Because we have digitised the censuses into Excel, it is possible to carry out some analyses of the information. The detailed pages show it all, but here is a taster for those who don’t actually get excited by graphs and tables!
Firstly the population changes have been investigated: This shows the number in the village and the outlying farms and other houses in the parish. We further looked at households and also at the adult population vs. children.
Age distribution curves were broadly as expected, with high numbers of young children in the earlier decades. There is clearly a ‘valley’ of reduced numbers feeding through from the generation who left the village in their twenties in the decades of the agricultural depresssion – the 1870/80s.
Next we looked at the occupations of village residents and found about 65% were working directly in farming throughout the period – 1841 to 1901. The village changed very little during this period and remained focused on farming. Agricultural workers were the largest proportion.
Next we looked at education and the numbers pf children attending school and working. The number of 6-12y olds attending rose from around 70% to 80-90% after the 1870 education acts. Amazing to think of about 100 children aged 2-16 in the tiny village school.
Looking at the place of birth of residents (adults only, in the graph right), only about 40% of adults were born in Seaton Ross, with many others local (within 6 miles) and most of the rest from within Yorkshire. This indicates quite a lot of mobility.
Three of the censuses contained information about farm acreage. This allowed us to see who worked which farm and which were the biggest. Alberries, Park Farm, Marsh Villa (Breckstreet), Lincoln Flats and Mains Farm were consistently the largest five. All were rented.
Look at the detailed pages to see more about these areas.
| Please note that on all these pages, clicking on any image allows you to scroll through them all as a gallery. |