1. MIGRATIONS
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J. J
Urban migration in nineteenth century Lancashire
SOME INSIGHTS INTO TWO COMPETING HYPOTHESES
par Michael ANDERSON
Two différent interprétations have been offered of the processes involved in migration from rural areas to the industrial towns of nineteenth century England, though ail observers agree that most migration involved only short distance moves.
One thesis, which finds its clearest expression in Redford's Labour migration in England, 1800-1850 l, published in 1926, sees most migra¬ tion as consisting not of a simple and direct movement of individuals from country to town, but instead as following a wave-like motion, with migrants from country areas concentrating first in smaller towns, from which, in turn, men and women moved to the industrial areas.
Deane and Cole 2, while agreeing that some kind of wave-like move¬ ment may have occurred among migrants to London3, argue that in the case of other urban areas such as Lancashire, the towns stimulated a growth of population in the surrounding areas, and that part of this population increase was then siphoned off into the nearby towns.
Either of these interprétations, if fully verified, would be of more général sociological and démographie interest. That a two-step pro-cess involving the same people was normal elsewhere in Europe was, however, firmly denied by Weber, though he did point out that consi¬ dérable numbers of the migrants found in major European towns had been born in another town 4. This tendency for migrants to come from
1. A. Redford, Labour migration in England, 1800-1850, Manchester, 1926, p. 54 sq.
2. P. Deane et W. A. Cole, British economic growth 1688-1959, Cambridge, 1962, p. 116 sq.
3. An idea originally suggested by C. Booth, Life and labour of the people in London, tome III, p. 68, though he believed that it was the same individuals who were migrating in this two-step manner (see below).
4. A. F. Weber, The growth of cities in the nineteenth century, New York, 1899, chap. 4.
