ABSTRACT
In interpretations of the period of classic Industrial Revolution, population growth has always played an important part. Population pressure is assigned a central role in Brinley Thomas’ interpretation of the Atlantic economy of the nineteenth century: ‘The cycle in the rate of natural increase played a part in determining the timing of the major waves of oversea emigration from Europe. There is a rough consensus of opinion among English economic historians about the broad chronology of English population history. According to this chronology there were three main phases of rapid growth. The much more doubtful question is whether there were in fact changes in age at marriage of this order of magnitude. While medical historians have been thrusting the problem back at the economic historian, some economic historians have been tempted to find an explanation of variations in death rates in the varying behaviour of diseases.
