources chosen did not allow the reconstruction of the inhabitant's migration history that encompassed multiple moves exhibited by the birth places of kin. However NRL did highlight evidence of re-entry to support the intra-rural view of Jackson.

Citing Galtung (1971) Jackson drew the parallel to a migrant's psychology that in turn allowed me to consider the systems approach to analysis of migration. Figure 3 uses a force field analysis of my own derivation to demonstrate this.

When considering methods for assessing social stratification Mills (1989) compares the published schemes, and thus identifies the difficulties associated with applying any broad based scheme with the multiplicity of occupations that existed in the 19^th century.

Whilst considering the most appropriate method for Socio-Economic Grouping, Booth's (1886) scheme was rejected because his industrial classification does not relate occupations to social classes, a key element of analysis within this report.

Social stratification has both local and national emphasis and whilst the scheme proposed by Armstrong may introduce a bias toward an overlarge Class III, it does provide a rich list of occupational descriptions that facilitate classification. Armstrong's scheme allows for a local level in social hierarchy between the levels of farmer, i.e. those who farm 5 acres and those who farm more. Indeed Mills (1989) in their paper do acknowledge the existence of rural social hierarchies, but assert that this may create difficulties when carrying out statistical analysis of the relationship between class and other characteristics of the population. They proposed a scheme that combines all farmers together which I considered too broad for this project.

Tillott's scheme highlights the category "private income", which frequently appear in the CEBs as "independent means" or "annuitant" or "retired". Mills creates a category PEG to encompass these, however this again creates difficulty when trying to assess the origin of an income from occupational sources, it seems hardly likely that all such recipients would "fit" the social PEG classification determined by Mills.

Mills again discusses the social distinction allocated to "journeyman", yet this terminology was not used continually in the CEBs for Kelsall, so would provide an imbalance in any year on year analysis.

A further consideration is the clarification on the work of Armstrong made by Mills concerning the "classification upgrade" made by Armstrong toward certain levels of category that were employers. Armstrong confirmed that he worked on entry evidence of the CEB to determine the classification, and given that this project analysis follows a similar schedule entry comparison process, despite its limitations, the Armstrong classification method was eventually chosen.

Copyright D G Dickson 1998