Holyland-one-name-study blog

In the 80 years between 1788 and 1868, over 160,000 people were transported from the UK to Australia for various crimes (1). The option of transportation rather than imprisonment in the UK could be attractive to some convicts, but not all who boarded the ships arrived safely. This was the case for many of those on the convict ship Waterloo , which left England bound for Van Diemen's Land in 1842. One of those on board the Waterloo was Richard Holyland. Richard was baptised in Desford, Leicestershire, in 1806, the first child of his parents William and Hannah, and in 1825 married Elizabeth Clamp in the nearby village of Ibstock. The 1841 census shows the couple in Ibstock with five children, the youngest just 2 years old; Elizabeth would be pregnant again within a few months. Like many in the village, Richard was a framework knitter (FWK). This semiskilled trade had been the lifeblood for many families across the Midland counties, where whole families were involved producing p...

  As is well known, the number of children born to a married couple used to be far higher than is currently the norm (at least in the UK!) Many factors were involved; for example, couples married younger, potentially allowing childbirth to start at a younger age; and of course, prior to the 20 th century, there was little understanding of the mechanics of human fertility and virtually no effective contraception. On the other hand, the overall effect on population growth was offset by the risk of the mother dying of pregnancy or labour related complications, and of course by the high child mortality rates. Furthermore, menopause nowadays tends to occur at a younger age in developing countries than in developed countries, so we can speculate that our ancestors may have reached the natural end of their childbearing years at an earlier age than nowadays. The natural birth interval (ie time between the end of one pregnancy and the end of the next) in agricultural human societies ...