The Population Crisis of 1727–30 in Warwickshire

It is well known that there was a population crisis in England in the 1720s. The graph in G. Talbot Griffith's Population Problems in the Age of Malthus - widely known through its reproduction in Trevelyan's English Social History - showed the death rate overtaking the rising birth rate about 1723, reaching its peak in 1730, and not falling below the birth rate until after 1735. Modern historical demographers do not accept Griffith's graph, but their researches - and those of local historians working on parish registers - have confirmed that there were more burials than baptisms registered in 1721–30. Various corrections are suggested for under-registration (and these are important when calculations of birth and death rates are involved), but even if these are accepted they do not alter the general conclusion that there were more deaths than births in the 1720s. An examination of the registers of 23 Warwickshire parishes, undertaken by an Extramural Research Group at the County Record Office, Warwick, showed that in 18 of them burials for the decade 1721–30 exceeded baptisms, in one parish (Rugby) they were equal and only in four parishes were there more baptisms than burials.