Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

occupations in probate of any parish throughout the study period. The apparent drop
evident in many parishes in Period C is to a large extent caused by fewer probate records.
It is often difficult to determine whether a populous rural community had more
occupations because it was a service-centre for the neighbourhood or just because the law
of averages dictated that more people meant more variety. Places like Aston Cantlow,
Bidford and Inkberrow appear to fulfil an intermediate niche between town and small
village, as centres which serviced their neighbours. Industrial colonies in Sambourne (in
Coughton parish) and in Studley account for the large number of occupations in those
parishes. Feckenham was an established service centre, but also had its pockets of
industrial workers. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century industrial colonies in
Feckenham, Tardebigge and Ipsley parishes, for example Headless Cross and Crabbs
Cross, developed rapidly, which contributed to the numbers of occupations in those
parishes.
While Tables 8.9 to 8.12 allow comparison of the situation in different parishes over
the whole study period, Tables 8.13 to 8.16 are much more accurate in portraying the
occupational variety for the period 1813 to 1840, taken as they are from baptism registers. 21
The population of each parish in the 1841 census is included to allow a comparison
between population size and occupational variety. 22
21 As in Tables 8.9 to 8.12, in Tables 8.13 to 8.16 yeoman, husbandman and farmer are counted as one, and all
types of needlemaker and fish-hook and fishing tackle makers are counted as one. Gentlemen are omitted.
Occupations of residents of each parish are counted. (In some cases these were found in baptism registers
elsewhere in the study area.)
22 Some parishes such as Redditch grew much more rapidly than others between 1813 and 1840, but the 1841
census is taken as a guide for population size.
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