Economic Life

The population of England and Wales, and of the United Kingdom as a whole, was still growing fast during the last twenty years of the nineteenth century:

	England and Wales	United Kingdom
1881	26,000,000	34,900,000
1891	29,000,000	37,700,000
1901	32,500,000	41,500,000

In 1881 births in England and Wales numbered 884,000, deaths 492,000: by 1901 these totals had reached respectively 930,000 and 552,000. But the birth rate was now falling rapidly: ¹

	Births per thousand	Deaths per thousand
1876-80	35.4	20.8
1881-5	33.5	19.4
1886-90	31.4	18.9
1891-5	30.5	18.7
1896-1900	29.3	17.7

Both birth and death rates still varied widely from place to place: ²

	1871-1881		1881-1891		1891-1901
	Birth-rate	Death-rate	Birth-rate	Death-rate	Birth-rate	Death-rate
Towns:
Large:
London	34.7	21.4	32.9	19.3	29.8	17.9
8 Northern	38.7	24.6	34.6	21.8	31.9	20.4
Textile:
22 Northern	36.9	23.8	31.5	20.8	27.8	19.4
Residential:
9 Northern	30.6	20.7	27.7	18.5	25.3	17.9
26 Southern	29.4	18.2	27.3	16.4	24.5	15.6
Colliery districts:
9 Northern	41.9	23.1	36.9	19.8	35.9	19.2
Rural residues:
12 Northern	32.0	19.4	29.5	17.5	27.6	17.1
12 Southern	31.3	18.2	29.3	16.7	26.0	15.8

The decline of the birth rate in rural England was influenced by heavy emigration of young potential parents. In the textile districts the birth rate changed from being one of the highest to one of the lowest. The colliery districts, by contrast, maintained a birth rate well above the national average, though even here it was falling.