GATHERING
THE EVIDENCE
AND REVEALING
THE HISTORICAL
PATTERNS OF
MIGRATION
Doreen Hopwood
For centuries, the West Midlands region has been
attracting newcomers from near and far. To
understand why they chose to settle here, it is
important to place them in their contemporary
setting and look at the ‘push and pull’ factors
which may have affected their decision. There are
many sources which can be used, whether people
migrated from the other side of the world or simply
moved within a town or county boundary.
Many agricultural workers lost their jobs and homes, leaving for the towns.
Agricultural labourers at the time of the First Reform Parliament. Illustration from Cassell’s Illustrated History of England (engraving) (sepia
photo), English School, (19th century) (after)/Private Collection/The Stapleton Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library.
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Courtesy TheGenealogist.co.uk
GATHERING THE EVIDENCE
An extract from the 1881 census enumerator’s book for Sherborne Street in the
Ladywood Ward of Birmingham.
The brass industry drew workers to the Midlands. A brazier beats
out kettles, pails, candlesticks and other kitchen equipment in
brass from The Book of Trades or Library of Useful Arts, 1806.
Histories of Trades and Individual
Companies
E
conomic factors have historically
been the most likely reason for
migration, which could involve social
mobility up or down the scale. The
rise of the brass industry, for example,
provided opportunities for the movement of
workers from Bristol to help establish brass works
in the Midlands. On the other hand, many
agricultural labourers lost their homes as well as
their jobs if their services were no longer required;
many turned their back on the land and settled in
towns.
Improved transport networks made the
movement of both raw materials and finished
goods easier and cheaper. This became a major
factor in promoting rapid industrial growth,
especially as the West Midlands became the hub of
a national canal system. New works sprang up
alongside the inland waterways and as the railway
network developed, job opportunities arose both in
building the trains and rolling stock and
providing railwaymen.
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The diversity of the landscape and the natural resources of the West
Midlands are reflected in the number and variety of trades and industries
which have flourished, demised or evolved over time. When the demand for
buckles declined, for example, manufacturers switched to making buttons in
Birmingham, and gun barrels, which were no longer needed at the end of the
Napoleonic Wars, were the beginnings of the gas tube industry in Wednesbury.
This ability to diversify often meant that workers remained in the area, but
may have moved a short distance to their new place of employment. However,
where a town relied heavily on one particular trade, its loss often resulted in a
mass exodus to other places where the workforce’s skills could be utilised.
Histories of trades and individual companies are useful sources for tracing
locations of particular industries and can indicate the impact that any move
had on the local population. When a new factory was founded or re-located,
owners usually brought skilled workers with them, and they settled in the area.
As businesses expanded, so did the need for workers and chain migration was a
key factor in the growth of communities. This is a mechanism whereby a
pioneer (usually a young, single male) moves to a new location and, once
established, is joined by other migrants, such as relatives and friends from his
community of origin. They remain in their new place of settlement and spark
off further chains as they, in turn, are joined by their friends and relatives.
Examples of chain migration can be seen in the census enumerators’ books for
the period 1841 to 1911, where every person in a particular street or district
may be shown as having the same birthplace.
Census Returns, Rates Books, Electoral Registers and
Estate Records
Census returns are one of the most useful sources for tracking the migration of
individuals and households, as from 1851, they should give the actual place of
birth of each person. The 1841 census only stated if the person was born in
the county in which they were counted, or showed I for Ireland, S for
Scotland and FP for ‘Foreign Parts’ - which could be anywhere in the world.
Some workers were more migratory than others; the career of a railway
worker can often be followed in line with the route of the railway company he
worked for! A survey of the 1881 census of Sherborne Street in Birmingham
revealed that out of 1084 inhabitants, 711 were born in Birmingham, 262 in
Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Staffordshire and the remaining 111 were
born in other counties of England and Wales.
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© Birmingham Museums Trust
GATHERING THE EVIDENCE
Publications from companies can provide valuable information. The Factory in a Garden was first published in the 1930s,
one of a number of regular publications from Cadbury.
S
urveys of other streets show that most of the workers
living there were employed in the same trade, and
possibly at the same factory. The proximity of kin and
closeness to the workplace were important factors, and
as most working class people had few possessions and
no mortgage, it was easy for them to move if the chance of better
accommodation arose - or if a ‘moonlight flit’ became necessary.
Rates books and electoral registers are also helpful sources to
identify when a person moved from a property, but you need to
know an address to fully utilise these sources.
When the 1841 census was taken, almost 75 per cent of the
population was living in the countryside, mostly employed in
agriculture, and just 25 per cent lived in towns. By 1891, the
position had been reversed, with the majority working in industry
and services in urban settings. Agricultural labourers and farm
servants had traditionally been hired for a year’s service at fairs,
such as the Stratford Mop, but as agriculture declined, many young
people made their way to the growing towns where they could
earn more by working in the factories, or in domestic service.
Surviving estate records, such as those for Chatsworth, may be held
in the estate archives or deposited at the county record office.
The reports of the Registrar General to each of the censuses
provide aggregate information on numerous topics, including
migration, and many of these can be accessed at the ‘Vision of
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Britain’ website. The 1901 report shows that a fifth of all males
and a third of all females living in Birmingham had been born
outside of the West Midlands.
This was the age of the aspiring suburbanite, as those who
could afford it moved to the rapidly expanding commuter belt,
which was conveniently linked to town centres by rail. The
Cadbury family built houses for their workers at Bournville, and
twentieth-century slum clearances and the building of new
council estates were responsible for the movement of people from
the inner cities.
The properties vacated by the more affluent became the
homes of newcomers to the city. The rent for these houses was
usually cheap and many were within walking distance of factories
or other places of employment, so distinctive communities
developed, of people from Italy and Ireland, for example and later
from the West Indies and Asia.
Medical Records
The increasing numbers of hospitals, asylums and other
institutions attracted professional staff, and careers of doctors can
be followed in The Medical Register and Medical Directory.
Poor Law Unions often sent patients to asylums some distance
away because it was a cheaper option, and registers of admission
and discharge can reveal how this involuntary migration occurred.
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GATHERING THE EVIDENCE
Family Histories, Personal Documents
and Oral History
T
Register of Aliens
During the First World War, all non-British subjects
were required to register with the local constabulary,
and the resultant Registers of Aliens are a particularly
helpful source for understanding immigration as they
include biographical information and the movements
of individuals during this period. Survival rates for
these registers vary considerably. They may be
deposited with the relevant Police Authority or at a
local/county record office.
© National Trust Images/Andrew Butler
he study of individual family
histories can provide the reason for
migration, and wills can be helpful in
gaining more information. Whilst
the eldest son was usually guaranteed
to take over a family business, his younger brothers
often had to find their own way in the world, which
meant they often set up their own businesses.
Oral history is also an excellent source for
discovering how and why people chose to settle in
the West Midlands, and the stories of many
communities can be found on the ‘Moving Here’
and ‘Connecting Histories’ websites.
Many children from the Potteries stayed in Cheshire after working at the mill at Styal.
Quarry Bank is the eighteenth-century cotton mill established by Samuel Greg. Visit
www.nationaltrust.org.uk/quarry-bank-mill/
Birmingham for 1777 shows that there were already regular routes linking it to
most market towns and cities. The ‘Trades’ section of directories can be useful
to find the likely place of employment of a person, and in later directories,
the ‘Streets’ and ‘Commercial’ sections detail all types of businesses, from small
shopkeepers to large manufactories. From the early twentieth century, most
heads of household appear in the ‘Private Residents’ section.
Town and county directories can be found at libraries and record offices
for the area covered, but there is also a searchable database on the ‘Historical
Directories’ website.
Newspapers
Courtesy S&N Genealogy Supplies
Newspapers include advertisements for jobs, which are illuminating. Some
pauper children found themselves apprenticed to employers some distance
away from their home. Many such children from the Potteries found
themselves working at the textile mill of Samuel Greg at Styal in Cheshire
after he had placed a request in the local newspapers. Once they had served
their time, many remained in the area, where they married and raised their
own families.
Settlement Records
Street directories give information about many types of
businesses and may be available in digital format. Kelly’s 1850
Birmingham, Staffordshire & Worcestershire Street Directory.
Directories
Directories were initially published for commercial
travellers and so the inclusion of lists of carriers and
stage coaches was an important feature. These are an
excellent way of discovering how migrants moved, as
details of the destinations, routes and frequency of
operation are given.
The earliest provincial directories date back to the
mid-eighteenth century, and Sketchley’s Directory of
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By the seventeenth century, there was a realisation that parishes which were
attracting newcomers might find themselves burdened with a large number of
paupers if any of them fell on hard times. Settlement Laws required incomers
to possess a certificate issued by the parish they had left which undertook to
support them if they needed help within 40 days of arriving in the new
parish. In order to assess whether or not a person or family was entitled to
have legal settlement in the parish, an examination (interview) was conducted
and based on this, either a certificate or removal order was issued. The
examination can provide a detailed account of how the person came to be in
the parish, and in many cases, this was by being hired at the annual fair. The
servant was taken on for a year, which would be sufficient for entitlement to
settlement in the employer’s parish.
One Mary Titmarsh, however, left the service of John Richards in Sheldon
in 1790 just eighteen days short of a year and so was ordered to be removed
back to her parish of origin. Such decisions had to be ratified at the Quarter
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GATHERING THE EVIDENCE
Church Histories, Parish Records
and Parish Magazines
A
s a non-guild town, Birmingham was able to attract
entrepreneurs, who could freely set up in business
without restriction, and its reputation for religious
tolerance made it a popular destination for
members of religious groups who had suffered
persecution for their beliefs in their home town or homeland.
The presence of an established Roman Catholic church, nonconformist chapel, synagogue or other place of worship was
important to migrants as they knew they would find an existing
community there. St Chad’s Roman Catholic Cathedral was
established by the time of the potato famines in Ireland and many
Irish migrants made Birmingham their new home. Histories of
individual churches and (where they survive) church or parish
magazines provide an insight into the life of the community.
By the mid-nineteenth century, many of the Black Country
towns had more non-conformist places of worship than Anglican
churches, and these often provided some form of education for their
congregations. West Bromwich, Tipton and Wednesbury each had
20 dissenting chapels and there were 25 in Sedgley.
Surviving parish apprenticeship records are another useful
source of information and can be found among the Overseers of
the Poor records at the relevant diocesan record office.
Maps
By comparing a number of maps of the same area over a period of
time, it is possible to see how land use has changed and how the
suburbs developed, and to identify possible routes of migration.
Roads, railways, rivers and canals were all utilised by migrants to
reach their new place of settlement, and specialised or thematic
maps showing the locations of parishes, industries and transport
networks can be helpful. Maps may also show the location of
former mines and other works, but it is estimated that there were
many more than the 265 coal mines which were recorded in the
Black Country in the nineteenth century.
The West Midlands – a Typical Pattern
In the 1880s, the German-born statistician Ernst Georg
Ravenstein (1834-1913) published his ‘laws’ of migration and
many of these can be identified in the patterns of migration
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witnessed in the West Midlands. He suggested that most longdistance migrants moved to one of the large centres of industry or
commerce, that migration increased in line with the development
of industry and better transport networks and that large towns
grew more due to migration than by natural increase. He
compiled a map of Great Britain showing which counties were
growing in population and which were in decline. Not
surprisingly, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Derbyshire were in the
former category, whilst the populations of Herefordshire,
Shropshire and Worcestershire were decreasing. l
Doreen Hopwood was formerly the genealogist for Birmingham City
Council and is a regular contributor to family history publications.
Further Reading
A Vision of Britain Through Time: www.visionofbritain.org.uk
Moving Here – 200 Years of Migration in England: www.movinghere.org.uk
Connecting Histories: www.connectinghistories.org.uk
Historical Directories: www.historicaldirectories.org.uk
COVER STORY
© Christopher Bayliss
Sessions courts, where appeals were also heard. Compassion was
sometimes shown, as in the case of Richard Edwards and his
family whose application for settlement at Ansley in 1691 was
refused. The justices ordered their removal back to Chilvers
Coton, but allowed them to stay in Ansley until Lady Day.
Research using the surviving settlement certificates for
Birmingham between 1686 and 1757 indicates that up to 1696,
the majority of migrants had moved only a short distance, but by
1757, 60 per cent came from distances within a 15-mile radius of
the town and 21 per cent had come from further afield.
Surviving settlement records may be found at diocesan record
offices or with the court records at the relevant record office.
Evening in the Black Country by Edwin Butler
Bayliss, undated, Wolverhampton Art Gallery.
Evening in the Black Country is an atmospheric scene depicting
three figures carrying sacks of coal on their backs, walking
drearily into the distance and confronted by a smoggy panorama
of chimneys and furnaces. The figures highlight the struggling
plight of the workers and the poor working conditions they had
to endure. The Black Country, like other industrial regions, was
an area which attracted migrants.
This painting typifies the smoke-ridden landscapes scarred
by extensive industrial activity for which Wolverhampton-born
Edwin Butler Bayliss (1874-1950) is known. Many of his scenes
include figures of workers which, as one unknown reviewer puts
it, 'never lack significance’. He was described in 1918 by The
Birmingham Gazette as the ‘poet-painter of the Black Country’.
A prolific artist, his work has been exhibited nationwide.
Connie Wan, Development Curator, Wolverhampton Art Gallery.
www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk
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