Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

and periods therefore have to be treated with some caution. Nevertheless, much can be
deduced from the occupational descriptors used.
In all analytical tables I have omitted gentlemen, gypsies, travelling folk and men
of unspecified occupations, so that the analysis in the tables is of those with known
occupations only. In all probate and marriage licence analysis I have allocated all
labourers to the Primary sector. Sources show that the majority of labourers locally did
in fact work in agriculture, so for the most part this will not skew the statistics greatly,
besides which labourers do not feature very strongly in these sources. In my PST tables
for these sources I have usually shown Primary with and without labourers.
In analysis of most of the parish registers which show occupations before 1813 I
have treated labourers as described above, but for all baptism registers from 1813 to 1840
I have separated the labourers (between Primary and Secondary) according to the ratios
shown in the 1831 census for each parish, as explained above. 64
There is no suggestion
that the ratio of agricultural to non-agricultural labourers was static over time, but this is
probably the best way to allocate labourers in the study area before the Victorian
censuses.
Labourers are also separated between the primary and secondary sectors in
analysis of the 1841 census. Apart from labourers I have not split any trade between
different sectors. For instance all chandlers have been allocated to Tertiary even though
they may have made their own candles as well as dealing in other people’s produce. The
descriptor ‘stonemason’ in the quarrying parishes of the study area denotes a man who
quarries stone, deals in stone and builds with stone. Despite his feet being in three camps
64 As Coughton and Studley were strong in secondary occupations in the eighteenth century, for the
analysis of their eighteenth century parish registers in Chapter 7 I have also allocated labourers to the
primary or secondary sectors according to the 1831 census.
27