I'm reasing an interesting book called The Victorians by A.N. Wilson.
This bit jumped our from the page as I don't have any brides under the age of 16 on my tree:
"The 1861 census shows that in Bolton 175 women married at fifteen or under, 179 in Burnley"
Bolton had a population of about 74,000 in 1861 and Burnley 22,000. I thought it surprising, therefore, theat the number of young brides showed to be about the same.
I was not about to sift through nearly 100,000 records to see what was revealed, so I thought I'd look at the people listed as "wife" on Ancestry in these two places. I realise very young brides would have been much more likely than other married women to be living in households headed by people other than their husband, and so might be found (or not found!) with relationships such as dau-in-law, daughter, boarder, lodger etc etc, but surely some would be in their husband's house? This is what I found:
Bolton Brides
Aged 15 - 1 (but age on census page is 45!)
Aged 14 - 3 (but ages on census pages are 44, 44 and 41)
Aged 13 - none
Aged 12 - none
Burnley Brides
Aged 15 - 1 (but is a son, not a wife on the census page)
Aged 14 - none
Aged 13 - none
Aged 12 - 1 (but age on census page is 42)
Total - none
I know that statistical info was extracted from the censuses, but I thought these were only published as country-wide figures. So, where did these figures of 175 and 179 come from?
This bit jumped our from the page as I don't have any brides under the age of 16 on my tree:
"The 1861 census shows that in Bolton 175 women married at fifteen or under, 179 in Burnley"
Bolton had a population of about 74,000 in 1861 and Burnley 22,000. I thought it surprising, therefore, theat the number of young brides showed to be about the same.
I was not about to sift through nearly 100,000 records to see what was revealed, so I thought I'd look at the people listed as "wife" on Ancestry in these two places. I realise very young brides would have been much more likely than other married women to be living in households headed by people other than their husband, and so might be found (or not found!) with relationships such as dau-in-law, daughter, boarder, lodger etc etc, but surely some would be in their husband's house? This is what I found:
Bolton Brides
Aged 15 - 1 (but age on census page is 45!)
Aged 14 - 3 (but ages on census pages are 44, 44 and 41)
Aged 13 - none
Aged 12 - none
Burnley Brides
Aged 15 - 1 (but is a son, not a wife on the census page)
Aged 14 - none
Aged 13 - none
Aged 12 - 1 (but age on census page is 42)
Total - none
I know that statistical info was extracted from the censuses, but I thought these were only published as country-wide figures. So, where did these figures of 175 and 179 come from?
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