Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

epresented. This has to be constantly borne in mind when discussing the data.
Moreover, certain occupational groups, such as independent craftsmen, were perhaps
more likely to turn to non-conformist sects, than were yeoman farmers, who considered
themselves much more as stakeholders in the traditional parish structure. For reasons of
convenience rather than deep conviction others would attend a non-conformist chapel
rather than the distant parish church. 34
There were also many Roman Catholics in the
study area, particularly in those villages held by the Throckmorton family of Coughton
Court. 35
Non-conformist and Roman Catholic registers have also been trawled to find
information. 36
However, these records are not consistent enough across time and space
to be used to make meaningful spreadsheets. Many individuals appear in both nonconformist
and Anglican registers, and births and burials of ‘papists’ are frequently
recorded in Anglican registers. 37
Despite the drawbacks mentioned here the Anglican baptism registers from 1813
are the most comprehensive source for occupational information before the 1841 census.
Labourers and poorer craftsmen are well-represented in the registers (unlike probate and
marriage licence records). For the most part local baptism registers do not distinguish
between agricultural and other labourers, but in the tables of baptism data in Chapters 4
to 8 I have allocated labourers according to the 1831 census. There is no suggestion that
34 For example, in the needle-making colony at Astwood Bank the Baptist chapel was established in the
eighteenth century, whereas the new Anglican church was not built for another hundred years.
35 Many local Roman Catholics appear in WaRO, MI163, Coughton RC register. R. Probert and L. D’Arcy
Brown discuss this register from 1758-1795: ‘Catholics and the Clandestine Marriages Act of 1753’, Local
Population Studies, 80, (2008), pp. 78-82.
36 Other registers consulted include: TNA, RG4/3280, Redditch circuit Wesleyan Methodist register, TNA,
RG6/230, Worcester Society of Friends register, TNA, RG8/96 and RG4/3367, Alcester Presbyterian
registers, TNA, RG4/2016, 2067, Alcester and Astwood Bank Baptist Chapel registers, and TNA, RG4487,
Redditch Independent Congregational register.
37 V. T. J. Arkell, ‘An enquiry into the frequency of the parochial registration of Catholics in a seventeenth
century Warwickshire parish’, Local Population Studies, 9, (1972), discusses the under-recording of
Catholics in the Anglican registers of Rowington, a parish near the study area.
18