Intercensal Mobility in a Victorian City

Abstract

The paper examines residential mobility in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, between 1851 and 1861. The linkage of individual entries in successive manuscript censuses permits an investigation of the association between migration and the demographic and social characteristics of migrants. The distances moved by different types of intra-urban migrants can also be compared. It appeared that in-migrants were more likely to leave the town than those born there; that within Hud- dersfield in-migrants moved shorter distances than the locally born; that young adults, especially the newly married, were more likely to move, and likely to move farther, than older household heads. The relationship between social status and mobility was less clear, but it seems likely that households in privately rented accommodation moved more often, but over shorter distances, than owner-occupiers. Further research is required linking the census to data sources concerned with the quality and tenure of housing, and relating mobility studies to factorial ecologies of Victorian cities. THERE have been few studies of residential mobility within, or of migration to or from, Victorian cities; and almost none which tell us anything about the character of those engaged in moving. In North America calculations of migration, persistence and turnover rates, based on the linkage of names in successive manuscript censuses, city directories or assessment rolls, have proliferated in recent years.1 Most have been the work of social historians who have treated residential mobility as an aside to the central theme of social mobility. Taken in conjunction with the theoretical constructs of social psychologists and behavioural geographers, their work offers an inviting framework for the study of residential mobility in Victorian cities. This is not to denigrate those few British studies which have gone beyond an analysis of migration from the printed census returns. Anderson's study of family structure in Preston includes passages on the birthplaces of residents in 1851 and the extent of local residential mobility within sample enumeration districts.2 Holmes has demonstrated the practicability of linking census records to other nominal lists, such as ratebooks, and to large-scale plans, thus allocating households to specific houses.3 Lawton and Pooley have provided a fascinating account of the activity patterns of two late-Victorian Merseyside diarists.4 Mlost recently, Pritchard has related patterns of residential mobility in Leicester to the structure of the local housing market and its changes during the last ioo years.5 Nevertheless, by comparison with the multitude of studies of present-day migration,6 the expenditure of effort on migration theory,7 and the interest which the Victorians themselves took in population movements,8 our understanding of mobility in Victorian cities is notably inadequate. This paper presents an analysis of mobility in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, based on the identification of individuals enumerated in the manuscript censuses for 1851 and 186i. House- hold heads living in the south-west sector of the area which later constituted the borough of Huddersfield have been traced in the preceding or succeeding censuses throughout Hudders- field, and have been classified according to their birthplace, occupation, age and stage in the life cycle. In this way it is possible to compare the probability of intercensal mobility among different social or demographic groups, and also the lengths of moves associated with each group. MIGRATION THEORY