{"id":818,"date":"2019-04-13T19:30:43","date_gmt":"2019-04-13T19:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/?p=818"},"modified":"2025-07-15T15:38:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T14:38:17","slug":"occupations-in-the-early-1800s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/index.php\/2019\/04\/13\/occupations-in-the-early-1800s\/","title":{"rendered":"Occupations in the early 1800s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Occupations in the early 1800s. Forget tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor\u2026 this isn\u2019t a post about job titles, but rather about the numbers of people employed in different occupations. With an explanation of why the balance was politically contentious. And an idea of wages.<\/p>\n<p>It is well-known that the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700s\/early 1800s made Great Britain a global superpower. And transformed society.<\/p>\n<p>(For anyone wanting an outline of that, you could try this post on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.history.com\/topics\/industrial-revolution\/industrial-revolution\">History.com<\/a> ).<\/p>\n<p>A contemporary report, in the <em>Carlisle Journal<\/em> in September 1844, shows that transformation in occupations in the early 1800s was a hot topic.<\/p>\n<h2>A society undergoing transformation<\/h2>\n<p>The Journal was looking at the census returns. While 1841 is the first census family historians look to, there had been others.<\/p>\n<p>1811\u2019s and 1821\u2019s established that:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>around 35 per cent of the population was employed in agriculture, and;<\/li>\n<li>around 45 per cent in trade, manufacture and commerce.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>By 1841, agriculture only accounted for 22 per cent (commerical 46 per cent).<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-824\" src=\"http:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/occupations-1024x248.jpg\" alt=\"occupations in the early 1800s, Cumbrian Characters,\" width=\"640\" height=\"155\" srcset=\"https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/occupations-1024x248.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/occupations-300x73.jpg 300w, https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/occupations-768x186.jpg 768w, https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/occupations.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/> \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Occupations in the early 1800 \u2013 and politics<\/h2>\n<p>The Journal was a Whig (Liberal) paper. Its rival the <em>Carlisle Patriot<\/em>\u00a0was Tory (Conservative). And the Patriot took umbrage.<\/p>\n<p>The Patriot felt the figures had been manipulated in such a way as to \u2018exalt the manufacturing classes as the most important part of the community\u2019 and \u2018depress the agricultural classes in proportion\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>The Patriot was the champion of \u2018old money\u2019: the big land owners. And viewed the \u2018new money\u2019 of manufacturers as linked to their political opponents.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>This was connected to the row over the Corn Laws versus Free Trade. But the distinction between old money and new also comes across in works like George Eliot\u2019s 1871\/72 novel <em>Middlemarch.<\/em> Where there is a very clear sense of the divide between the urban middle class, the rural landowning class \u2013 and the working class beneath them.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Patriot added up figures to claim that 1,499,278 people worked in agriculture (see also <em>below),<\/em> but just 970,939 worked in manufacturing.<\/p>\n<p>Back to the Journal, on October 5, 1844:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u2018OCCUPATIONS OF THE PEOPLE. Our article published fortnight ago, on the subject of the occupations of the people of this country, showing the numerical predominance of the manufacturing classes over the agricultural, from parliamentary documents, has proved very distasteful to our contemporary the <em>Carlisle Patriot<\/em>.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>In the same paper, Mr Crackenthorpe, chairman of the East Ward Union, told Appleby and Kirkby Stephen Agricultural Society that although births had exceeded deaths by one fourth in the last ten years, the population had fallen by one-fourteenth. Namely from 14,000 in 1831 to 13,000 in 1841.\u00a0The cause was people moving to the manufacturing districts of Yorkshire and Lancashire.<\/p>\n<h2>Occupations in the early 1800s: some statistics<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Employment in England, Wales, Scotland and \u2018isles on the British seas\u2019, October 1844.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-825\" src=\"http:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/occupations-copy-1024x948.jpg\" alt=\"occupations in the early 1800s, Cumbrian Characters,\" width=\"640\" height=\"593\" srcset=\"https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/occupations-copy-1024x948.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/occupations-copy-300x278.jpg 300w, https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/occupations-copy-768x711.jpg 768w, https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/occupations-copy.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>An idea of wages<\/h2>\n<p>Average weekly wage of farm labourers in England: 10 shillings.<\/p>\n<p>Spinning factory labourers (men, women and children) 10s 6d.<\/p>\n<p>The Prince of Wales\u2019 annual income (from the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster ) to December 31 last had been \u00a373,100 and upwards.<\/p>\n<p>The prince was then aged three.<\/p>\n<p>You can read more on wages in the 1840s in <a href=\"https:\/\/crimesofthecenturies.com\/index.php\/2018\/01\/01\/averagewage-1843\/\">this post<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>One \u2018new-fangled\u2019 occupation was phonographer. Phonography was a system of phonetic shorthand, as that invented by Sir Isaac Pitman in 1837. In September 1844, Mr Pitman had nearly 400 pupils of his system in Carlisle, and it was \u2018understood\u2019 it was to be taught in future as a branch of general education.<\/p>\n<pre>Main image: Gibsons Mill, in Yorkshire.\u00a0Built in around 1800.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Occupations in the early 1800s. Forget tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor\u2026 this isn\u2019t a post about job titles, but rather about the numbers of people employed in different occupations. With an explanation of why the balance was politically contentious. And an idea of wages. It is well-known that the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700s\/early 1800s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[195],"class_list":["post-818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-history","tag-industrial-revolution"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Occupations in the early 1800s - Cumbrian Characters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"These statistics from 1844 give an idea of the shifting balance between agriculture and industry in the UK. 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