Population Change in Eighteenth-Century England. A Reinterpretation

here have been two traditional explanations of the acceleration in population growth which occurred during the middle of the eighteenth century: (i) the Malthusian view that it was a consequence of the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions through an improved standard of life; (2) that it was the result of various medical innovations independent of these Revolutions. The problem posed by these competing interpretations is central to English economic and social history: did the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions create their own future labour force and expanding numbers of consumers, or were they themselves children of a Population Revolution which preceded them? Economic historians have attempted to answer this question by estimating population, birthand death-rates at decennial intervals throughout the eighteenth century. Professor Krause, however, has questioned the validity of the traditional method for the period before I78i when aggregate statistics of Anglican baptisms and burials are available only for every tenth year from 1700 to I 780. He has pointed out that the use of one conventional assumption about English demographic data with reference to Sweden would exaggerate the amount of actual increase of population in that country between 1750 and 1780 by over 6i per cent.1 Krause has attempted to use the statistics of annual baptisms and burials from 1780 onwards by making certain questionable assumptions about changes in the baptism/birth and burial/death ratios during the period 178i-i850. He concluded that a rise in the birth-rate rather than a fall in the death-rate was 'the major variable in English demography'.2 This has led the medical historians McKeown and Record to state that 'the data (on mortality and natality) are so treacherous that they can be interpreted to fit any hypothesis, and it seems preferable to rely on assessment of the sensitivity of the birth-rate and death-rate, and their relative effectiveness, in a period when both rates were high'.3 This they had done in their own work and after reviewing the history of all the major diseases and preventive measures taken against them, concluded that the 'fall in the death-rate during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was not the result of medical treatment as Griffiths and others had supposed. Only in the case of vaccination against smallpox is there any clear evidence that specific therapy had a substantial