Calculating the occupational structure of pre-19th century Britain (or most other places for that matter) is fairly difficult due to the lack of reliable data. That’s not to say that estimates aren’t made though.
A common estimate for what is often called natural or organic economies (i.e. societies where agricultural productivity is low and the vast majority of goods are produced for subsistence rather than trade) is 70-80% occupation in agriculture or other land use. Thus seven people engaged in growing or producing food and other agricultural products would create a surplus sufficient to support two to three people engaged in secondary and tertiary occupations (trade, administration, services, producing textiles, tools etc.).
Total agricultural acreage naturally limited the size of non-agricultural populations, including the scale of urban settlement for most of human history. This rough estimate is generally accepted for the majority of medieval and pre-modern societies, including Britain.
In his recent book The Path to Sustained Growth Tony Wrigley has produced new broad estimates of the change in occupational structure for England and Wales (the differences in records, economic structure and more between the constituent parts of the United Kingdom means that combining long term estimates for Scotland and Ireland with those for England and Wales is difficult). Wrigley’s sources for these new estimates are mainly public and church records.
The first British census providing reliable records of population occupation is that of 1841. Censuses before this (i.e. 1801 (the first nationwide census) , 1811 and 1821) recorded occupation only by family, and then only in very broad categories and classifications. That is not to say the data contained within these earlier censuses cannot be used, but they must be supplemented by additional sources. The most common of these are parish registers which from 1813 were required by law to record the occupation of the father of baptised children, and often did so even before then. The sheer number of parishes in Britain (there were more than 10 000 of them in England alone in 1813) means that collecting and collating the information from these handwritten registers is a daunting task.
A recent project nevertheless accomplished this for the years 1813-1820 (the averages from which is reported as c.1817 in the table below). Similar parish register averages have been constructed for the early years of the 18th century (reported as c.1710 below), but as registration at this time was not mandatory there are several gaps in this data, thus reducing its reliability. The estimates should nevertheless hold good for the very broad categorisations we’re talking about here. Finally the natural economy estimates (reported as 1600 below) are included for comparative reasons. These are not based on census or parish records, but merely as a general estimates for a pre-industrial economy. They should not be used for anything but broad long-term comparisons. Wrigley argues that although such pre-18th century estimates are likely to be made more accurate through future research projects (including the use of medieval and early modern parish registers), they are unlikely to lead to major revision of the current estimates.
The table below gives Wrigley’s estimates for male population occupancy in England and Wales 1600-1851. I’ve included 1901 data for Great Britain in her entirety for quick comparison. The 1901 data comes from the British census as reported in Mitchell, from which I have simply divided the male sectoral population on the total number of occupied males. Women are not included in the estimates below, chiefly because their occupancy were rarely recoded before the 19th century censuses and even when recorded female work has tended to be mis- and/or underreported, making long term comparison difficult.
Male occupation structure of England and Wales 1600-1901 (by sector, percentages)
| Sector | 1600 | c.1710 | c.1817 | 1851 | 1901(a) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary | 71.0 | 50.8 | 39.4 | 32.4 | x |
| Agriculture | x | 49.8 | 35.7 | 26.9 | 28.3(b) |
| Mining | x | 0.6 | 3.2 | 4.9 | 19.7 |
| Rest of primary | x | 0.4 | 0.5 | 0.6 | 0.01(c) |
| Secondary | 21.0 | 37.2 | 42.1 | 44.7 | x |
| Tertiary | 8.0 | 12.0 | 18.4 | 22.8 | x |
(a) Includes data for Scotland, data from the 1901 census for Great Britain. (b) Includes males engaged in agriculture, horticulture and forestry (c) Includes fishing only.
Sources: Mitchell; British Historical Statistics; CUP, 1988: Table Labour Force 2A Wrigley; The Path to Sustained Growth; CUP, 2016: Tables 5.1 & 5.2
Wrigley’s new estimates are unusual in that they place the shift from primary to secondary occupancy in England and Wales much earlier than previous estimates. This suggests that improvements in domestic agricultural productivity and improved capacity for grain/food imports allowed secondary/industrial production to grow significantly already in the 17th century. Wrigley estimates that cereal yields per acre in England more than doubled between 1600 and 1800. This in turn means that the growth of industry in the 18th century comes mainly from infrastructure/technological advances which improved industrial efficiency, and from population growth.
According to census records the population of England and Wales more than doubled, from 8.9 million to 17.9 million people, between 1801 and 1851, reaching 32.5 million in 1901. This rapid population increase meant that the total male workforce (so excluding women, children, the elderly and infirm) of England and Wales grew from an estimated 2.9 million men in c.1817 to 4.8 million in 1851, allowing the number of people in secondary sector occupations to almost double (c.1.2 mill to 2.2 mill) over the same period. Population growth means that the apparent decline in agricultural employment over the same period is also only relative. There were still more people employed in agriculture in 1851 than there had been in 1801 (but not many).
It is also worth noting that the relative decline in agricultural occupation does not automatically equal urban growth. A large number of early industries would be sited in more or less rural locations, mainly for infrastructure reasons (easy supply of raw materials or otherwise good access to transport networks etc.). Although general population growth meant that the absolute number of people living in towns and cities rose substantially over the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, the majority of people remained rural inhabitants until well after the end of the first industrial revolution.
In 1600 the estimated population of England was 4.2 million, of which 6% or 249 000 lived in towns and cities of more than 10 000 inhabitants. This is actually lower than the European average of 8% urban population for the same period. By 1800 the population of England had doubled, but the number of urban inhabitants had increased tenfold to 2.1 million or 24% of the total population (against a European average of 10.6%).
Sources