Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

continued during the late Stuart period, with Sambourne and Studley particularly strong
magnets for inward migration. 5
Population estimates discussed in Chapter 3 show that this zone’s population
grew far more rapidly between 1676 and 1801 than that of the other zones. From a
starting point as the study area’s least densely populated zone, the Needle District may
have grown by some 185%, almost three times the national average. Redditch itself may
have grown by a phenomenal 1695%, but growth in other settlements was less dramatic. 6
The needle trade was the driving force behind this demographic growth, but
before 1800 a mixture of agricultural and industrial employments by individuals and
communities insured against hard times to a certain extent. However, not everyone
prospered. Overseers of the poor were greatly concerned with paupers despite the
possibilities of employment offered by the needle industry and other trades. 7
The
problems of the poor continued into the nineteenth century. 8
As demonstrated in Chapter 3, this zone’s population continued to grow at a rate
just above the national average during Period D, continuing to increase its share of the
study area’s population. 9
The most industrialised parts of the zone continued to increase
after 1841, whereas the populations of Coughton and Beoley stagnated. 10
The first
reliable separate population total for the Redditch portion of Tardebigge parish is in 1841
5 See Chapter 3. From 1563 to 1670 Sambourne’s households increased from 12 to 40 and Studley’s from
50 to 121. Large, ‘Economic and social change in North Worcestershire during the seventeenth century’,
pp. 117, 139, asserts that following disafforestation of the Feckenham Forest circa 1630 the population of
Tardebigge and Feckenham had decreased. Some had perhaps moved to places like Sambourne. However,
in the first half of the eighteenth century many ‘sojourners’ were also recorded in Tardebigge. (WoRO,
Tardebigge parish register.)
6 See Tables 3.11, 3.13, 3.14 and 3.15 in Chapter 3.
7 For example, WaRO, DR536/32, accounts for building Studley workhouse, 1740. WaRO, CR3434,
Coughton overseers of the poor accounts, and WoRO, BA4284 (ix), Feckenham overseers of the poor
accounts, show detailed payments to the poor at this period. See Chapter 3 for population estimates.
8 For example there was a food riot in Redditch reported in Berrow’s Worcester Journal May 1800.
9 See Tables 3.14, 3.15 and 3.16 in Chapter 3.
10 See Chapter 3, Tables 3.11, 3.12 and 3.13.
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