Differing Responses to an Industrialising Economy - eTheses ...

sound. 34
The figures circa 1780 for Worcestershire and Warwickshire parishes are from
Ransome. 35
Table 3.5 suggests that population growth was very small or uneven in most
parishes between 1676 and 1780.
Table 3.6 Baptism numbers in parish registers in Zone B, The Southern (Champion)
Country 1575-1810
Baptisms (9 year moving average) 1575 1675 1710 1735 1760 1780 1810
Bidford-on-Avon 26.7 19.8 26.1 22.2 24.6 38.2
Cleeve Prior 5.7 8.0 11.9 6.9 9.3 7.7
Dorsington 2.7 3.1 3.3 2.4 4.7 3.4
Harvington 5.4 7.4 6.1 5.8 7.0
Long Marston 6.9 6.1 8.2 7.7
Pebworth *13.1 11.1 13.6 14.0 14.8 19.9
Salford Priors 13.3 11.9 12.9 14.8 10.1 19.1 21.1
Weethley 2.2
Welford-on-Avon 8.3 13.0 11.9 *10.9 15.3 17.4
Weston-on-Avon 0.9 2.1 4.3 3.7 2.8
* See footnote for explanation 36
For most parishes the baptism numbers shown in Table 3.6 confirm that there was
uneven growth before 1780 and more pronounced growth thereafter.
34 S. Rudder, A New History of Gloucestershire (1779), (reprinted Gloucester, Alan Sutton, 1977), gives
population figures rather than houses or families hence no difference is shown between higher and lower
estimates in Table 3.5. D. Gowing, ‘The population geography of Samuel Rudder’s Gloucestershire’,
Trans. of Bristol and Gloucestershire Arch. Soc., 101, (1983). Rudge, General View of the Agriculture of
the County of Gloucester, pp. 354, 356, also quotes these 1779 figures. A. Percival, ‘Gloucestershire
village populations’, Local Population Studies, 8, (1972), summarises sources from 1551 to 1801.
Percival’s figures for 1779 agree with Rudge except that she appears to include the Warwickshire portions
of the parishes of Welford and Weston. In Table 3.6 I have included 10 for Bickmarsh and 10 for Milcote
accordingly.
35 Ransome, ‘The State of the Bishopric of Worcester’, pp. 88, 99. Unfortunately, the numbers of families
in Bidford, Salford Priors and Weethley were not supplied in the original survey.
36 Pebworth’s figure for 1675 was actually based on 1674, Welford’s figure for 1760 was actually based on
1758, while Weston’s figure for 1810 was actually based on 1809.
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