HISTORIA AMBIENTAL BRITÁNICA

This article explores the current state of the field of environmental history in Britain, focusing on current trends. The field is consolidating, with a more visible presence at British universities, and a notable switch to the study of environmental histories of Great Britain itself. There is still considerable cross-over with related fields, in particular historical geography, economic history, and regional histories. Current themes in environmental history revolve around questions of climate, water, and energy. In addition, the field is addressing previous criticism related to the absence of social theories, and integrates the human world while remaining a sense of agency of nature. Este artículo explora el estado actual del campo de la historia ambiental británica, centrándose en las tendencias actuales. El campo se encuentra en un momento de consolidación, con una mayor visibilidad en los campus universitarios, y ha experimentado un notable giro hacia el estudio de historias ambientales localizadas en la propia Gran Bretaña. Hay, sin embargo, una estrecha interrelación con campos afines, en particular con la geografía histórica, la historia económica y las historias regionales. Los temas actuales giran en torno a cuestiones relacionadas con el clima, el agua y la energía. Además, el campo afronta críticas previas en cuanto a la ausencia de teorías sociales e integra lo humano a la par que mantiene un fuerte sentido del papel de la naturalez

Water and vertical territory: the volatile and hidden historical geographies of Derbyshire’s lead mining soughs, 1650s–1830s

This paper is concerned with the complex subterranean politics of lead mining in the Derbyshire Peak District. We focus specifically on the implications of lead mining ‘soughs’ – underground channels driven to drain water out of mines to allow for mineral extraction. Built during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, soughs were substantial, capital and labour intensive projects which served a key function in the refashioning of subterranean and surface hydrological landscapes. They were ‘driven’ at a time when water was both a major hindrance to mining endeavour and the primary energy source for industrial expansion, such that historical disputes surrounding sough drainage were common. Here, we draw on unpublished historical legal records to explore the ways in which vertical conceptualisations of space were central to the legal discourse over soughs and extend the so called ‘vertical turn’ in geography to include subterranean proto-historical landscapes. Drawing on a high profile conflict between English entrepreneur Richard Arkwright and Conservative politician Francis Hurt, we go some way to addressing recent claims for more ethnographic detail in studies of verticality by considering the people who legally and physically negotiated sough development below as well as above ground. We also illustrate the range of temporalities which framed sough developments and highlight the cross-generational nature of the legal disputes over soughs and the productive landscapes they drained

Missing in the Census 1851-1911: The ‘lost’, ‘missing’, and ‘gaps’ in I-CeM and BBCE, with weights to adjust RSD populations

WP 23 first outlines the various gaps in e-census records from BBCE and I-CeM and how they have arisen. It assesses sources for identifying archivally lost records and compares these with the BBCE and I-CeM databases at the level of RSDs for census years 1851-6, and 1881-1911. The paper develops weights to compensate for the identified gaps and provides downloads of weights to be used with I-CeM and/or BBCE

Supplement to BBCE User Guide: Website definitions, downloads, Atlas of Entrepreneurship, and linkage to I-CeM

This paper has two objectives: to guide users on the precise definitions used for the BBCE website https://www.bbce.uk/ and Atlas of Entrepreneurship; and to offer additional guidance to that in the BBCE User Guide https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.47126 on linkage with I-CeM

Reconstructing entrepreneur and business numbers for censuses 1851-81

This paper discusses how census data for 1851-1881 can be reconstructed to give the employment status of individuals as own account self-employed, employers, or workers. The aim is to align information on entrepreneurs given in these earlier censuses with the information given in the later censuses from 1891 up to the present. The paper describes the reconstruction methods used and provides the essential background documentation for using the data at aggregate and individual level

Extraction of data on Entrepreneurs from the 1871 Census to supplement I-CeM

This paper describes how the database for entrepreneurs in the 1871 census was created and deposited for ESRC project ES/M010953. This project uses I-CeM as its main source. However, I-CeM does not cover England and Wales in 1871. This paper describes how data from an alternative supplier, S&N [theGenealogist.co.uk] was extracted and aligned with I-CeM to provide a full database for 1871

Company Directors: Directory and Census Record Linkage, 1881-1911

This paper describes how information on company directors has been identified in census records 1881-1911, and how this has been linked to director listed in the Directory of Directors (DoD). Record linkage is used to match DoD, achieving a 36% match rate overall for 18,200 directors. The paper also defines the coding of business sectors, locations, and roles played by the directors in each company

Extracted data on employers and farmers compared with published tables in the Census General Reports, 1851-1881

This paper compares published census tables for employers in England and Wales with extractions of individuals from the I-CeM and S&N sources. This is for non-farmers for 1851, and farmers for 1851-71, the only years that have published census tables for these data. The comparisons confirm a generally good match. Although there are some deficiencies possible from I-CeM/S&N data, the data are less ambiguous in definitions and more complete in some respects than achieved by published census tables, especially for larger firms and larger farms

Shifts in agrarian entrepreneurship in mid-Victorian England and Wales

This paper provides the first full-population analysis of changes in the entrepreneurial status of farmers during the mid-nineteenth century: between being employers or sole proprietors with no workforce. Using a unique dataset of all farmers and workforces in the 1851-81 English and Welsh censuses, this paper explores the effects of changes in agriculture on entrepreneur choices. A short ‘Golden Age’ was followed by increasing technical changes and then onset of an agricultural depression causing an important shift in agricultural entrepreneurial activity: initially the employer proportion increased slowly, but from the 1860s employers reduced labour and more worked as sole proprietors. Our findings show that farmers were adaptable and resilient to change through shifts in entrepreneurial status, supporting the conclusions of earlier researchers who took an optimistic interpretation of the flexibility and robustness of farmers. We also show the adaptations to be highly geographically variegated, depending on land quality, distance to local markets, and rail lines.ESRC grant ES/M01095

Additional codes and people in the British Business Census of Entrepreneurs (BBCE) not available through I-CeM

The BBCE includes many codes not in I-CeM which can be linked through the individual identifiers (RecID). This paper provides further data corrections of I-CeM for sex, age and marital status; and codes for additional census respondents omitted in FMP and I-CeM. Downloads give the full data