Page 25 - Just another English family (Sep 2019)

Of these 17 households, nine of the husbands and wives were born in exactly the same place – Halifax (1), Manningham (1), Shelf (1), Heptonstall (1), Rochdale (2), Spotland (1), Chorley (1) and Tottington (1). However, the discrepancy for the remaining eight is rarely huge. Comparing the place of birth of the husband with the place of birth of the wife is instructive. Manningham to Heaton is about three miles as is King Cross to Sowerby Bridge, Halifax to Bradford is about eight miles, Halifax to Thornhill Lees is about 12 miles, King Cross to Bacup is about 18 miles (crossing the Yorkshire/Lancashire border), Wilsden to Thornton is about 19 miles. The exception is Newark in Nottinghamshire to Heckmondwike (which is a small town in the borough of Kirklees) in Yorkshire where the journey is around 66 miles. This family is now living in Bradford and the places of birth of the husband and wife relate to where their parents were living nearly fifty years earlier, so much could have happened in the meantime. The wife’s birthplace in Yorkshire suggests that her husband, Francis, had perhaps met her in Yorkshire. The puzzle in this case is not the wife’s birthplace or their present residence, but why was the husband, Francis, born in Newark in Nottinghamshire! The remaining husband and wife were both born in Yorkshire – the husband in Halifax and the wife is shown as Wenden, but I have not been able to locate this place in Yorkshire. Anyway, the story is clear. Within this generation at least, there is little geographical mobility and husbands and wives – with few exceptions – are born within a few miles of each other.
Occupations
Information on any census is rarely plentiful, but the occupations of the respondents do feature in the 1861 census. Occupations are superficially easy to understand, but age and gender are crucial in fully understanding what is happening. At this time, many, if not most, occupations were heavily gendered – that is, only males were thought suitable for some occupations and only females were thought suitable for other occupations. Similarly, age is important. A person will almost certainly have a different job at, say, 18 years of age than he/she will have at 50 years of age; while the job may be in the same field of employment, it is likely to be at a different level.
At this point I wish to continue to focus on the heads of households 21