The move to London

[genjan1953]

Hello all, this is my first post on RootsChat so I'll plunge straight in here!  I have ancestors who made the move to London from Wells-next-Sea in Norfolk around the beginning of the 18th Century.  The culture shock must have been pretty huge I think.  Like others have suggested here, it might well have been a case of going from the frying pan into the fire in terms of quality of life.  I'm currently comparing the lives of those who moved to London and those in the family who remained in Norfolk.  Interesting.

Janet 

[genjan1953]

Sorry folks, that should have read 'the beginning of the 19th Century' - oops!  Well, it was my first post!

Janet

[meles]

Don't worry, Janet, we've all done something like that. 

You can modify your post to correct mistakes. Click on "modify" and amend it, and no-one will be any the wiser! 

meles

[coombs]

Also some people moved to London temporarily or for just a few years. I have come across families in Suffolk and Norfolk in the census where the parents were from there but one or two of their children were born in London then the youngest back in Suffolk. That indicates they moved to London then back to East Anglia after a year or two.

[Tsu]

Apart from one g,g,g,g grandfather (who was German), all my family were already in London by 1800.  I haven't been able to go further back except on one line who were Hugenots and arrived in the 1650s.

I don't have a single ag lab in my tree.

[Greensleeves]

My Suffolk ancestors in the 1500s were quite affluent, being yeoman farmers, and I have obtained the Will of one from TNA which shows ownership of quite considerable tracts of land.  Sadly though,  my family line goes from the eldest son who made the mistake of dying comparatively young.  His father then left everything to the two surviving brothers, and made no provision for his orphaned grandchildren. Thus two branches of the family went from strength to strength, whilst my line all became Ag Labs, until the coming of the railways liberated them! 

I keep finding this time and time again in my research - incidents of almost touching greatness

[Rose Dempsey]

Just starting on this topic, as one side of family (POYSER) in London back to 1851 when they came from Hull, and am interested in what prompted it. Looking forward to discussions with you all

NAMES:
Lewis, Burton,
Poyser, Burgum, Halestrap, Blackmore,Wilmot, Hodgkinson
PLACES:
1851 to 1950's Plaistow/Canning Town in West Ham district of London
now moving backwards to Hull, and Blore Staffordshire

[youngtug]

It is too simple an answer that people went to the towns, London especially for work/financial gain. The enclosures acts, especially the enclosure of commons act caused great hardship . Also many of the "cottages" that village people lived in were rented and many had miniscule or no garden, the ability to grow ones own food had been erioded by the acts. There  are other  factors involved of course, such has the end of the Napolionic wars, introduction of machinery and famine.

[jbml]

In the early 1800's the Industrial Revolution attracted thousands of folk from the countryside to London

This is the traditional account of the Industrial Revolution; but the more I learn the more I think it confuses cause and effect.

In the 1700s, the Agrarian Revolution enabled a much greater amount of food to be produced with a smaller number of labourers; so the population could be fed by far fewer ag labs. It was thus not a case of the Industrial Revolution attracting people into London and the other great cities; it was a case of the Agrarian Revolution driving them off the land, where there was no work for them (or rather, no longer enough work for all of them). Once in the cities, they were an available workforce which the Industrial Revolution eagerly sucked up to service the new industry ...