Occupational Structure

Next Selection Previous Selection

We are fully alive to the difficulty of adopting any mode of scientific classification which would give general satisfaction. It is for this reason that in the counties and large towns, where we had to distinguish age and sex, we restricted ourselves to an alphabetical arrangement which would give to all, by very simple combinations, the opportunity of making for themselves any arrangement they might prefer. There is so much difference of opinion as to the strict bounds of productive and, unproductive labour, and upon every other element of scientific division, that, in almost any classification we could have adopted, we should have been considered by many to have gone on wrong principles, and to have committed errors of which the extent could not be either tested or corrected. Even for England and Wales, for Scotland, and for Great Britain generally, in the Classification (see Table facing p. 52) which we have thought it right to furnish, in order to give comparative results we have preferred keeping to the general terms used in ordinary parlance, giving the totals engaged in trade and manufacture, in agriculture, in military and naval pursuits, in the learned professions, in other employments of the educated of both sexes, in general manual labour, in the civil service of the Government, in parochial offices, and in domestic service. These, with the independent and the residue, both which latter terms have been already alluded to, and the accidental classes of paupers, lunatics, almspeople, and prisoners, exhaust the total population of this kingdom. We have supplied a key or Table (p.53), showing in detail the occupations of persons included under each head in this classification, so that any person by referring to it may deduct from the totals given the number contributed by any particular head of occupation which he thinks misplaced in the class to which we have assigned it.

We would willingly have given a classification of the occupations of the occupations of the inhabitants of Great Britain into the various wants to which they respectively minister, but in attempting this we were stopped by the various anomalies and uncertainties to which such a classification seemed necessarily to lead, from the fact that many persons supply more than one want, though they can only be classed under one head. Thus, to give but a single instance,-the farmer and grazier may be deemed to minister quite as much to clothing by the fleece and hides as he does to food by the flesh of his sheep and cattle.

One advantage in the classification we have here adopted, and which was not without its influence upon our decision, is, that by a combination of some of the classes which we have here kept distinct, we are enabled to present the; following comparative statement of the numbers included under each of the classes that were separately distinguished in the year 1831, and the same classes in 1841:-

COMPARATIVE STATEMENT OF THE OCCUPATIONS OF MALES AGED 20 YEARS AND UPWARDS ENUMERATE IN GREAT BRITAIN IN THE YEARS 1831 AND 1841

GREAT BRITAIN AGRICULTURE1 Persons engaged in Commerce Trade, and Manufacture, 20 Years of Age and upwards Capitalists, Bankers Professional, and other Educated Men; 20 Years of Age and upwards Labourers employed in labour not Agricultural; 20 Years of Age and upwards Other Males 20 Years of Age, except Servants Male Servants; 20 Years of Age and upwards Total Male Population, 20 Years of Age and upwards (exclusive of Army, Navy, and Merchant Seamen)
Occupiers and Labourers, 20 Years of Age, and upwards
1831 1841 1831 1841 1831 1841 1831 18412 1831 18413 1831 1841 1831 1841
ENGLAND. 980,750 961,585 1,278,283 1,682,044 179,983 240,718 500,950 483,918 189,389 317,202 70,629 144,201 3,199,984 3,829,668
WALES. 95,162 80,395 49,444 68,084 5,204 9,714 31,571 43,673 11,180 22,588 2,145 5,804 194,706 230,258
SCOTLAND. 167,145 166,009 236,457 277,507 29,203 32,586 76,191 79,894 34,930 49,539 5,895 13,652 549,821 619,187
ISLES in the BRITISH SEAS. 8,694 7,275 8,108 11,774 1,873 3,157 3,032 2,672 1,838 2,882 1,068 727 24,613 28,487
TOTAL GREAT BRITAIN (exclusive of Army, Navy, and Merchant Seamen. 1,251,751 1,215,264 1,572,292 2,039,409 216,263 286,175 611,744 610,157 237,337 392,211 79,737 164,384 3,969,124 4,707,600

1 See Note (3) at foot of p. 15.

2 This column includes (for the sake of comparison with 1831) Fishermen, Boatmen, and Watermen.

3 The total of Males in 1841 whose occupations are unaccounted for is, in fact, only 276,868 as it includes the following persons, who amount together to 115,343; viz. Males twenty years of age in the Government Civil Service 16,049, Parochial Police and Law Officers 22,942, Almspeople, Pensioners, Paupers, Lunatics, and Prisoners 73,539, and Army and Navy (Half-pay) 2,813.

As we feel that for the purpose of comparing the state of facts exhibited by different districts, or that shown by the whole kingdom at different periods, a mere statement of the numbers comprehended under each head in our classification is insufficient, we have prepared tables which should exhibit the comparative numerical importance of each class upon the principle of per centages, the only convenient mode for such a purpose. We have made the calculation upon two principles;--first, upon the total occupations returned;. and, secondly, upon the whole population. The former shows the relative numerical importance of one industrial class as compared with all the others, the latter as compared with the whole population.

TABLE showing for each County in Great Britain, and for the Isles in the British Seas, the Proportion per Cent. which the Persons included in each Class of Occupations bear,-- first, to the Total Number of Persons returned as pursuing any Occupations, and, secondly, to the Total Population enumerated therein.

Although we have in our general classification combined under one head trade and manufacture, yet in the following table we have attempted to separate them in order to show the numbers they respectively embrace. In going through every occupation contained in our list for this purpose, we have felt the great difficulty of making such a division satisfactorily; we have therefore given (at p. 58) the names of all occupations included under each division exhibited in the following Abstract, in order to leave the opportunity of correction to those who differ from the view taken by us.

ABSTRACT DISTINGUISHING AS FAR AS POSSIBLE THE NUMBER (WITH THE AGE AND SEX) OF PERSONS ENGAGED IN COMMERCE AND TRADE FROM THOSE ENGAGED IN MANUFACTURE.

  COMMERCE and TRADE MANUFACTURE COMMERCE and TRADE and MANUFACTURE
MALES FEMALES TOTAL MALES FEMALES TOTAL MALES FEMALES TOTAL
20 Years of Age and upwards Under 20 Years of Age 20 Years of Age and upwards Under 20 Years of Age 20 Years of Age and upwards Under 20 Years of Age 20 Years of Age and upwards Under 20 Years of Age 20 Years of Age and upwards Under 20 Years of Age 20 Years of Age and upwards Under 20 Years of Age
ENGLAND AND WALES AND ISLES IN THE BRITISH SEAS. 1,282,128 190,489 201,860 38,272 1,712,699 479,774 130,443 191,968 121,911 934,096 1,761,902 320,882 393,828 160,183 2,636,795
SCOTLAND. 177,835 37,075 35,295 6,566 256,771 99,672 31,983 53,894 31,261 216,810 277,507 69,058 89,189 37,827 473,531
GREAT BRITAIN. 1,459,963 227,514 237,155 44,888 1,969,470 579,446 162,426 245,862 153,172 1,140,906 2,039,409 389,940 483,017 198,010 3,110,376

Next Selection Previous Selection