Stature and relative deprivation: Fatherless children in early industrial Britain

Continuity and Change

Volumn 13, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 73-115

  Horrell, Sara ^a   Humphries, Jane ^a   Voth, Hans Joachim ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE   (United Kingdom)

^b STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0010749259     PISSN: 02684160     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0268416098003075     Document Type: Article

References (128)

1. CAMPOP (the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure at Cambridge University) has a collection of population listings for a number of communities for the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries which provides a breakdown of households by type. These have been used to gauge the extent of lone ; parenthood in the past; see Richard Wall, 'Some implications of the earnings, income and expenditure patterns of married women in populations in the past', in John Henderson and Richard Wall eds., Poor women and children in the European past (London, 1994). For further discussion of these data and their relationship to census estimates of female-headed households, see Jane Humphries, 'Female-headed house-holds in early industrial Britain: the vanguard of the proletariat', Labour History Review, Spring 1998, 31-65.
2. CAMPOP (the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure at Cambridge University) has a collection of population listings for a number of communities for the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries which provides a breakdown of households by type. These have been used to gauge the extent of lone ; parenthood in the past; see Richard Wall, 'Some implications of the earnings, income and expenditure patterns of married women in populations in the past', in John Henderson and Richard Wall eds., Poor women and children in the European past (London, 1994). For further discussion of these data and their relationship to census estimates of female-headed households, see Jane Humphries, 'Female-headed house-holds in early industrial Britain: the vanguard of the proletariat', Labour History Review, Spring 1998, 31-65.
3. Warrington Public Library, Manuscript MS. 748-50. These observations come from household budgets collected as part of a larger project; see Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries, 'Old questions, new data and alternative perspectives: the standard of living of families in the industrial revolution', Journal of Economic History 53 (1992), 849-80. In the present article those households without a male head are selected from the full sample for more detailed analysis.
4. Quoted in G. W. Oxley, 'The permanent poor in south-west Lancashire under the Old Poor Law', in J. R. Harris ed., Liverpool and Merseyside: essays in the economic and social history of the port and its hinterland (New York, 1969).
5. Rex Watson, 'Poverty in north-east Lancashire in 1843: evidence from Quaker charity records', Local Population Studies 55 (1995), 28-45.
6. Norman McCord, 'The Poor Law and philanthropy', in Derek Fraser ed., The New Poor Law in the nineteenth century (London, 1976), 87-110.
7. For a discussion of these distinctions and their problematic application to female applicants for poor relief, see Pat Thane, 'Women and the Poor Law in Victorian and Edwardian England', History Workshop Journal 6 (1978), 29-51.
8. See Karel Williams, From pauperism to poverty (London, 1981); John Knott, Popular opposition to the 1834 Poor Law (London, 1986); and G. W. Oxley, Poor relief in England and Wales, 1601-1834 (London, 1974).
9. See Karel Williams, From pauperism to poverty (London, 1981); John Knott, Popular opposition to the 1834 Poor Law (London, 1986); and G. W. Oxley, Poor relief in England and Wales, 1601-1834 (London, 1974).
10. See Karel Williams, From pauperism to poverty (London, 1981); John Knott, Popular opposition to the 1834 Poor Law (London, 1986); and G. W. Oxley, Poor relief in England and Wales, 1601-1834 (London, 1974).
11. Sir Frederic Morton Eden (ed. A. G. L. Rogers), The state of the poor: a history of the labouring classes in England, with parochial reports (London, 1928). Inmate lists from Cambridge, Royston and rural Cambridgeshire are illustrative; see E. M. Hampson, The treatment of poverty in Cambridgeshire, 1597-1834 (Cambridge, 1934), chs. VII, VIII, IX.
12. Sir Frederic Morton Eden (ed. A. G. L. Rogers), The state of the poor: a history of the labouring classes in England, with parochial reports (London, 1928). Inmate lists from Cambridge, Royston and rural Cambridgeshire are illustrative; see E. M. Hampson, The treatment of poverty in Cambridgeshire, 1597-1834 (Cambridge, 1934), chs. VII, VIII, IX.
13. Possible motivations are examined in more detail in Humphries, 'Female-headed households'.
14. Knott, Popular opposition to the 1834 Poor Law, Table 1.1; Knott offers other evidence from Yorkshire to confirm the representativeness of Halifax. See also Eden, State of the poor, and for interpretation of the three sets of occasional returns of national-level data before the 1834 Poor Law Commission, see Williams, From pauperism to poverty.
15. Knott, Popular opposition to the 1834 Poor Law, Table 1.1; Knott offers other evidence from Yorkshire to confirm the representativeness of Halifax. See also Eden, State of the poor, and for interpretation of the three sets of occasional returns of national-level data before the 1834 Poor Law Commission, see Williams, From pauperism to poverty.
16. Knott, Popular opposition to the 1834 Poor Law, Table 1.1; Knott offers other evidence from Yorkshire to confirm the representativeness of Halifax. See also Eden, State of the poor, and for interpretation of the three sets of occasional returns of national-level data before the 1834 Poor Law Commission, see Williams, From pauperism to poverty.
17. Brian Harrison and Patricia Hollis eds., Robert Lowery: radical and Chartist (London, 1979), 96.
18. Thane, 'Women and the Poor Law'.
19. Ibid.
20. The notes to these exceptions explain that the exemption of widows during the first six months was adopted 'with a view to enabling persons thus situated to have an adequate interval for the purpose of making some arrangements for their support as their altered condition may require' and that 'If an able-bodied widow have no children dependent upon her for support, out-door relief cannot be granted to her beyond the six months named in the Article, without the previous consent of the LGB [Local Government Board]'. The notes continue in an even more ominous tone: 'Exception of widows with children, so far as it relates to able-bodied women in employment, is one which the Guardians ought to exercise great circumspection in applying in practice. The Guardians when administering relief under it, ought to take into account, that when small weekly allowances in aid of wages are made they too commonly serve to excuse relations from the payment of contributions to a larger amount; and that the out-door allowances, when given indiscriminately in widowhood, tend to put an end to provident habits, in respect of insurance in sick clubs or otherwise. It should, moreover, be borne in mind, that allowances made by the Parish to the able-bodied widows in employment do not always confer the advantages intended, insomuch as their wages, as in the case of able-bodied men, are commonly reduced in consideration of the allowance from the Parish; and that such reduction of the wages, combined with the excuse furnished to relations or friends for withholding their contributions, together with the pauper habits thus engendered, often renders such allowances to widows in aid of wages an injury rather than a benefit to them...The Commissioners trust that the Guardians will seldom find that the ordinary rate of earnings of able-bodied women is so low as to enable them to support one child at the least; and that the Guardians will not adapt any such general rule as that of relieving all widows with one, or with any fixed number of children, but will make a careful inquiry into every case thus to be relieved.' See W. C. Glen, The General Orders of the Poor Law Commissioners, the Poor Law Board, and the Local Government Board relating to the Poor Law (London, 1898), exceptions 4 and 5 to the Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order, p. 493, n. 1.
21. For the view that outdoor relief persisted in the New Poor Law because of the difficulties of dealing with cyclical unemployment in the industrial areas and seasonal unemployment in the rural areas via the workhouse and because of the humanity and political interests of local administrators, see Michael Rose, 'Settlement, removal and the New Poor Law', in Fraser, New Poor Law, 25-44; David Ashforth, 'The urban poor law', ibid., 128-48; Anne Digby, 'The rural poor law', ibid., 149-70. Karel Williams on the other hand argues convincingly that the New Poor Law drew a new 'line of exclusion' to successfully deny unemployed men outdoor relief (see From pauperism to poverty).
22. For the view that outdoor relief persisted in the New Poor Law because of the difficulties of dealing with cyclical unemployment in the industrial areas and seasonal unemployment in the rural areas via the workhouse and because of the humanity and political interests of local administrators, see Michael Rose, 'Settlement, removal and the New Poor Law', in Fraser, New Poor Law, 25-44; David Ashforth, 'The urban poor law', ibid., 128-48; Anne Digby, 'The rural poor law', ibid., 149-70. Karel Williams on the other hand argues convincingly that the New Poor Law drew a new 'line of exclusion' to successfully deny unemployed men outdoor relief (see From pauperism to poverty).
23. For the view that outdoor relief persisted in the New Poor Law because of the difficulties of dealing with cyclical unemployment in the industrial areas and seasonal unemployment in the rural areas via the workhouse and because of the humanity and political interests of local administrators, see Michael Rose, 'Settlement, removal and the New Poor Law', in Fraser, New Poor Law, 25-44; David Ashforth, 'The urban poor law', ibid., 128-48; Anne Digby, 'The rural poor law', ibid., 149-70. Karel Williams on the other hand argues convincingly that the New Poor Law drew a new 'line of exclusion' to successfully deny unemployed men outdoor relief (see From pauperism to poverty).
24. For the view that outdoor relief persisted in the New Poor Law because of the difficulties of dealing with cyclical unemployment in the industrial areas and seasonal unemployment in the rural areas via the workhouse and because of the humanity and political interests of local administrators, see Michael Rose, 'Settlement, removal and the New Poor Law', in Fraser, New Poor Law, 25-44; David Ashforth, 'The urban poor law', ibid., 128-48; Anne Digby, 'The rural poor law', ibid., 149-70. Karel Williams on the other hand argues convincingly that the New Poor Law drew a new 'line of exclusion' to successfully deny unemployed men outdoor relief (see From pauperism to poverty).
25. In the subsequent crusade against outdoor relief in the 1870s, the lines of exclusion were drawn ever more clearly to their disadvantage.
26. Some authors believe the latter more likely; see K. D. M. Snell and J. Millar, 'Lone parent families and the welfare state : past and present', Continuity and Change 2 (1987), 387-422, and Humphries, 'Female-headed households'.
27. Some authors believe the latter more likely; see K. D. M. Snell and J. Millar, 'Lone parent families and the welfare state : past and present', Continuity and Change 2 (1987), 387-422, and Humphries, 'Female-headed households'.
28. Snell and Millar, 'Lone-parent families', 398. For a discussion of whether settlement examinations invariably indicated destitution within the changing legal framework of late Old Poor Law, see Norma Landau, 'The law of settlement and the surveillance of immigration in eighteenth-century Kent', Continuity and Change 3 (1988), 202-14; K. D. M. Snell's reply, 'Pauper settlement', Continuity and Change 6 (1991), 417-39; and Landau's defence of her original position, 'The eighteenth-century context of the laws of settlement', Continuity and Change 6 (1991), 417-39.
29. Snell and Millar, 'Lone-parent families', 398. For a discussion of whether settlement examinations invariably indicated destitution within the changing legal framework of late Old Poor Law, see Norma Landau, 'The law of settlement and the surveillance of immigration in eighteenth-century Kent', Continuity and Change 3 (1988), 202-14; K. D. M. Snell's reply, 'Pauper settlement', Continuity and Change 6 (1991), 417-39; and Landau's defence of her original position, 'The eighteenth-century context of the laws of settlement', Continuity and Change 6 (1991), 417-39.
30. Snell and Millar, 'Lone-parent families', 398. For a discussion of whether settlement examinations invariably indicated destitution within the changing legal framework of late Old Poor Law, see Norma Landau, 'The law of settlement and the surveillance of immigration in eighteenth-century Kent', Continuity and Change 3 (1988), 202-14; K. D. M. Snell's reply, 'Pauper settlement', Continuity and Change 6 (1991), 417-39; and Landau's defence of her original position, 'The eighteenth-century context of the laws of settlement', Continuity and Change 6 (1991), 417-39.
31. Snell and Millar, 'Lone-parent families', 398. For a discussion of whether settlement examinations invariably indicated destitution within the changing legal framework of late Old Poor Law, see Norma Landau, 'The law of settlement and the surveillance of immigration in eighteenth-century Kent', Continuity and Change 3 (1988), 202-14; K. D. M. Snell's reply, 'Pauper settlement', Continuity and Change 6 (1991), 417-39; and Landau's defence of her original position, 'The eighteenth-century context of the laws of settlement', Continuity and Change 6 (1991), 417-39.
32. The 58 cases removed from Leeds in 1851 included 11 widows, 10 single women with bastard children and another single woman who was pregnant; see Rose, 'Settlement'. See also James S. Taylor, Poverty, migration and settlement in the Industrial Revolution: sojourners' narratives (Palo Alto, 1989).
33. The 58 cases removed from Leeds in 1851 included 11 widows, 10 single women with bastard children and another single woman who was pregnant; see Rose, 'Settlement'. See also James S. Taylor, Poverty, migration and settlement in the Industrial Revolution: sojourners' narratives (Palo Alto, 1989).
34. See Pamela Sharpe, Adapting to capitalism: working women in the English economy, 1700-1850 (London, 1996).
35. For a survey of the debate and a discussion of new evidence, see Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries, 'Women's labour force participation and the transition to the male-breadwinner family, 1790-1865', Economic History Review XLVIII (1995), 89-117.
36. Charles H. Feinstein, 'Changes in nominal wages, the cost of living and real wages in the United Kingdom over two centuries, 1780-1990', in Peter Scholliers and Vera Zamagni eds., Labour's reward: real wages and economic change in 19th- and 20th-century Europe (Aldershot, 1995), 3-36.
37. This data set has already been used to look at trends in family incomes during the industrial revolution (see Horrell and Humphries, Old questions'), married women's participation rates (see Horrell and Humphries, 'Women's labour force participation'), children's participation in paid work (see Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries, '"The exploitation of little children": child labour and the family economy in the British industrial revolution', Explorations in Economic History 32 (1995), 485-516), food demand (see Sara Horrell, 'Home demand in British industrialisation', Journal of Economic History 56 (1996), 561-604), and the economic circumstances of women and children in female-headed households (see Humphries, 'Female-headed households'). The full data set covers 1,781 working-class household budgets collected from 59 sources including contemporary social commentators, Parliamentary Papers and provincial libraries and record offices for the period 1787 to 1872. The budgets are spread across occupations and geographical locations and provide information on household composition, the earnings and occupations of individuals and patterns of family expenditure. A full description of the sources and details of the budgets is given in Horrell and Humphries, Old questions', Appendix 1. The difficulties of working with this kind of data, its reliability and its performance when checked against independent evidence, are discussed in all these articles. Here we compare evidence for husband-and-wife households for selected occupations with that for families headed by women.
38. This data set has already been used to look at trends in family incomes during the industrial revolution (see Horrell and Humphries, Old questions'), married women's participation rates (see Horrell and Humphries, 'Women's labour force participation'), children's participation in paid work (see Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries, '"The exploitation of little children": child labour and the family economy in the British industrial revolution', Explorations in Economic History 32 (1995), 485-516), food demand (see Sara Horrell, 'Home demand in British industrialisation', Journal of Economic History 56 (1996), 561-604), and the economic circumstances of women and children in female-headed households (see Humphries, 'Female-headed households'). The full data set covers 1,781 working-class household budgets collected from 59 sources including contemporary social commentators, Parliamentary Papers and provincial libraries and record offices for the period 1787 to 1872. The budgets are spread across occupations and geographical locations and provide information on household composition, the earnings and occupations of individuals and patterns of family expenditure. A full description of the sources and details of the budgets is given in Horrell and Humphries, Old questions', Appendix 1. The difficulties of working with this kind of data, its reliability and its performance when checked against independent evidence, are discussed in all these articles. Here we compare evidence for husband-and-wife households for selected occupations with that for families headed by women.
39. This data set has already been used to look at trends in family incomes during the industrial revolution (see Horrell and Humphries, Old questions'), married women's participation rates (see Horrell and Humphries, 'Women's labour force participation'), children's participation in paid work (see Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries, '"The exploitation of little children": child labour and the family economy in the British industrial revolution', Explorations in Economic History 32 (1995), 485-516), food demand (see Sara Horrell, 'Home demand in British industrialisation', Journal of Economic History 56 (1996), 561-604), and the economic circumstances of women and children in female-headed households (see Humphries, 'Female-headed households'). The full data set covers 1,781 working-class household budgets collected from 59 sources including contemporary social commentators, Parliamentary Papers and provincial libraries and record offices for the period 1787 to 1872. The budgets are spread across occupations and geographical locations and provide information on household composition, the earnings and occupations of individuals and patterns of family expenditure. A full description of the sources and details of the budgets is given in Horrell and Humphries, Old questions', Appendix 1. The difficulties of working with this kind of data, its reliability and its performance when checked against independent evidence, are discussed in all these articles. Here we compare evidence for husband-and-wife households for selected occupations with that for families headed by women.
40. The family incomes reported here differ marginally from those reported in other published work because here we limit ourselves to a sample of households whose composition and size are known, but we do not exclude households which simply reported total earnings and not earnings broken down among family members as in earlier work where the objective was to identify sources of income. The small differences in sample composition do not result in significant differences in the relative standing of families by husband's/father's occupation or comparative trends over time.
41. Henry Ashworth, Esq., 'Statistics of the present depression of trade at Bolton; showing the mode in which it affects the different classes of a manufacturing population', Journal of the Statistical Society of London, V (April 1842), pp. 74-81.
42. Mrs Swinney's story is sketched through her settlement examination and the parish records in Taylor, Poverty, migration and settlement, 133-5.
43. See Thane, 'Women and the Poor Law', 44.
44. Horrell and Humphries, '"The exploitation of little children"', 496-501.
45. David Vincent, Bread, knowledge and freedom: a study of nineteenth-century working class autobiography (London, 1981), ch. 3.
46. Humphries finds an age difference of this size in a sample of Chartist biographies; see her 'Female-headed households'.
47. For a summary of this evidence, see Humphries, 'Female-headed households'.
48. The case is described in Hampson, The treatment of poverty, 151.
49. Linda A. Pollock, Forgotten children: parent-child relations from 1500 to 1900 (London, 1983), 62-3.
50. Compare A. E. Musson, 'Robert Blincoe and the early factory system', Derbyshire Miscellany I (1958), 111-17, with, for example, G. Elson, The last of the climbing boys: an autobiography (London, 1900); see also Marjorie Cruickshank, Children and industry: child health and welfare in north-western textile towns during the nineteenth century (Manchester, 1981), 13-17.
51. Compare A. E. Musson, 'Robert Blincoe and the early factory system', Derbyshire Miscellany I (1958), 111-17, with, for example, G. Elson, The last of the climbing boys: an autobiography (London, 1900); see also Marjorie Cruickshank, Children and industry: child health and welfare in north-western textile towns during the nineteenth century (Manchester, 1981), 13-17.
52. Compare A. E. Musson, 'Robert Blincoe and the early factory system', Derbyshire Miscellany I (1958), 111-17, with, for example, G. Elson, The last of the climbing boys: an autobiography (London, 1900); see also Marjorie Cruickshank, Children and industry: child health and welfare in north-western textile towns during the nineteenth century (Manchester, 1981), 13-17.
53. And no illegitimate children born after widowhood; see Glen, The General Orders.
54. See Humphries, 'Female-headed households', Horrell and Humphries, 'Women's labour force participation', and Peter Earle, 'The female labour market in London in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries', Economic History Review XLII (1989), 328-54.
55. See Humphries, 'Female-headed households', Horrell and Humphries, 'Women's labour force participation', and Peter Earle, 'The female labour market in London in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries', Economic History Review XLII (1989), 328-54.
56. See Humphries, 'Female-headed households', Horrell and Humphries, 'Women's labour force participation', and Peter Earle, 'The female labour market in London in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries', Economic History Review XLII (1989), 328-54.
57. Eden, State of the poor, 100.
58. Carole Shammas, 'The eighteenth-century English diet and economic change', Explorations in Economic History 21 (1984), 256. This work also calculates income elasticities for the various foodstuffs and confirms the luxury nature of tea and sugar.
59. For a full description and analysis of the expenditure information available in these budgets see Horrell, 'Home demand'.
60. Expenditure on each category of food in husband-and-wife households from the Eden and Davies budgets was regressed on the number of adult equivalents in the household, a regional price index (taken from N. F. R. Crafts, 'English workers' real wages during the industrial revolution: some remaining problems', Journal of Economic History 45 (1985), 139-44), total expenditure, cost-of-living index (see Feinstein, 'Changes in nominal wages'), a dummy variable for urban occupation (factory and trades occupations for man or male child aged over 15) and a dummy variable for primary occupation (agriculture and mining for man or male child aged over 15). Coefficients from these regressions were then applied to the female-headed households to give predicted expenditures to compare with actual expenditure on different food categories.
61. Expenditure on each category of food in husband-and-wife households from the Eden and Davies budgets was regressed on the number of adult equivalents in the household, a regional price index (taken from N. F. R. Crafts, 'English workers' real wages during the industrial revolution: some remaining problems', Journal of Economic History 45 (1985), 139-44), total expenditure, cost-of-living index (see Feinstein, 'Changes in nominal wages'), a dummy variable for urban occupation (factory and trades occupations for man or male child aged over 15) and a dummy variable for primary occupation (agriculture and mining for man or male child aged over 15). Coefficients from these regressions were then applied to the female-headed households to give predicted expenditures to compare with actual expenditure on different food categories.
62. See Shammas, 'The eighteenth-century English diet', 261.
63. Quoted in John Burnett, Plenty and want: a social history of food in England from 1815 to the present day (3rd edition, London, 1989), 249.
64. This survey is analyzed in Derek J. Oddy, 'Urban famine in nineteenth-century Britain: the effect of the Lancashire cotton famine on working-class diet and health', Economic History Review XXXVI (1983), 68-86.
65. Shammas, 'The eighteenth-century English diet'.
66. Gregory Clark, Michael Huberman and Peter H. Lindert, 'A British food puzzle', Economic History Review XLVIII (1995), 234.
67. See Burnett, Plenty and want.
68. Ibid., 4.
69. Jan de Vries, 'Between purchasing power and the world of goods: understanding the household economy in early modern Europe', in John Brewer and Roy Porter eds., Consumption and the world of goods (London, 1993), 85-132, and 'The industrial revolution and the industrious revolution', Journal of Economic History 54 (1994), 249-70.
70. Jan de Vries, 'Between purchasing power and the world of goods: understanding the household economy in early modern Europe', in John Brewer and Roy Porter eds., Consumption and the world of goods (London, 1993), 85-132, and 'The industrial revolution and the industrious revolution', Journal of Economic History 54 (1994), 249-70.
71. Burnett, Plenty and want, 7, 42.
72. See Ivy Pinchbeck, Women workers in the industrial revolution (London, 1977; 1st edition 1930) and Oddy, 'Urban famine'.
73. See Ivy Pinchbeck, Women workers in the industrial revolution (London, 1977; 1st edition 1930) and Oddy, 'Urban famine'.
74. Using information on calories per penny of expenditure from Shammas, 'The eighteenth-century English diet'.
75. Here we calculate the calories purchased in these dietaries; the calories actually consumed may have been somewhat less due to spoilage. Furthermore, the calories digested would be lower than the calories consumed, the difference being dictated by the palatability of the food.
76. Shammas, 'The eighteenth-century English diet', 257.
77. Although these households suffered low levels of nutrition, this is not unambiguous evidence that malnutrition occurred as there is considerable inter-individual variability in actual requirements and comparisons with recommended intakes are not sufficient to assess health. This has been recognized in more recent studies of diet. See, for example, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Energy and protein requirements, report of a joint FAO/WHO Ad-hoc Expert Group (Rome, 1971), 2.
78. See Oddy, 'Urban famine', and Burnett, Plenty and want, for discussion of these surveys. Although they were not starvation diets, on 2,555 calories per day the single female factory operatives provide an informed basis for our comparisons. Two-thirds of the needlewomen were supporting themselves, so again they provide a useful comparison with the adult females in our sample.
79. See Oddy, 'Urban famine', and Burnett, Plenty and want, for discussion of these surveys. Although they were not starvation diets, on 2,555 calories per day the single female factory operatives provide an informed basis for our comparisons. Two-thirds of the needlewomen were supporting themselves, so again they provide a useful comparison with the adult females in our sample.
80. Eden, State of the poor, 107-8. However, Eden is sceptical about this argument as he considers that tea-drinking in the south must have required as much fuel to boil the kettle twice a day as the more nutritious cooking required.
81. Oddy, 'Urban famine'.
82. Pinchbeck, Women workers, 104.
83. 'Report of an investigation' reprinted in Richard Wall, Slum conditions in London and Dublin (Farnborough, 1974).
84. Consideration of the rents paid in the 13 female-headed households for which this information was available compared with those paid by husband-and-wife households revealed that they were similar over time to those paid by outworkers, so 170 outworking households were used as a comparison. Outworkers' rents were significantly higher in London and Manchester so a dummy variable was constructed to account for this. Rents were regressed on household size, a time trend and the area dummy.
85. There were no lodgers in any of the households for which rent information was available.
86. 'Report of an investigation', in Wall, Slum conditions.
87. See J. M. Tanner, 'Potential of auxological data for monitoring economic and social well-being', Social Science History 6 (1982), 571-81,
88. and Roderick Floud and Kenneth W. Wachter, 'Poverty and physical stature', Social Science History 6 (1982), 450.
89. Friedrich Engels, The condition of the working class in England (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1987; first published in Germany in 1845, in the UK in 1892), 134-5.
90. See Pinchbeck, Women workers.
91. Adults too were regular users of opiates to combat these ills and this must also have led to low birth weight of children, the main predictor of future health; see Robert W. Fogel, 'The escape from hunger and premature death, 1700-2100: Europe, America and the Third World', Ellen McArthur Lectures, Cambridge, November 1996 (forthcoming).
92. From Parliamentary Papers, 1843, XIV, Children's Employment Commission: appendix to the second report of the Commissioners (Trade and Manufactures), Pt I, fos. 61-2. Quoted in Virginia Berridge and Griffith Edward, Opium and the people: opiate use in nineteenth-century England (London, 1981), 102.
93. From Parliamentary Papers, 1843, XIV, Children's Employment Commission: appendix to the second report of the Commissioners (Trade and Manufactures), Pt I, fos. 61-2. Quoted in Virginia Berridge and Griffith Edward, Opium and the people: opiate use in nineteenth-century England (London, 1981), 102.
94. For full details of this data set, see Roderick Floud, Kenneth W. Wachter and Annabel Gregory, Height, health and history: nutritional status in the United Kingdom (Cambridge, 1990).
95. John Komlos, 'The secular trend in the biological standard of living', Economic History Review XLVI (1993), 130-1.
96. See Peter Kirby, 'Causes of short stature among coal-mining children, 1823-1850', Economic History Review XLVIII (1995), 687-99, and Jane Humphries, 'Short stature among coal-mining children: a comment', Economic History Review L (1997), 25-64.
97. See Peter Kirby, 'Causes of short stature among coal-mining children, 1823-1850', Economic History Review XLVIII (1995), 687-99, and Jane Humphries, 'Short stature among coal-mining children: a comment', Economic History Review L (1997), 25-64.
98. For full details of this data set, see Floud, Wachter and Gregory, Height, health and history.
99. The data set collected by Floud et al. (see note 68, above) is available as ESRC study number 2131-4: Long-term changes in nutrition, welfare and productivity in Britain. The subsample is ESRC 2134. For this sample the recruiting officer systematically recorded the name, address and occupation of a parent or relative, if the boy had one, the boy's occupation, his geographical origin, age and height.
100. It is clear that the recruiting officer did make a concerted effort to gather this information: after 1775 this space was left incomplete for only 2-3 per cent of the recruits (see Table 6).
101. The existence of a particularly high proportion of female-headed households during the Napoleonic wars has been identified elsewhere; see Humphries, 'Female-headed households'.
102. Destitute boys were those recorded as 'destitute', 'friendless', 'foundling','from a workhouse', 'vagrant', 'orphan', 'in the streets', 'distressed boy', 'illegitimate' or 'no relative'; see Floud et al., Health, height and history, 5a.
103. See Sara Horrell and Jane Humphries, 'The origins and expansion of the male-breadwinner family: the case of nineteenth-century Britain', International Review of Social History 42 (1997), 25-64.
104. Two other groups of boys were recruited to the Marine Society: those parented by another relative (boys who presumably might have lost a father or mother but might not have spent time without a male head of household such as a stepfather or grandfather), and those for whom there was no nearest relative or friend - the boys who were on the street or arrived from a workhouse and were generally destitute. The analysis controls for these groups, distinguishing them from those with and without fathers, but it does not specifically attempt to quantify the effect of these states on their stature.
105. See Floud and Wachter, 'Poverty and physical stature', 430.
106. Boys who gave another relative as their next-of-kin and destitute boys were older than those who had a father or mother. The age difference is reflected in taller average height for these destitute boys after 1783.
107. Diagrams were drawn for those age groups and subperiods for which there were sufficient observations to make comparisons feasible.
108. See Floud and Wachter, 'Poverty and physical stature', and Komlos, 'The secular trend'.
109. See Floud and Wachter, 'Poverty and physical stature', and Komlos, 'The secular trend'.
110. Only boys aged 13-16 (1770-1783) and 14-16 (1816-1847) were included as there were very few cases in the data from other age groups. Other authors have shown that having smallpox had an adverse effect on height and that literacy was positively correlated with height and so captured some of the inequalities in background of the boys; see HansJoachim Voth and Timothy Leunig, 'Did smallpox reduce height? Stature and the standard of living in London, 1770-1873', Economic History Review XLIX (1996), 541-60, and Komlos, 'The secular trend'. However, the consistency of the recording of these variables over time and their empirical relationship are contested (see articles by P. E. Razzell and by H. J. Voth and T. Leunig forthcoming in the Economic History Review). Furthermore, height and smallpox likely suffer from multicolinearity so we have omitted them from the regression analysis.
111. Only boys aged 13-16 (1770-1783) and 14-16 (1816-1847) were included as there were very few cases in the data from other age groups. Other authors have shown that having smallpox had an adverse effect on height and that literacy was positively correlated with height and so captured some of the inequalities in background of the boys; see HansJoachim Voth and Timothy Leunig, 'Did smallpox reduce height? Stature and the standard of living in London, 1770-1873', Economic History Review XLIX (1996), 541-60, and Komlos, 'The secular trend'. However, the consistency of the recording of these variables over time and their empirical relationship are contested (see articles by P. E. Razzell and by H. J. Voth and T. Leunig forthcoming in the Economic History Review). Furthermore, height and smallpox likely suffer from multicolinearity so we have omitted them from the regression analysis.
112. Only boys aged 13-16 (1770-1783) and 14-16 (1816-1847) were included as there were very few cases in the data from other age groups. Other authors have shown that having smallpox had an adverse effect on height and that literacy was positively correlated with height and so captured some of the inequalities in background of the boys; see HansJoachim Voth and Timothy Leunig, 'Did smallpox reduce height? Stature and the standard of living in London, 1770-1873', Economic History Review XLIX (1996), 541-60, and Komlos, 'The secular trend'. However, the consistency of the recording of these variables over time and their empirical relationship are contested (see articles by P. E. Razzell and by H. J. Voth and T. Leunig forthcoming in the Economic History Review). Furthermore, height and smallpox likely suffer from multicolinearity so we have omitted them from the regression analysis.
113. See Komlos, 'The secular trend', and references therein, for discussion of the merits of performing truncated ordinary least squares regressions on the Marine Society data. It has been demonstrated that the quartile bend estimator (QBE) procedure to compensate for truncation is inappropriate if the sample departs from normality or if two parts of the distribution have been superimposed upon one another giving a bimodal distribution, as we hypothesize to be the case when comparing boys with and without fathers.
114. In fact there is some evidence that boys from deprived backgrounds were taller than their better-off counterparts. This is a consequence of the particularly short 14-year-olds with fathers who were accepted above the height standard in 1818-1823 (see Figure 1). It is possible that recruiting officers were compensating for other deficiencies of a deprived background which might be reflected in height if they took only taller boys from these groups, but we are unable to test this hypothesis.
115. Only boys aged 13 to 16 were included in the analysis and those whose next-of-kin or destitute state is unknown were excluded. Two subperiods were chosen, 1770-1783 when the height standard was usually below 52″ and 1770-1813 when the height standard was less than 57″.
116. The idea here is that we are looking at two overlapping normal distributions where the height requirement causes truncation of the sample and allows only partial observation of the whole distribution. The observed means of these distributions will thus overstate the true means and the bias will be more pronounced in the distribution closest to the height requirement, the one for fatherless boys.
117. The significance of being fatherless for height is removed if truncated OLS estimation is performed (see Table 9). This procedure results in biased coefficient estimates but the sign and relative magnitudes of the coefficient are deemed to be correct; see Komlos, 'The secular trend'. Although being fatherless still shows reduced stature, removal of all boys below 52″ before 1813 will disproportionately remove the shorter fatherless boys and younger boys between whom the height differences are more evident (see Figure 1). Thus it is not surprising that truncated OLS removes the significance of the effect on height of fatherlessness.
118. Unless it can be shown that catch-up growth occurred. See Richard H. Steckel, 'A peculiar population: the nutrition, health and mortality of American slaves from childhood to maturity', Journal of Economic History 46 (1986), 721-42, for a discussion of this phenomenon.
119. Being fatherless or destitute reduced height by a minimum of 0.3″ and the proportion in these groups declined from 50 to 20 per cent of the whole sample from 1780-1782 to 1860-1861, so average height would rise 0.066″ through this effect alone.
120. See Robert W. Fogel, 'Physical growth as a measure of economic well-being of populations: the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries', in Frank Falkner and J. M. Tanner eds., Human growth, vol. 3 (2nd edition, New York, 1986), 263 ff., and Floud, Wachter and Gregory, Height, health and history, pp. 16 ff., for a discussion of the relationship between heights and nutritional status and, for example, N. F. R. Crafts, 'Cliometrics, 1971-1986: a survey', Journal of Applied Econometrics 2 (1987), 189, and 'Some dimensions of the "Quality of Life" during the British industrial revolution' (unpublished manuscript, London School of Economics, April 1996, 8), and Stephen Nicholas and Paul Johnson, 'Health and welfare of women in the United Kingdom 1785-1920', unpublished paper presented at NBER conference on 'Health and Welfare during Industrialisation', Cambridge, Mass., 21-22 April 1995, 1, for doubts about the relationship with other measures of living standards.
121. See Robert W. Fogel, 'Physical growth as a measure of economic well-being of populations: the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries', in Frank Falkner and J. M. Tanner eds., Human growth, vol. 3 (2nd edition, New York, 1986), 263 ff., and Floud, Wachter and Gregory, Height, health and history, pp. 16 ff., for a discussion of the relationship between heights and nutritional status and, for example, N. F. R. Crafts, 'Cliometrics, 1971-1986: a survey', Journal of Applied Econometrics 2 (1987), 189, and 'Some dimensions of the "Quality of Life" during the British industrial revolution' (unpublished manuscript, London School of Economics, April 1996, 8), and Stephen Nicholas and Paul Johnson, 'Health and welfare of women in the United Kingdom 1785-1920', unpublished paper presented at NBER conference on 'Health and Welfare during Industrialisation', Cambridge, Mass., 21-22 April 1995, 1, for doubts about the relationship with other measures of living standards.
122. See Robert W. Fogel, 'Physical growth as a measure of economic well-being of populations: the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries', in Frank Falkner and J. M. Tanner eds., Human growth, vol. 3 (2nd edition, New York, 1986), 263 ff., and Floud, Wachter and Gregory, Height, health and history, pp. 16 ff., for a discussion of the relationship between heights and nutritional status and, for example, N. F. R. Crafts, 'Cliometrics, 1971-1986: a survey', Journal of Applied Econometrics 2 (1987), 189, and 'Some dimensions of the "Quality of Life" during the British industrial revolution' (unpublished manuscript, London School of Economics, April 1996, 8), and Stephen Nicholas and Paul Johnson, 'Health and welfare of women in the United Kingdom 1785-1920', unpublished paper presented at NBER conference on 'Health and Welfare during Industrialisation', Cambridge, Mass., 21-22 April 1995, 1, for doubts about the relationship with other measures of living standards.
123. See Robert W. Fogel, 'Physical growth as a measure of economic well-being of populations: the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries', in Frank Falkner and J. M. Tanner eds., Human growth, vol. 3 (2nd edition, New York, 1986), 263 ff., and Floud, Wachter and Gregory, Height, health and history, pp. 16 ff., for a discussion of the relationship between heights and nutritional status and, for example, N. F. R. Crafts, 'Cliometrics, 1971-1986: a survey', Journal of Applied Econometrics 2 (1987), 189, and 'Some dimensions of the "Quality of Life" during the British industrial revolution' (unpublished manuscript, London School of Economics, April 1996, 8), and Stephen Nicholas and Paul Johnson, 'Health and welfare of women in the United Kingdom 1785-1920', unpublished paper presented at NBER conference on 'Health and Welfare during Industrialisation', Cambridge, Mass., 21-22 April 1995, 1, for doubts about the relationship with other measures of living standards.
124. See Robert W. Fogel, 'Physical growth as a measure of economic well-being of populations: the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries', in Frank Falkner and J. M. Tanner eds., Human growth, vol. 3 (2nd edition, New York, 1986), 263 ff., and Floud, Wachter and Gregory, Height, health and history, pp. 16 ff., for a discussion of the relationship between heights and nutritional status and, for example, N. F. R. Crafts, 'Cliometrics, 1971-1986: a survey', Journal of Applied Econometrics 2 (1987), 189, and 'Some dimensions of the "Quality of Life" during the British industrial revolution' (unpublished manuscript, London School of Economics, April 1996, 8), and Stephen Nicholas and Paul Johnson, 'Health and welfare of women in the United Kingdom 1785-1920', unpublished paper presented at NBER conference on 'Health and Welfare during Industrialisation', Cambridge, Mass., 21-22 April 1995, 1, for doubts about the relationship with other measures of living standards.
125. See, for example, the implications drawn from an analysis of the relative heights of male and female convicts transported to Australia in Stephen Nicholas and Deborah Oxley, 'The living standards of women during the industrial revolution, 1795-1820', Economic History Review XLVI (1993), 723-49.
126. See Richard H. Steckel, 'Height and per capita income', Historical Methods 15 (1982), 1-7.
127. See John Komlos, Nutrition and economic development in the eighteenth-century Habsburg monarchy (Princeton, 1989), and 'Anomalies in economic history: toward a resolution of the "Antebellum puzzle"', Journal of Economic History 56 (1996), 202-14.
128. See John Komlos, Nutrition and economic development in the eighteenth-century Habsburg monarchy (Princeton, 1989), and 'Anomalies in economic history: toward a resolution of the "Antebellum puzzle"', Journal of Economic History 56 (1996), 202-14.