Gives the picture of population change in Cornwall at the parish level decade by decade

Deacon, Bernard

Open Research Exeter

Population change in Cornwall 1841-71  1841-51 In the 1840s the population growth of the previous four decades abruptly slowed. It is likely that population rose overall to 1845/46 but then declined sharply as a result of potato blight, economic hardship and the first wave of mass overseas emigration in 1846-48. However, this overall pattern masks considerable variation within Cornwall. Very strong growth was still a marked feature of the new mining districts around Liskeard and Callington and in Newlyn East, where a booming East Wheal Rose lead mine helped attract people to the parish in the early part of the decade. Conversely, some mining parishes such as Breage, Crowan and St Agnes experienced large falls – a harbinger of the decades after 1871. Meanwhile rural depopulation was in the 1840s a feature of the agricultural areas north and west of Bodmin Moor, in the Probus area and on the Lizard.    1851-61 The pattern of the 1840s broadly repeated itself in the 1850s. Population falls in the agricultural districts intensified. Large areas of north and mid Cornwall were in this decade losing people. In the mining districts the population growth in the east was beginning to ease back, although St Cleer and St Ive remained the fastest growing Cornish parishes. St Austell and its neighbours made up a second area of population growth, where the emerging china clay industry helped to boost numbers. Further west, the growth in Newlyn East in the 1840s turned into a steep population decline in the 1850s as lead production fell away. In contrast, mining parishes such as St Hilary, Breage, Sithney, Wendron and Crowan, that had lost population in the 19840s now returned to growth on the back of a mining industry that reached its peak production levels in this decade.    1861-71 During the 1860s the population regime in Cornwall underwent another structural change. The mining crash of 1866/67 heralded two decades of absolute population decline and a century of population stability. The key role of the mining industry in this is not immediately apparent in the detailed map of population change, Some mining parishes, such as Camborne and Illogan in the west, or St Ive in the east, still posted population rises. However, the majority saw numbers fall. The largest falls were in rural parishes, farming areas such as Kilkhampton and Launcells in the north and Creed and St Michael Penkivel in mid Cornwall, or mining parishes such as Gwinear-Gwithian, St Hilary and Gwennap. At the same time parishes to the west and north east of Bodmin Moor experienced growth, as did Perranzabuloe, where mining bucked the trend towards depression.    Bernard Deacon June 2007 

Population change in Cornwall 1841-71

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