The elderly populations of England and Wales, 1851-1911: a comparative study of selected counties

Abstract

The historical scholarship on the elderly populations of England and Wales has continued unabated, particularly through the examination of older people in extreme poverty, or pauperism, and also through familial and state-funded provision. While these studies have usefully explored the lives of older people below elite social groups, they reinforce a pathological typology of old age. First, very few studies emphasise the autonomy of older people regarding their occupational structure and the capacity to voluntarily retire from work. Second, little is known about historical older individuals and their backstories through their life course, or any local and regional variations in their socio-economic background.

Further research on historical ageing populations has been limited by the lack of ‘big data’ source materials. However, the release of Integrated Census Microdata datasets (I-CeM) provides a comprehensively transcribed database of the elderly population as derived from the Victorian and Edwardian census enumerators’ books. This means that themes can be investigated that transcend the pathological issue of care for older people, such as a detailed assessment of occupational structure and their retirement patterns. This thesis uses I-CeM datasets to examine four main themes associated with the elderly population in five selected counties of England and Wales in 1851 to 1911: the demographic composition of older people; their employment and retirement patterns; the extent of old age pauperism; and living arrangements in old age and during their life course. Several key findings that demonstrate the autonomy of older people in the past are presented, as well as providing several causes of old age pauperism. As a result, we can appreciate the diversity of the experiences of older people in the past. This will help inform public discourse in the present day when attention is focused heavily on the needs of older people, rather than their capabilities.

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ORCID for Andrew Hinde: orcid.org/0000-0002-8909-9152

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