Population and mortality (1801-1911)

Post date: Sep 27, 2012 7:48:15 PM

The following is based on an unpublished typewritten booklet in the WLHS library (ref 39) entitled Wateringbury -Its Population and Mortality by John R. Lambert and dated October 1975 (i.e. before the days of spreadsheets and PCs). It is 67 pages in length and is evidently written by a person with a keen appreciation not only of local and national history, but also demography and statistics. In its 67 pages it encompasses 21 tables of data and the Wateringbury data is largely, but not solely, based on church registers and the cemetery burial book, but with a critical appreciation of their limitations. In attempting to summarise I hope the original may be given the attention it deserves.

1. Population movement

The first table summarises a couple of tables in the booklet, showing population movements between census years:

The column "surrounding area" includes West Farleigh, Hunton, East Peckham, Nettlestead, Teston, Yalding plus East and West Malling.

The national population, which tripled overall in the period, show the highest increase in the 1811-1821 period with a subsequent slowing down, but still growth. Kent's population overall did not quite triple (x2.71 times) but is still broadly representative of the country overall, containing as it did both rural and urban areas; whereas in Wateringbury and the immediate surrounding areas although over the overall period there was growth in population, albeit substantially less than in the country and county, there were many individual periods of decline, reflecting an overall trend from rural to urban areas.

2. Baptisms

Baptisms are taken as a proxy for births and the following tables compiled:

MALE AND FEMALE BIRTHS

BIRTH RATES

The birth rate in Wateringbury was generally slightly lower than for England and Wales overall and its decrease in Wateringbury (constant over the period) preceded the decrease the reduction subsequently experienced in the country overall. Four factors are ascribed as contributing to the national reduction

1. Women marrying later in life

2. Family planning (generally limited at this time to the upper and middle classes).

3. Rising costs meaning higher expense in raising a family.

4. Greater sense of need for hygiene and education: parents wanted a certain minimum standard for their children.

3. Migration

Population is affected by births, deaths and migration. Migration has to be implied from the change in population revealed by the censuses.

Date Births Deaths Migration Population

Migration represents both migration to the New World and rural to urban movement as agriculture was impacted by a decline in overall arable cultivation and the increased use of machinery resulted in agricultural wages being depressed versus industrial wages. The arrival of the railway (in Wateringbury in 1844) facilitated movement.

Migration out of Wateringbury included a nearly equal number of females as males, and largely offset the fact that births were nearly double deaths.

4. Female/Male ratio

Wateringbury was male dominated until 1834 when the number of females exceeded the number of males and remained this way for the rest of the period. For the country overall the number of women exceeded men throughout this period as women lived longer.

5. Population density

The following table of population density (persons per acre) abbreviated from Lambert's booklet shows population density based on Wateringbury's area of 1,466 acres, the surrounding area (West Farleigh, Hunton, East Peckham, Nettlestead, Teston, Yalding plus East and West Malling)'s 18,570 acres and the overall area of England and wales of 36.5 million acres.

The surrounding area had fewer people per acre than Wateringbury, reflecting the fact that Wateringbury had proportionately more land under cultivation. England and Wales overall represents both areas of uninhabited land and urban areas: the surge in urban population during the 19th century results in average density exceeding that of Wateringbury's by 1901.

6. Mortality

A number of human stories are related by Lambert from the burial registers:

• in 1845 the vicar wrote at foot of page "The seven children here entered died of Scarlet Fever which prevailed much this year in the parish."

• in 1807 and 1836 strangers whose names were not known were found dead and were buried.

• in 5 years from 1831 to 1835, no less than 24 out of the 129 burials (almost 20%) were of hop-pickers.

• drownings of hop-pickers in Medway were common (James aged 9 years in 1870; Johanna in 1883; Elisa in 1889) nearness of pickers' huts to Medway one factor; the pubs another.

• in 1828 "an Irishman whose name is not known died in the cage" (the village lock-up) aged "about 55 years".

AVERAGE AGE AT DEATH

As individual years only have a limited number of burials the 10-year moving average tends to smooth out distortions caused by the limited numbers. There is a general positive trend as the result of improvements in hygiene, mediacl knowledge and rising living standards.

WATERINGBURY DEATHS BY AGE BANDS

The period 1836 -1860 shows the largest number of deaths (488) and this is partly as a result of an increased birth rate in this period with a subsequent greater mortality particularly amongst infants.

INFANT MORTALITY IN WATERINGBURY

Wateringbury's infant mortality rate of 17.8% compares favourably with an estimated 40% rate in England and Wales overall at the beginning of the 19th century. Boys are generally more vulnerable to some birth hazards

Mortality from tuberculosis was mainly associated in this period with adolescent females.

From 1836 when Wateringbury started to use workhouses (mainly the Malling Union) until 1908 some 129 people (81 male; 48 female; with an average age at death of 60.83 for males and 53.51 for females) from Wateringbury died in the workhouse.

CRUDE DEATH RATES

Death rates are calculated as the number of deaths compared to the average population for the year and expressed as a rate per thousand head of population. The Wateringbury rate is calculated as a moving ten year average to minimise the distortion of low numbers. Wateringbury shows a consistently better rate than for the country as a whole, whilst both Wateringbury and the country show a general improving trend.