ABSTRACT
By the second quarter of the nineteenth century the shift of human resources associated with industrialisation had already advanced to the extent that the mining, manufacturing and building groups of industries employed a major proportion of the labour force. Admittedly defective estimates based on Census data suggest that whereas 24·6 per cent of the total occupied population were in agriculture, forestry and fishing in 1831, 40·8 per cent were in mining, manufacturing and building, with 12·4 per cent in trade and transport. After the Napoleonic Wars the hugely expanded agricultural sector could hardly be expected to have absorbed a rapidly growing population to work on the land, thus the industrial workforce expanded both in absolute numbers and in relative terms. In 1841 the picture becomes clearer, though the Census data still affords only an approximation of the industrial distribution of the labour force (Table 1.1). Whereas between 1841 and 1881 Estimated industrial distribution of the British labour force 1821–81, as percentage of occupied population https://www.niso.org/standards/z39-96/ns/oasis-exchange/table">
Agriculture and Fishing
Mining and Quarrying
Building
Manufacturing
Transport
Trade
Total Occupied Population (millions of persons)
1821
28·4
38·4
12·9
1831
24·6
40·8
12·4
1841
22·6
2·4
4·8
32·1
3·6
10·7
8·4
1851
21·6
4·1
5·2
32·9
5·2
10·3
9·7
1861
18·5
4·6
5·6
33·3
5·6
11·1
10·8
1871
15·0
5·0
6·7
32·5
5·8
13·3
12·0
1881
12·9
4·6
6·9
32·1
6·9
14·5
13·1
Source: Derived from Deane and Cole 1969, table 31. agriculture lost labour at an increasing rate, the principal gainers were trade and transport. Mining and quarrying, which meant principally coal mining, expanded rapidly in the 1840s and retained a higher, albeit relatively small, percentage of the total occupied population. The transport sector also grew fast in the 1840s and again in the 1870s. The building trades experienced their most rapid expansion in the 1860s, continuing to exceed mining as an employer of labour and maintaining a size of labour force similar to that in transport. Finally, the manufacturing sector remained virtually static in relative terms throughout the period, employing roughly one-third of the total occupied population.