Britains population in the 1700 to 1900?
The most simple way to describe the United Kingdoms population
since the 1700's would be a decline in both birth and death rate
yet the pattern is more complex than this, and furthermore there
are reasoning behind the patterns.
Beginning with 1700s where both birth and death rate are high,
there are fluctuations up to 1760 yet through out this period birth
and death rate both remains considerably high at about 35 per1000
people. A lack of birth control accompanied by religious beliefs
such as Catholicism lead to an increasing birth rate in addition to
this social issues will have also lead to a raise in birth rate
with many families having children for more practical reasons- for
example children in rural areas were needed to work on land.
In the 1700s population growth remained fairly stable as a high
death rate accompanied the high birth rate. The death rate was high
due to many factors, with poor health services due to a lack of
hospitals or free health service (like the NHS 1948) diseases
spread quickly such as the bubonic plague. Poor hygiene also helped
to spread these diseases as a lack of clean water meant cholera
spread, until John Snow discovered it was spread by contaminated
water in 1849 and was not air borne. From 1760 death rate in
particular began to fall, and by 1850 has fallen to 22 per 1000
people compared to almost 32 for every 1000 people just 50 years
earlier.
The large decline in death rate is due to many factors yet I
believe the key factor was development of medicines.. A vaccine had
been discovered for small pox and at the very end of the 17th
century consequently for the 18th century fewer people suffered
from the disease which had previously been responsible for 1 in 13
British deaths. Other reasons for the declining death rate could
include improvements to the nations diet. Previously many had
endured diets of just potatoes and oatmeal yet agricultural
developments lead to an improvement in the Nations diet. In 1820
over 2 million hectares of open fields were enclosed to enforce
selective breading of livestock, the nations diet began to improve
and life expectancy reflects this as now rose to over 40 in
1841