A survey of population in an area of Worcestershire from 1660-1850 on the basis of parish records

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
An attempt was recently made at Birmingham to assess the possibility of using material from parish registers to clear up some of the outstanding questions relating to the population of England in the eighteenth century. The records of fifteen parishes around and including the small town of Bromsgrovce were used. The method of selection and evaluation is explained. Starting from the hearth tax returns of 1662-1674, base populations are calculated at intervals up to 1811. On this basis, crude birth, death, marriage, and infant and child mortality rates are derived. The effects of the smallpox epidemic of 1725-1730 are traced through several decades. An attempt is made to evaluate the resulting series and the conclusion is reached that given certain conditions (such as comparative absence of nonconformity in the chosen region), useful studies of these registers could be made. To use fully all the available information, a family card index would have to be used in preference to a mere counting of heads and calculation of children's age at death. In an appendix, grounds are set out for preferring Talbot Griffith's crude correction factors for baptisms and burials to the more elaborate methods of Farr and Brownlee.

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit: