Antecedentes de la ESCA Tepepan 2. Diagnóstico FODA

These investigations into the sons of Sussex, Norfolk and Northumberland, have produced three major findings about their migration habits. First, each county displayed very different patterns of distance migration. Second, migration varied greatly between different areas within each county. And third, migration habits in certain types of location did not always conform to a particular pattern. The findings for the three sets of villages in close proximity to a large town or city, for instance, revealed that this did not always result in a significant pull effect to that location.

To place the findings in context, table 3.2 reveals the comparisons between the pull of Brighton, Norwich and Newcastle for the Falmer, Surlingham and Ponteland area sons respectively. Each of these urban locations was within 4 to 8 miles of the villages, and therefore their potential pull can be classed as reasonably similar. The table uses three sets of figures. The first set of figures use the last known location of each migrant up to 1881, as used in the analysis above. The second set includes the village stayers, revealing a stronger indication of the pull of the town on all villagers. The third calculation reveals ‘lifetime’ migration. This shows the figures for sons who were found living in the urban location on any census up to 1901 (unless found in retirement). It also includes those where any other indication of residence in the location was evident, including birthplaces of children, and marriage and burial locations.⁸⁵ By observing all the available evidence up to 1901, a further 42 sons were found, more than doubling the dataset.

85 The quarterly marriage register for England and Wales only noted the district where a marriage took place. The Brighton and Newcastle districts solely covered the town and city area. However, the Norwich district also covered much of the rural surroundings of the city, and as such marriages for the Surlingham area sons in Norwich could not be identified. However, it is estimated that these would only have totalled around 3 or 4 at the most.

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Table 3.2: The number of Falmer, Surlingham and Ponteland area sons who moved to Brighton, Norwich and Newcastle respectively.⁸⁶

The results in Table 3.2 show Brighton as consistently by far the most popular destination of the three urban locations. Including the village stayers in the last known location up to 1881, the percentage of sons who migrated to these three locations naturally reduces. Nevertheless, more than one in four Falmer area sons were still found in Brighton, far more than Surlingham or Ponteland sons to Norwich and Newcastle respectively.

Observing all the available evidence up to 1901, Brighton still proved the highest attraction with almost one out of every two sons residing in the town at some point by 1901. This clearly highlights that there was an initial attraction to the town for many who did not remain there.⁸⁷ For example, John Leppard was a labourer from Stanmer. In 1861, he was living with his widowed mother in the village. By 1870 he had moved to Brighton, and in 1871 was living in Park Crescent, working as a domestic coachman.

However, sometime between 1875 and 1878 John, along with his wife and children, returned to the Falmer area, and in 1881 was back living in Stanmer village.

Aside from this case study of John Leppard, it appears that most Falmer area sons who temporarily moved to Brighton did not return to rural life, but moved on to other urban locations. John Carter of Falmer, for instance, was still living with his parents in the village in 1861, working as an agricultural labourer. He moved to Brighton by 1869, and two years later was living in Robert Street with his new wife Harriet, working as a porter. However, by 1874 they had moved to Camberwell, London, where John worked

86 Brighton includes the neighbouring suburb of Hove, and Norwich includes Thorpe-next-Norwich.

87 The lifetime migration figures include evidence of migration after 1881. However, these sons were extremely small in number, with 2 being found for Brighton, 3 for Norwich, and just 1 for Newcastle.

as a railway plate layer. They remained in London for the rest of their lives. Likewise, Alfred Reed was still living with his parents in Falmer in 1861, working as an agricultural labourer. The 1871 census shows he was a police constable living in Islington, London, with his wife and three children. However, the census also indicates all three children were born in Brighton, with the youngest being Laura, aged 3. Alfred had married his wife Julia in Brighton in 1863. This information reveals that he would have spent from at least 1863 until at least 1867 living in Brighton.

The figures also reveal that Newcastle was lower than Norwich with regards to the 1881 figures, but higher for lifetime migration, indicating that Ponteland area sons were far more likely to treat migration to Newcastle as a temporary move, than Surlingham area sons did with Norwich. Observing the last known location up to 1881 of the 13 known temporary migrants, just one was found to have returned to the Ponteland area.

As a young man, William Laidman left his parents’ home in Ponteland, and in 1861 was lodging in a house in Newcastle, working as a mason. He was only in the city briefly, and by 1867 he had returned to Ponteland, and then later moved to the nearby hamlet of Kirkley. However, by 1875 he had returned to Newcastle, and then moved to the other side of the River Tyne to Gateshead. Of the remaining 12 sons, 6 could be found in either Gateshead, or Gosforth, just north of the city, implying that a move to Newcastle was just a stepping stone to another nearby location. This pattern was very similar to that shown by the sons who migrated to Brighton.

Surlingham area sons who were attracted to Norwich tended to be more likely to remain there. Of the 21 sons who had migrated to Norwich by 1881, 12 were still there in 1881, and a further 2 had died there. Just 7 had moved to the city and subsequently left, and of these, 5 of these had returned to their home village. Benjamin Jordan of Surlingham, for example, worked as an agricultural labourer. He and his wife, Harriet, had many children born in the village. However, two of them, Harriet and Ellen, born in 1860 and 1862 respectively, were born in Norwich, indicating a short spell in the city.

Only two Norwich migrants could be found subsequently moving either to another urban location, or out of Norfolk by 1881. William Sharman of Surlingham moved to Norwich in the mid-1850s as a labourer. Ten years later he moved to Tottenham, London, and worked as an engine driver. However, by 1881 he had returned to rural Norfolk. James Farrow moved to Norwich, working as an ostler. However, he soon made his way to North London, remaining in Bethnal Green until his death in 1903.

Brighton was clearly a more popular destination than either Newcastle or Norwich. It has already been noted that the dominance of agriculture may well have been responsible for pushing the sons of Falmer and Stanmer into Brighton. The sons of Ponteland and Dinnington who remained in the village were predominantly tradesmen, and many of those who left their village favoured alternative rural occupations. This situation would have had an effect on the migration into Newcastle. Additionally, apart from Worthing, further along the coast, Brighton had no nearby urban rivals, whereas Newcastle lay on Tyneside, where alternative urban locations would have provided plenty of work for those who had already moved south to Newcastle.

Norwich was not expanding at the same rate as Brighton or Newcastle, and certainly held less attracted for the Surlingham area sons. However, the low rate of migration to this city was perhaps not simply a lack of attraction. The sons of Norfolk were prolific long-distance migrants, and it has been found that the priority for migrants appears to have been to leave the county, rather than experiencing a pull to any particular location.

Gooderstone area sons were pulled to London and the northern counties, with Happisburgh area sons migrating along the coast. For those seeking to migrate from their villages, there was little to keep them in Norfolk, and thus Norwich was bypassed by many migrants for alternative locations outside the county.

Proximity to urban locations has often been used as an influential variable affecting patterns of migration. Studies by Dov Friedlander and Jason Long included this as a potential factor influencing migration, and many early investigations into the causes of migration have discussed proximity of urban areas (albeit at a county or region level).

However, although this may be true, the figures above indicate that proximity to a large town or city could produce different effects on the local villages, and that this was dependent on the characteristics of both the urban, and the rural location. Friedlander had noted that urban locations attracted people from nearby rural districts at different rates, depending on the type of occupations available to the migrant. He found that towns and cities failed to attract high rates of rural migrants where the proportions of tertiary occupations were low.⁸⁸ This tallies with the diverse migration patterns for Brighton and Newcastle. With its predominance of metal and chemical industries, its shipbuilding and heavy industry, Newcastle was very much an industrial city. Brighton,

88 D. Friedlander, ‘Occupational Structure, Wages, and Migration in Late Nineteenth-Century England and Wales’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol.40, No.2 (Jan 1992) p.299.

however, was far less involved in heavy industry, providing much work in tertiary occupations, such as transport, retail, hotels, and the leisure industry.⁸⁹

The investigation above also reveals that distance did not necessarily have a negative effect on migration to a major town or city. Migration to Newcastle, for instance, proved higher from the most distant of the three Northumberland areas within this study. Table 3.3 shows the migration figures to Newcastle for the three separate areas.

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The figures reveal that a higher percentage of sons from the Howick area were found in Newcastle in 1881 than the Ponteland area sons, despite Howick being located 40 miles from the city. Looking at lifetime migration, the Howick area shows a lower percentage, but still competitive with the Ponteland rate. If one includes the whole of urban Tyneside as the destination, the Howick area sons have narrowed the gap once again. With 37 per cent migration compared to 42 per cent, Howick area sons were almost on a par with Ponteland, despite the villages lying at least 5 times more distant.

Like the sons of Norfolk, those of remote Howick, Dunstan and Craster may have regarded their choices as either remaining within their local area, or escaping to a large urban location, regardless of the distance.

89 For a good example of the definition of tertiary occupations, see E. A. Wrigley, ‘The PST system of classifying occupations’, published by the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure, available online at www.geog.cam.ac.uk.