Welsh Journals

THE DEMOGRAPHY OF LATE STUART MONTGOMERYSHIRE, c. 1660-1720* DAVID JENKINS, B.A., Ph.D. (Welsh Industrial and Maritime Museum, Cardiff) Until quite recently, comparatively little accurate information was available concerning the demography of the British Isles during the pre-industrial age. It is generally accepted that the 16th century witnessed a rapid expansion of the overall population of the country, an expansion that continued, albeit at a slower pace, during the 17th and 18th centuries. Such general trends can, however, often bear little relation to local fluctuations. In an age when communities, especially in the rural areas, were still almost totally self-sufficient with regard to their ability to feed themselves, factors such as bad harvests, or localised outbreaks of disease could create demographic trends that were very different from those evident on a national scale. (i) The Sources: A Critical Survey The starting point of any demographic study is determined by the adequacy of the surviving demographic records as sources for reliable statistical data. The quality of the sources critically affects the subsequent accuracy of the research, and it is with the question of sources that this paper opens. Broadly speaking, sources for the study of demography are two-fold-quantitative and qualitative. Of these two, the quantitative data are by far the more important, since it is only by means of a rigorous statistical approach that as precise as possible a picture of the factors giving rise to population change may be understood. What therefore are these quantitative sources? Since this study is one of a period during which there was no central nation-wide registration of population, other sources, mainly of ecclesiastical origin, must be used to provide the data. The primary records of population change prior to 1801 are to be found in the parish registers of births, marriages and deaths, kept by the incumbents of each parish according to Thomas Cromwell's mandate of the 5th September, 1538.2 In these registers were recorded the principal events in the lives of the people of those times in which the Church was bound to play a vital role-what J. D. Chambers has called, the ceaseless two-way traffic-of bodies into the churchyard and babies from the font-the favourable balance of which alone makes history of any kind possible.3 *The following abbreviations have been used: D. W- B. Dictionary of Welsh Biography. Econ. Hist. Rev. Economic History Review. L. P. S. Local Population Studies. Mont. Coll. The Montgomeryshire Collections. N. L. W.J. The National Library of Wales Journal Pop. Studies Population Studies P.R.O. Public Records Office S.A. Documents of the Diocese of St. Asaph, National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth. Trans. Cymm. The Translations of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion. M. Drake (ed.), The Quantitative Analysis of Historical Data (O.U. Press, 1974), p. 14. 2 fetters and Papers Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Vol. 13, Part II (London, 1893), No.281. JD. Chambers, The Valeof Trent 1670-1800— A Regional Study of Economic Change-Econ. Hist. Rev. Supplement, No. 3, p. 19.