Why did the population of the UK rise dramatically between 1760 and 1870.

Authors Avatar

The population of the UK rose dramatically between 1760 and 1870.

In this essay I am going to discuss how the population of the UK rose and fell and why.

Basically there are only four factors in which the population of the UK had changed these are; the birth rate, the death rate, emigration and immigration. I am going to explain how each of these factors had a part in the change of population.

Firstly I will discuss birth rate, and how it caused the surge of population changes.

Firstly, Age and Sex of the Population was one factor which caused a change in the population. In 1851 roughly 50% of the population of England and Wales were under 23.

The industrial towns generally had a greater proportion of younger people than rural areas. In those parts of the rural areas the number of old people was above average. Since there were few women of child-bearing age the birth rate tended to be lower. Due to the higher amount of jobs available many people migrated from the countryside to towns. Having a job meant that they could settle down earlier and get married. In addition the towns offered far greater opportunities of finding a partner than the countryside.

Secondly, family size was another factor to the problem of population surge. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century there was little control of the amount of children people wanted. Women continued to have children during their child-bearing years one of the reasons for this was because they thought that their children would die by the age of five. Many families had as many as ten children this was considered normal. Despite the movement to towns large families with a healthy rural environment made it possible for the population of the agricultural counties to grow.

Marriage and Employment played a huge part also in the growth of the population.

It was thought that the earlier a person married the earlier they could settle down, however in the eighteenth century many young men had to undertake long terms of apprenticeship as a result they couldn’t get married and start a family early.

Join now!

During the industrial revolution apprenticeship began to decline, nevertheless a fall in the craftsmen and rise in the factory worker.

Due to the people migrating to towns there were a larger proportion of younger people which could marry and settle down earlier. Many historians believe that this was one of the main reasons that the birth rate of the population in the eighteenth and nineteenth century had risen.

This would have only had a slight effect because of the change over from the agricultural industry to the domestic industry in the period after 1790.

The Speenhamland system was thought to ...

This is a preview of the whole essay