Eighteenth Century Population

This page deals with Louth’s overall growth in population in the eighteenth century. Precise information is not available for the years 1700 and 1799; the comparison is mainly between 1706 and 1801.

The first national census of England was intended to produce certain key statistics for each settlement in 1801. These included the total population, the number of families and the number of inhabited houses. All three were important in showing the character of each settlement. Table 1 below illustrates the sharp contrast between Louth in 1801 and Hull, the nearest large (by 1801 standards) town.

A family in contemporary usage meant a household and so included resident domestic servants. That said, decisions on what constituted a “house” and a “family” were partly subjective and may have differed from place to place according to the views of the overseers of the poor, who made the census returns. (For example, if in 1801 a tradesman lived with his wife, children, domestic servant and apprentice in a house, two hundred yards from his shop, and his adult shop assistant ate in the house but slept in a store room at the back of the shop, opinions might differ as to whether the shop should therefore count as a house occupied by a family of one person.) However, even if the average number of persons per family had been the same in Hull as in Louth, the extent of house sharing by two or more families would still have been much greater: 1.42 families per house as compared with 1.05.

For Louth, this appears to have been an established pattern: house sharing by two or more families was rare; the 1831 census showed the same average number of persons per inhabited house, 4.74, and a very similar number of families per inhabited house: 1.02. The avoidance of house sharing by two or more families was common in Lincolnshire and some adjoining counties, as was noted in the introduction to the 1851 census report: “It is a remarkable fact, that in the counties of Leicester, Rutland, Lincoln, Nottingham and Derby, nearly all the families dwell in separate houses…” (Results and Observations p xxxix).

House sharing is important, because for two years, 1749 and 1767, we have detailed figures for the number of occupied houses in Louth and these may be taken as proxies for the number of families.

Louth in 1706

For Louth the earliest useful eighteenth century date is 1706, when information  came from the visitation return obtained by William Wake, Bishop of Lincoln. He sent forms to his parish clergy asking them to give a variety of information, including the numbers of families, people (“souls”), almshouses, schools and non-members of the church. In 1706 the response for Louth was precise, but the responses for most other parishes were unsatisfactory. A further questionnaire in 1709 produced better results, although the number of replies giving round figures was suspiciously large and for some parishes the replies are obviously only rough estimates.

In Louth in 1706 there was no resident vicar but the curate, Samuel Nicholls (also rector of Gayton le Marsh) gave a detailed return and stated that there were 385 families and 1,796 souls, including “19 papists … two poor Quakers and one poor Anabaptist”. It is not possible to check the accuracy of the information gathered by Nicholls; one can only ask whether it seems likely to be correct.

One comparison that can be made is with the returns by the clergymen of nearby parishes. English counties were divided into smaller administrative units mostly called “hundreds” or, in areas of Danish settlement, “wapentakes”. Louth fell within Louthesk Wapentake. (Spelling varied: sometimes “Louth Eske” or “Louth-eske”; sometimes (incorrectly) “Louth-eske Hundred”.) The parishes of the wapentake are listed in table 2 below. The boundaries of the wapentakes may have made sense in the tenth century, but by the eighteenth century they were inconvenient; for example Brackenborough and Legbourne, each of which had a common boundary with Louth were in Ludborough Wapentake and Calceworth Wapentake respectively.

For most of the parishes the returns gave figures for families and people; these are identified in table 2 as the “comparator group”. Nicholls’ figures show an average family size of 4.66 in Louth, which compares with an average of 4.55 in the comparator group.

Nicholls was not asked to give the number of inhabited houses, but it is reasonable to suppose that the total was very close to 385. The number of houses occupied by more than one family in 1706 is unlikely to have been higher than in 1801, because in the intervening period construction costs had risen. Most of the 1706 houses are likely to have been of mud and stud construction with thatched roofs, whereas by 1801 the newer houses, which in Louth probably constituted the majority, had the more expensive brick walls and tiled or slate roofs.

Table 3 summarises population growth in the eighteenth century and shows that the population of Louth, whether measured in people or families, grew by about 140%, an increase greater than could be accounted for by a surplus of births over deaths. It appears that the economic growth of the town must have drawn in workers (and a few of the idle rich) from elsewhere.

The population growth of the comparator group was much lower and largely attributable to coastal parishes. These had probably been growing in useful area because of the conversion of saltmarsh to agricultural land.

Trends in the Eighteenth Century

Louth’s parish registers for the eighteenth century are almost complete and by comparing baptisms with burials it is possible to see general trends in the population, as shown in table 4. The net growth seems to have been low in the first half of the century; indeed a simple comparison of baptisms and burials indicates a virtually static population. In the second half of the century there was a period of moderate growth and finally rapid growth in the 1790s.

However these figures cannot be taken at their face value. In the first decade the number of live births was probably only slightly in excess of the number of baptisms, but by the end of the century there was a wide gap between the two. For adults, the burial totals are probably very close to the number of deaths; but there must be a suspicion that some infant burials were dealt with by giving the sexton two or three shillings and not bothering the vicar or parish clerk. In the introduction to the 1811 census report it was accepted that sometimes “Children who die before Baptism are interred without any religious ceremony, and consequently are not registered.” (Preliminary Observations p xxii)

Modern calculations based on samples of parish registers show populations and average birth, marriage and death rates for a range of years. (See E A Wrigley and R S Schofield The Population History of England 1541 – 1871.) However It cannot be expected that any individual town would accord with the national averages.

Louth’s Population in 1767

For the reasons given below, 2,500 seems a realistic estimate of Louth’s population in 1767.

The 1767 rating list supplies a figure, 499, for the number of occupied houses in the town. It is possible that some of the farms listed included one or two unidentified cottages in addition to the farmhouses, but the total number of occupied houses must have been very close to 500. If we assume that the number of persons per house was about the same in 1767 as it was found to be in the 1801 census (4.74: see above) a population of about 2,400 seems likely. As there is a large gap between those two dates, an estimate of 2,400 needs to be checked against information from the parish registers.

Parish register figures for individual years tend to vary in a random way; so figures for 1767 have smoothed by averaging those over a five-year period 1765-9. On that basis Louth’s registers showed 82 baptisms and 63 burials.

The baptism rate has to be adjusted to produce an estimate of the birth rate. The records of baptisms were probably accurate insofar as they related to church ceremonies. However they cannot be treated as equivalent to records of births, because some children were never baptised, and some private baptisms were almost certainly not recorded. The extent of baptism can be assessed by examining the burial records of the large number of children that died in 1765-9; child deaths amounted to 46% of total deaths. The methodology is dealt with in the appendix below, the conclusion of which is that in the period 1765-69 the baptism records account for about 86% of the children that were born. Thus the average annual baptism rate of 82 implied an average of 93 births.

Louth’s death rate has to be taken as the burial rate, because there is no evidence to support an estimate of the number of unrecorded burials. That number was probably very low, as Louth had no non-Anglican burial grounds as early as 1767.

According to Wrigley and Schofield (p 529) the national annual birth and death rates per 1,000 people in 1766 were 34.28 and 28.07. Applying those figures to Louth gives estimated populations of about 2,700 and 2,250 respectively.

If the calculated population of 2,700 is correct the number of persons per house would have been 5.4, much higher than 4.74, the figure in 1801. This is unlikely but not impossible. The larger houses in Louth had been constructed of brick for many years but by 1767 brick was coming into use for small terraced houses (eg in Gospelgate) and the extra costs involved might have caused a temporary period when housebuilding lagged behind the growth of population. However a population of 2,500 looks more probable than 2,700.

To put the matter another way: a population of 2,500 would suggest that Louth’s birth rate was slightly above the national average, which would be likely, given that the drift into the town of people from the surrounding villages would tend to reduce the town’s average age. A population of 2,500 would show a death rate significantly below the national average, again likely because Louth’s geographical situation was relatively healthy and the public sewers that in the nineteenth century discharged into the River Lud had not yet been constructed.

Appendix Unrecorded Births

The burial records constitute the only record of deaths. If we assume (perhaps contrary to the facts) that the burial records were complete, it is possible to estimate the percentage of children who could have been baptised in Louth, because their parents lived there, but for whom no baptism was recorded. For this purpose it is immaterial whether the children had not been baptised or whether they had been privately baptised but the private baptism had not been registered. (Private baptism, fairly common in the eighteenth century, was intended to be followed by a church ceremony, sometimes called the “reception” of the child; but this did not always happen, either because the child died or because the parents were uncooperative.)

The following example shows the normal recording practice in Louth.

In the period in question there is no evidence of adult baptisms. The identification of a deceased person as a “child” must have been subjective, but the great majority of child deaths were under the age of five.

The calculation for Louth 1765-9 is as follows.