Britains population in the 1700 to 1900?

Answer 1

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