Parish registers and population history I

Wrigley, E.A.

pp 146-150

A study of the demographic potential of parish register data in the period 1538-1837, which saw the general transition in England from an essentially rural and agrarian society to a more industrialised and urbanised one. The article concentrates on the use of birth and death rates to trace population change. It is suggested that, despite the considerable difficulties in ascertaining long-term figures, much information can be obtained by analysing change and trying to correlate trends with other external factors - for example, comparing birth and death rates with weather and climatic variations, the quality of the harvest and price indexes. Wrigley commends the use of family reconstitution techniques, and gives a simple methodology to introduce this type of research in the context of demographic analyses (see also 06 06 198-203).

The Amateur Historian Volume 6 Number 5 Autumn 1964