1 History and GIS: Railways, Population Change, And

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History and GIS: Railways, Population Change, and Agricultural Development in late nineteenth century Wales

Robert M. Schwartz, Ian N. Gregory and Jordi Marti Henneberg

1. Introduction: Historical GIS and National Historical GIS databases

Historical Geographical Information Systems, or Historical GIS, has become a rapidly growing field within historical research (Knowles 2005a; Gregory & Ell 2007; Gregory & Healey 2007). Historical GIS is an inter-disciplinary field that involves taking GIS technology, devised in quantitative, data-rich disciplines such as computer science and environmental management, and applying it to the study of history. A major impetus behind the growth of Historical GIS has been the significant investments made by a number of countries in National Historical GISs (NHGIS). Originally these databases would typically contain a country’s census reports and other data for the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They contained the statistical data linked to cartographic representations of the administrative units they refer to, together with the changing boundaries of those units. Using a conventional database containing only statistical information, a researcher could search for aspatial patterns of variation and change. Using an historical GIS, however, the researcher is now equipped to identify patterns of change that occur simultaneously over time and across geographic space. Additionally, because all of the data are located in space, they can be integrated with any other data that are also located in space. With historical GIS we can get closer to complexity of change and historical reality.

Among the countries that have built or are building NHGISs based on census data, the best developed include Great Britain (Gregory et al. 2002), the United States (Fitch & Ruggles 2003), and Belgium (De

Moor & Wiedemann, 2003)i. Such systems are costly because they require not only the entry of census

1 information but also the researching and encoding of administrative boundary changes through time, not to mention myriad challenges along the way.

Increasingly NHGISs hold more diverse data sources than censuses and other quantitative statistics.

Gazetteers, information on settlement patterns, historical maps, dynastic information, travel accounts and literature are all examples of the types of material that are becoming increasingly common. In some cases, such as in the China Historical GIS (Berman 2005; Bol & Ge 2005) and the German Historical GIS

(Kunz 2007), these have been the main emphasis from the start. In other cases it has involved extending a census-based NHGIS into a more diverse system as in the case where the British system when it was expanded to develop the Vision of Britain through Time websiteii (Southall 2006).

Is all the effort and money expended worth the cost? This paper offers a strong affirmative answer in two ways. Using data from the Great Britain Historical GIS (GBHGIS) as an example of highly developed

NHGIS, (comma) it brings together census data with a database on the development of the rail network derived from Cobb (2006), and a collection of agricultural statistics (Williams et al. 2001) to look at how the development of the rail network influenced population and agriculture in a small but diverse part of

Britain, namely the principality of Wales. The paper illustrates the type of substantive results that historical GIS enables by bringing together disparate sources and exploring how the relationships within and between them change over space and time. Computer-assisted GIS is not the philosopher’s stone of course, but it is capable making new contributions to our knowledge of the past, all the more so when combined with other tools in the historian’s kit.

2. The development of the railways in nineteenth century Wales

In nineteen century Wales, of what importance were railways in agricultural development? If this question seems “old hat” to specialists, it remains interesting nonetheless because of a gap in the literature. Specialists in railway history rarely give little more than passing attention to agricultural

2 developments, while those in Welsh and agrarian history usually give scant attention railways.(Barrie

1980; Baughan 1980; Collins 2000; Moore-Colyer 2000; Reay 1996; Simmons 1986; Turner 2000;

Turnock 1998) In a good effort at bridging this gap, D. W. Howell brought to light interesting connections between railways and agricultural change. He offered telling examples of the great cost savings of rail transport over horse-drawn carting and suggested that such lowered costs stimulated trade and benefitted farmers. There were also negative consequences, he thought. A case in point was the demise of traditional markets, the result of railway agents and dealers purchasing directly from farmers. He concluded that railways reduced isolation and benefitted Welsh farmers in their basic enterprise of cattle raising by cutting the cost of marketing their livestock and thus increasing the volume of trade with English graziers, merchant-farmers who fattened store animals prior to their sale for meat.

Railways, he added, also facilitated the migration of workers from rural Wales, and that served to improve the lot of those who stayed on the land.(Howell 1974-5)

Both points in his conclusion deserve further investigation and revision. Here the use of GIS and newly available data on railways and agriculture makes it possible to give needed attention to geographic variation in describing the nature and timing of agricultural change. As we shall see, railways played a substantial role in helping Welsh farmers adjust to changing market conditions during the agrarian depression of the 1880s and 1890s. In addition, the effects of rail transport varied geographically, benefitting upland livestock farmers somewhat differently than their lowland counterparts.

[Figure 1: The development of the railway network]

The dawning of the railway age in Wales began in 1848 with the opening of a line from Chester, England, to the coastal town of Bangor in Caernarvonshire County. Built for a train known as the Irish Mail, whose purpose was to quicken the speed of communications between the capital and Ireland (Millward 2003:

211), the line was extended to Holyhead in Anglesey and south to Caernarvon in 1852. In the same year,

3 the South Wales Railway, which served the industrial districts of Glamorgan and Monmouth, reached the agricultural county of Carmarthenshire. (Howell 1974-5: 46-47). As the network continued to grow in the 1850s and 1860s, new lines served the northern lead and slate mining districts in Caernarvonshire and Merionethshire and others opened in the lowlands of Cardiganshire and along the Merioneth coast.

On the southern peninsula, lines reached the main agrarian districts of Pembrokeshire in 1862, an advance that would prove a boon for the county’s dairy and livestock farmers. (BPP 1896: 373, 417,

438). This development is summarized in Figure 1.

[Figure 2: Rail lines and terrain]

[Figure 3: Elevation Profiles of Railway Lines]

The advent of rail transport in central Wales proceeded more slowly, for there railway contractors and private finance faced the most challenging terrain yet to master, as is demonstrated in Figure 2. The line from Ruabon to the coast, for instance, exemplifies the engineering achievements that opened the remote, mountainous regions of the principality. From Ruabon near the border with England, it climbed to over 400 meters and then descended to the seaport of Barmouth. Figure 3 shows that compared to earlier feats of engineering know-how, the Ruabon line was a marvel.

In 1859, the first lines in neighboring Montgomeryshire opened, connecting Newton and Llannidloes.

Further expansion in the 1860s and early 1870s linked these and other upland agrarian districts with coastal towns such Aberystwyth and with the industrial areas south Wales via a line through Radnor and

Brecknock to Glamorgan, and another line through Carmarthenshire to Swansea and Pembrokeshire. By the end of the 1870s, with the partial exception of Cardiganshire, the favored agrarian districts of southern, central, and northern Wales, now all with proximate rail service, enjoyed a level and pace of communication impossible to imagine only three decades before.

3. Agriculture in nineteenth century Wales

In the 1840s, before the railways arrived, the majority of Welsh farmers engaged themselves in whatever mixed farming that their climate, terrain, tradition, and communications permitted. Although

Wales was generally a grazing region, its rugged terrain and poor roads made transportation slow and costly, so isolation was a characteristic feature of rural life. Under these conditions, a considerable portion of the land was devoted to arable farming and cereal production in order to provide sufficient food for local household consumption and livestock over the winter. Trade and commerce were predominantly local in character and centered on market towns in each district. Stock raised for sale were known as store cattle and were taken on foot to feeding or “fattening” regions by drovers. Even as the growing market for food in the industrial southeast opened greater opportunities for Welsh farmers, transportation costs limited agricultural trade between the producing areas and the shops in Swansea,

Cardiff, Newport, and Merthyr Tidfyl. The butter trade is a prime example. In the years before the railways, a farmer in Pembrokeshire or Camrathensire could send butter in one-horse carts to Merthyr , a distance of 50 to 70 miles, at the cost of £5 14s. a ton per 50 miles (2s. 3d. per ton-mile), plus a week of a laborer’s time and wages for the round-trip journey. (Howell 1974-5: 45)

Railways fundamentally changed this situation. By rail, the same amount of butter could be sent to

Merthyr within a day at the rate of 3 pence per ton-mile, less than a quarter of the cost of horse-drawn carting. (Howell 1974-5: 45). By reducing transport costs and greatly facilitating access to distant markets, rail transport helped alter farming practice and agricultural land use, accelerating a shift from cereal production to dairy and livestock farming throughout Britain and Western Europe. Within this broad pattern, the developments in Wales had particularities reflecting its distinctive culture, landscape, climate and transportation facilities. Leaving aside culture and climate, we focus here on landscape, rail

5 transportation, agrarian practice, and the changing market conditions to which Welsh farmers had to respond.

As for market conditions, the biggest challenge to agricultural livelihoods and rental incomes came during the agricultural depression in the 1880s and 1890s. Vast increases in agricultural production in

North American and other settler countries1—brought to world markets via steamships, railways, and the telegraph—intensified international competition and depressed farm prices. In Britain, as growing shipments of imported foodstuffs were received and dispatched by rail from the docks of Liverpool and

London, the price of wheat fell steeply, that of livestock, butter, and meat somewhat less. In France and

Germany, tariffs were introduced in the 1880s to support farm incomes against foreign competition, while in Britain, the government held firmly to its policy of free trade. With little hope of reversing that policy, English and Welsh farmers, in an effort to compete, pressed the government to reduce rail freight charges.(Collins 2000; Koning 1994; O'Rourke 1997; Perren 1995; Price 1983) Although rail companies made some adjustments, British farmers remained convinced that freight rates were too high.(BPP 1897: 132-33, 222-23, 347-49)

During the depression, Welsh farmers probably suffered somewhat less than their English counterparts

(BPP 1896: 834-35; 1897: 19). The essential grazing economy of the principality was both less vulnerable to the effects of severe depression in cereal farming and readily suited to the expansion of livestock.

Large markets for Welsh beef and mutton were comparatively close at hand in the industrial southeast of the country and in the urban and industrial centers of Lancashire and the Midlands, all areas in which the demand for fresh milk, butter, and meat was growing. The expansion of railways would help farmers meet that demand. To make good on these promising conditions, the key to success was proximity to a rail station, where store cattle and sheep as well as dairy products were gathered for shipping. There,

1 Countries colonized by European states, including Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and British India.

6 important agricultural supplies were received--lime for treating the soil, agricultural tools, mail, market information, and building stone and slate used to construct better cow sheds and barns. (BPP 1896: 763)

[Figure 4: Parish-level rail accessibility, 1850s-1880s]

Such proximity was a reality for many if not most Welsh farmers in the 1880s. The increased accessibility of rail service in that decade can be seen in Figure 4 showing the average distance from rural parishes to the closest station over the course of five decades from the 1850s to the turn of the century. By the

1880s, there were still clusters of parishes where journeys of 15 kilometers or more were required to reach the nearest station, a distance easily requiring a full day (or more) to move cattle to a shipping point. Prominent among such remote parishes were those running along the coastline of Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire, those to the south of Newton in Montgomeryshire, and those in the northeast spanning parts of Denbigh and Merioneth counties. Nonetheless, the majority of rural districts enjoyed a more favorable situation, with rural isolation much reduced and the distances from farm gates to rail stations manageable for most farmers.

[Table 1: Wheat Production in Welsh Counties, 1872-1912]

To judge from the available agrarian statistics, the retreat from wheat cultivation, coupled with a gradual expansion of the pastoral economy, got underway in the mid-1870s(Williams 2001), and the pace of the expansion increased during the agrarian crisis of the 1880s and 1890s. The steep decline of wheat production is displayed in Table 1. After 1872 the most dramatic percentage declines occurred in the northwestern counties of Anglesey and Caernarvonshire: there, wheat production fell by more than

50 percent in a decade and continued steeply downward thereafter. In the other northern counties of

Denbighshire, Flintshire, and Merioneth, moderate declines continued into the 1890s and beyond, a trend evident in southwestern Pembroke, too. Elsewhere in the south and in the central counties of

Montgomeryshire and Radnorshire, wheat production remained a prominent if declining feature of the

7 agrarian economy into the 1880s. This pattern held in Carmarthenshire and Cardiganshire until the eve of World War I. In the other regions of the south and Central Wales, however, wheat production fell after the 1880s to the lows that had been reached earlier in northern counties.

[Table 2: Cattle in Welsh Counties, 1772-1912.]

The expansion of the pastoral economy was both more marked and geographically more uniform in cattle raising than in dairy or sheep farming. As table 2 shows the upward trend in cattle raising was dramatic in Anglesey. A small, lowland county, it had benefited as early as the 1850s from its rail connections to markets in Lancashire and Cheshire. From the early 1870s to the early 1880s, in a single decade, fields of wheat disappeared in favor of new pasture and expanding herds of beef cattle. A similar trend also developed in Denbighshire and Flintshire. In Pembrokeshire, a somewhat slower rate of growth, associated with much larger herds, produced the largest numerical increase of cattle in the principality. Thanks to lush, improved pasture land, good rail transportation, and astute management,

Pembrokeshire became the principal region in Wales to which store cattle and sheep were sent for fattening. Elsewhere in Carmarthenshire and Montgomeryshire, modest rates of growth in the large herds of store cattle provided the fattening areas with a good supply young animals.

[Table 3: Sheep in Welsh Counties, 1872-1912]

In the mid 1870s to the mid 1880s, when struggling farmers generally looked first to rearing more cattle, sheep flocks were reduced by about 15 percent on average, and by less than one percent in Merioneth to nearly 30 percent in Anglesey (see table 3). Then, in the following decades, and despite the continued fall in the price of wool, sheep farming expanded in response to relatively favorable prices of mutton and lamb. (BPP 1897: Alpabetical Digest, p. 194; Copus 1989: 49-50)

[Table 4: Milk Cows in Welsh Counties, 1872-1912]

In comparison to cattle rearing, the development of dairy farming was generally less extensive. As table

4 shows, in the rural counties, relatively small herds and growth rates of about 10 percent per decade characterized the situation in Anglesey and Flintshire, whereas large herds and similar growth rates were the norm in Pembrokeshire and Caernarvonshire. The highest rates of growth occurred in the industrial counties of Glamorgan and Monmouth, where the urban population in 1882 amounted to more than 60 percent of the two counties’ totals. In 1892, as compared to the 1872 figures, the number of milk cows had risen by 35 percent in these counties.

4. Agriculture and the railways

What then was the relationship between these varied and shifting patterns of livestock farming and the development of the railways? To find the answer, ideally we would look to data at the level of the parish or registration district in order to identify spatially varying relationships across the counties and the principality as a whole. Although geo-referenced data on railways is at hand, the agricultural data are currently available only at the county level. At that scale of resolution, statistically significant spatial variation is likely to be masked by the aggregate data for the 13 Welsh counties, which spatial statistical tests prove correct. In the absence of spatial autocorrelation, a good tool for exploring the relationship between railways and agricultural developments is ordinary least-squares regression.

The results prove both interesting and complex. Several simple versions of a multivariate regression were tested to gauge the effect of rail transport accessibility on the proportion of cattle, dairy cows, and sheep in the counties in 1882 and 1892, years near the beginning and the end of the agricultural depression. Each analysis examined different indicators of rail accessibility together with measures of terrain elevation, the density of the population, and its urban versus rural proportion. Since neither of the population variables proved important, they were put aside.

[Tables 5 to 10: Regression results]

In what seemed the best fitting regressions for the two periods, from 80 to 95 percent of the variation in the proportion of one or other of the three kinds of livestock (cattle, dairy cows, and sheep) was accounted for by the combined effects of rail station density and mean terrain elevation (see Tables 5 through 10.) In the case of cattle and milk cows, the relationship between the dependent and independent variables was inverse, and, as indicated by the values of the beta coefficients, the effect of terrain elevation was consistently greater than that of rail accessibility. As for sheep, elevation also had a greater influence on the proportion of sheep than did rail density, but the effects of elevation and rail density were, nonetheless, both positive.

[Figure 5. Distribution of Grazing Cattle and Sheep]

The effect of rail transport on livestock farming was clearly important, but it differed depending upon the type of stock in question and the average elevation and character of the terrain in a given county. As

Figure 5 shows, in counties with higher mean elevations the proportion of sheep tended to be greater, especially in areas where the availability of rail service was relatively good. This suggests that even though lowland sheep farmers were apt to have better access to rail, they made less use of it because their flocks were small. One reason for that was that lowland breeds were more vulnerable to disease.

Other varieties thrived in upland and mountainous areas.(Moore-Colyer 2000: 447) All this leads to the conclusion that the expansion of sheep farming begun in the late 1880s was primarily an highland development, one that was substantially facilitated by the upland railways that came into operation from the late 1860s through the 1880s.

A different pattern emerges with regard to cattle raising and dairy farming. Here, our results show that the proportions of cattle and of milk cows were typically greater in areas at lower elevations and in which there were fewer stations per aerial unit than elsewhere, and many fewer than in the urbanized counties of Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire where the level of rail service was the highest in the

10 principality. Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire are example of the inter-relationships in question.

Both were lowland counties with relatively moderate rail station densities (1.9 and 2.1 stations/100 Km2 respectively) and relatively large proportions of cattle (31 percent and 20 percent of livestock respectively). In absolute numbers the counties had the largest stocks of cattle in Wales, and between

1872 and 1892, the large stocks grew by 43 and 33 percent respectively. During the same period, the increase in milk cows was comparatively modest, at 17 and 12 percent respectively, so, in comparison to cattle and sheep, their proportions declined by about 3 percent. “Steady as she goes” seems an apt characterization of dairy farming in these counties.

Another part of the overall pattern was present in the highland country of Montgomeryshire. There in

1882, a similarly moderate level of rail service (1.9 stations/100 Km2) was associated with small proportions of dairy and beef cattle (6 percent and 11 percent respectively) in comparison to the huge proportion of sheep (83 percent). In 1892 the proportions of dairy and beef cattle remained virtually the same as a decade earlier, but the estimated effect of rail transport was slightly greater for cattle (from an R2 of .88 to that of .95) and slightly smaller for dairy cows (R2 of .88 vs. R2 of .80). Such small changes in these statistics suggest a more or less stable relationship between rail accessibility and the development of cattle and dairy farming.

Signs of a weakening relationship between railways and dairy farming in the 1890s probably attest to the little success that the majority of Welsh farmers, and those in upland counties in particular, had in exploiting the growing market for fresh milk in urban areas. In upland areas, lower quality milk, greater distances from urban markets, and the slower speeds of transportation all combined to encourage farmers to rely on butter as the major dairy product. Unlike fresh milk, foreign competition in the butter trade was intense by the 1870s and 1880s, so profits were increasingly under pressure. Lowland farmers

11 nearer the urban markets in Swansea, Cardiff, and Newport were able to make good use of faster rail transport than that available to highland farmers and expanded their herds of dairy cows accordingly.

Railways clearly stimulated the expansion of livestock farming in Wales in ways that generally differed between lowland and highland areas. In responding to market conditions and agricultural environments, farmers in upland Montgomeryshire, Radnor, Merioneth, Breconshire, and the higher plateaus of

Glamorganshire, relied on railways to gradually increase their herds of cattle and more substantially expand their flocks of sheep. In the lowlands, farmers in Anglesey, Pembrokeshire, and

Carmarthenshire, for example, made use of their speedier rail connection to exploit their lush pasture and growing herds of cattle and dairy cows.

5. Railways, agricultural development, and population change at county level

Whether these agrarian developments improved the lot of farmers and agrarian communities is another important question that we can explore indirectly by turning to related population movements. Howell’s claim that railways improved the situations of Welsh farmers and rural communities by facilitating rural outmigration deserves revision, for the arrival of accessible rail service likely opened new opportunities for commercial agriculture that would stem the pace of out-migration, to an extent that varied by region, market conditions, and other factors. Even as drovers were being displaced by rail shipments of stock, an increased demand for horse-drawn carting of goods from farm gates to stations would employ more carters and provide additional work for wheelwrights. On the other hand, the decline of arable farming in favor of livestock raising usually diminished the demand for agricultural laborers. In dairy farming, however, expansion typically increased the need for boys and young women to handle the milking and related tasks. A further element that accompanied intensified price competition and declining incomes for both tenant farmers and landowners was the increased viability of small-scale, family farming. With the additional influence of the Settled Land Act of 1882, permitting landowners

12 to sell off farmsteads without entail restrictions, the number of small farms in Wales rose dramatically by the mid-1880s (BPP 1896: 344, 575; Moore-Colyer 2000: 447-48; Williams et al 2001). Small farms were viable because they depended upon family labor to work the land and raise stock (Grigg 1987;

Koning 1994: 26-36).

[Table 11. Rural Population Change in Welsh Counties, 1840s to 1900s]

With these agrarian processes in mind, we can use OLS regression to describe the temporally varying relationships between livestock rearing, arable farming, and rail transport, and rural population change in Welsh counties. Once again the available data on agriculture limit the analysis to aggregate patterns at the scale of the county, leaving the study of railways and local population changes at the parish level to a subsequent section—effects completely masked by aggregation. As table 11 shows, at the scale of the country, the dominant geographic and temporal trend was rural depopulation in all the counties except for Flintshire, Glamorganshire, and Monmouthshire where there were small to large increases over the period 1840 to 1910. In the majority of counties, median rates of depopulation were substantial in the 1860s,1870s, and 1880s and then turned relatively moderate in the 1890s and 1900s.

As noted above concerning railways, the opening of new lines and stations had begun to open up rural districts by the end of the 1860s; nevertheless, the influence of rail service on agriculture and rural populations seems to have taken hold widely only in the 1870s.

[Table 12: Regression analysis]

Table 12 shows the results of regression analysis. It shows that across the 13 counties from the 1860s to the 1900s rural population change was strongly associated with the decline of arable farming and the expansion of livestock rearing. In the 1870s and after, population change was also strongly influenced by the accessibility of rail service. In each decade during the period, the effects of a specific element of agrarian change varied. With regard to arable farming, the relative extent of land under tillage proved

13 significant and positively related to rural population change in the 1860s, 1880s, and 1890s. In these decades the decline of tillage per 100 acres of county land helped account for rural depopulation: as fewer hands were needed in arable farming, the rural population in agrarian districts tended to decline.

Some of the redundant labor no doubt moved to the Welsh iron and coal fields in Glamorganshire and

Monmouthshire. In the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s additional downward pressure on agricultural employment came from the large and growing extent of cattle raising. In contrast, dairy farming required comparatively more labor than cattle and sheep farming. Hence, in the 1870s and 1900s the expansion of dairy farming stemmed depopulation by creating more jobs for service workers in the industry. Likewise the growth of rail service, beginning in the 1870s, had a positive impact on rural demographic change: in counties with relatively greater access to stations, rural populations more likely sustained themselves or increased. Except in industrializing Glamorganshire and agrarian Flintshire, where the rural population grew substantially, the general context of rural demographic change, to underline the point, was that of decline or, in the case of Monmouthshire, stability. Nonetheless, in the majority of the counties, the combination of greater rail transport and the expansion of dairy farming served to reduce the decline of rural population associated with the shift from mixed farming and arable cultivation to cattle and sheep raising.

6. The railways and population change at parish level.

While agricultural data are only currently available at county level, population data are available with far more spatial detail at the level of the parish. There were 1,257 parishes in Wales in 1911 of which 1,163 can be classed as rural if we define ‘rural’ as having a population of less than 2,500 (Law 1967). This gives us a potentially very detailed picture of the rural population; however, parish-level census data suffer from two major problems: first the census only publishes total populations for these units, and second the boundaries of parishes changed frequently between censuses making changes over time

14 very hard to explore. The second of these problems can be resolved using a GIS based technique called areal interpolation. As the GIS provides us with the boundaries used in the different censuses, we can calculate the degree to which parishes at one date intersect with those at a different date. This information provides us with ways of estimating what the populations for one set of parishes, in this case we will use the 1911 arrangement, would have been at earlier dates (Gregory & Ell 2005). This in turn allows us to calculate the inter-censal population changes. It must be noted however that population change has two components: migration and natural increase.

[Figure 6: Population change by distance to station]

Figure 6 shows the median population change of parishes according to the distance from their centroid2 to the nearest station. If Howell’s assertion is correct it would be expected that parishes with easy access to the railways would be likely to have higher rates of population loss than further away. The figure shows that in the 1850s there seems to be little relationship between a rural parish’s population change and its distance from a station. A Kruskal-Wallis test confirms this giving a chi-squared value of

6.79 which is not statistically significant. For the other dates, however, there is a clear pattern. In all three of these decades the population change is highest among parishes whose centroid lies within two kilometers of a station and this declines with distance. This distance decay becomes more pronounced over time. In the 1860s and 1870s population growth has dropped below average by 4 to 6 kms from the nearest station. By the 1880s all bands nearer than 10km from a station have above average growth while all further away have below average. The chi-squared values from the Kruskal-Wallis test for these dates are 40.86, 47.06 and 87.24 all of which are significant at the p<0.01 level.

[Table 13: Median population growth of parishes near a station by county]

2 A centroid is the geographical centre of a polygon. It provides a useful way of measuring the distance from a polygon to another feature.

Table 13 suggests that after the 1850s this affect was widespread across Wales. For each county the table compares the median population growth of rural parishes within 2kms of a station with the median growth for rural parish as a whole. In the 1860s, 1870s and 1880s 11, 12 and 12 respectively of the 13 counties have population growth rates in parishes near to stations that are higher than the county average. The effect of proximate rail access reducing rural population loss seems to have been most prevalent in the southern counties of Carmarthenshire, Cardiganshire, Glamorganshire and

Monmouthshire as well as the northern counties of Flint and Carnarvonshire, where it may well have been more associated with mineral extraction than agriculture. In the more agricultural northern counties, including Merionethshire, Denbighshire and Montgomeryshire, proximity to the railways seems to have a lesser effect in reducing population loss, but even here there is little evidence to support the assertion that the railways encouraged out-migration.

In contrast to Howell’s assertion, these results suggest that being close to a station actually encouraged population to stay in a parish, likely because of the economic advantages that a rail service provided.

This confirms some earlier findings suggesting that net migration at registration district level, an intermediate series of units larger than parishes but smaller than counties, was positively related to the density of the rail network. In other words, and at a time when high rates of rural out migration rates were the rule, the greater the rail density in any given rural district, , the greater the likelihood that the rate of outmigration was less than elsewhere in the countryside (Schwartz 2007; Schwartz and Gregory

2007).

In summary, there are two major conclusions that can be drawn: first, accessibility to the rail network appears to have had a major impact on the development of agriculture in Wales. Second, Howell’s assertion that the railways led to out-migration needs revision. As in the rest of Britain—indeed in most of Western Europe—in Wales rural out-migration was general in this period. And yet, areas with better

16 accessibility to the rail network seem to have had lower rates of population loss than those further away. Howell’s second assertion, that rural population decline and agricultural developments improved the lot of farmers and agrarian communities is another important question that can be explored elsewhere.

With additional data, this research can be extended. We are currently digitising parish-level data from the British Agricultural Returns which will allow us to explore in detail the relationship between population change and agricultural change. The number of parishes and the volume of data for each parish--there are usually over 50 columns of statistics for each parish-- makes this a slow and laborious process. Once done, however, the spatial detail that these data provide will give us a far more detailed and nuanced understanding of the relationship between population, railways and agriculture by allowing us to conduct the entire analysis at parish level.

7. Conclusions: Historical GIS and the humanities

This discussion of Wales points to some of the strengths and limits of a study based in part on a census- based National Historical GIS. On the positive side, a National Historical GIS provides the data needed for detailed investigations of long-term historical change over extensive geographic space. It serves as an effective means of integrating data from census returns, railway atlases, agricultural statistics, digital elevation models and potentially many other sources, making it possible to pursue research questions that used to be beyond our capacity. With initial results in hand, additional complexities can be addressed by including additional data. Although preparing geo-referenced data requires a large commitment of money and time, the database that results not only can lead to new discoveries by the researcher but can be made available to others for their use. (possible alternative phrasing for the paragraph)This, of course, requires these data to be digitised and geo-referenced, a significant and expensive undertaking but one that if done properly and if the data are disseminated effectively means

17 not only that the specific research questions under study can be explored, but also that these data can also be used by other researchers in different contexts.

Like any approach, one based on historical GIS has its limits and pitfalls. A notable pitfall is the limiting of research questions to fit the available data in GIS form. Among humanities scholars, this kind of data driven research is the target, rightly so, of much criticism. A notable limitation is that the findings may well offer less than a desirable degree of explanation. Results that indentify only what is where and when inevitably raise “the why questions,” and if they not pursued, the findings remain both incomplete and less satisfying. In the case at hand, we have made good progress toward a more nuanced understanding of change over time and space, but we readily admit that our study is incomplete and needs additional work to realize the promise of the subject and interdisciplinary methods.

In sum, GIS is not this era’s the philosopher’s stone but a new and very useful tool for conducting historical research in an interdisciplinary context. It allows researchers to structure, integrate, explore and describe geographical and temporal patterns in ways that are far beyond the capability of any other approach. Historical GIS does not replace the more traditional approaches to history. It it complements and enriches them.

Acknowledgements:

This paper benefited from support from the National Endowment for the Humanities under grant RZ-

50577-06, and from the European Science Foundation under Eurocores – Inventing Europe grant FP-005

(Water, Road and Rail). The railway data from M.H. Cobb’s (2006) The Railways of Great Britain: A historical atlas were digitized at the University of Lleida. We would like to thank Antonia Valentín, Laura

Ortiz, Eloy del Río and J. Martí-Domínguez for their work on this. Partial funding for their work was provided by the Spanish Ministry of Education (SEJ2007-64812), the Government of Catalonia (AGAUR), and the Jean Monnet Programme (141000, 2008). For full details of staffing and funding of the Great

Britain Historical GIS project see: http://www.gbhgis.org. Shading schemes used on some of the maps in this paper are based on the Colorbrewer website (http://www.colorbrewer.org) produced by M.

Harrower and C. Brewer.

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Colchester, Essex [UK].

A. 1850s

B. 1860s

C. 1870s

D. 1880s

Figure 1. Railways and Rail Stations in Wales, 1850s through the 1880s. Source: Railway lines and

stations derived from Cobb (2006). County boundaries from the Great Britain Historical GIS

(Gregory et al. 2002).

Figure 2. Rail Lines (1870s) and Terrain. Source: Digital elevation model by Schwartz comes from the

NASA Shuttle Radar Mission (2000), distributed in tiles by the United States Geological Survey.

Figure 3. Elevation Profiles of Railway Lines from London to Birmingham(1837) and Ruabon to

Barmouth (1867).

Figure 4: Parish-level Rail Accessibility, 1850s through 1880s.

Figure 5: Geographic Distribution of Cattle and Sheep. Source: Agricultural Statistics from Williams et al. (2001)

Figure 6: Population change for rural parishes by distance to the nearest station. Population change is

measured as the median percentage change for rural parishes in a distance class minus the

median for all rural parishes at that date. For example, in the 1850s rural parishes 16 to 18kms

from their nearest station grew at 2.9 percentage points below the average growth for rural

parishes in the 1850s.

Tillage Wheat Percent Change in Wheat Cultivation (1872=100) Mean 1872 1872 Region County Elevation 1872 1882 1892 1902 1912 (acres) (acres) (meters) C Montgomeryshire 257 74903 22735 100 82.1 48.5 42.3 36.9 SE Monmouthshire 142 63426 20473 100 78.9 38.1 25.5 27.0 NW Denbighshire 215 88094 19421 100 63.3 33.4 30.1 25.4 NE Flintshire 142 49033 15390 100 68.1 33.4 25.7 22.9 SE Glamorganshire 167 63915 15356 100 76.6 35.9 28.0 28.0 SW Carmarthenshire 160 92596 12432 100 90.1 68.8 64.9 53.5 SE Breconshire 313 49590 10504 100 77.1 39.2 31.6 23.2 SW Pembrokeshire 81 84058 8497 100 67.9 39.0 35.0 28.2 SW Cardiganshire 206 84185 8430 100 93.0 71.2 70.9 63.7 C Radnorshire 314 36736 7689 100 83.3 44.9 37.4 28.4 NW Caernarvonshire 157 37417 2033 100 48.3 27.2 18.1 18.5 NW Anglesey 46 45830 1952 100 36.3 14.4 16.7 17.7 C Merionethshire 301 24551 1928 100 60.9 44.0 36.5 26.9

Table 1. Wheat Production in Welsh Counties, 1872-1912. Rank order by Wheat. Source: Welsh

Historical Statistics (Williams 2001)

Cattle Percent Change in Cattle (1872=100) Mean 1872 Region County Elevation 1872 1882 1892 1902 1912 Number (meters) SW Carmarthenshire 160 51006 100 110.1 133.3 133.0 134.1 SW Pembrokeshire 81 43316 100 120.5 142.6 134.3 144.2 C Montgomeryshire 257 39088 100 102.6 124.2 122.7 135.5 SW Cardiganshire 206 31830 100 111.3 135.7 133.3 137.9 NE Denbighshire 215 31251 100 107.8 138.2 131.3 145.5 SE Glamorganshire 167 27830 100 106.6 119.4 109.2 109.4 NW Caernarvonshire 157 27015 100 108.8 130.8 123.1 115.6 NW Anglesey 46 24100 100 119.7 148.5 157.7 170.6 SE Monmouthshire 142 23980 100 115.4 135.0 122.3 127.2 C Merionethshire 301 23537 100 99.2 109.0 99.1 101.4 SE Breconshire 313 20548 100 104.6 126.5 119.9 121.9 C Radnorshire 314 18781 100 105.7 123.4 117.1 121.8 NE Flintshire 142 13773 100 105.0 141.9 139.1 150.9

Table 2. Cattle in Welsh Counties, 1872-1912. Rank order by number of cattle. Source: Welsh Historical

Statistics, ibid.

Sheep Percent Change in Sheep (1872=100) Mean 1872 Region County Elevation 1872 1882 1892 1902 1912 Number (meters) SE Breconshire 313 430237 100 79.1 107.1 115.9 114.2 C Merionethshire 301 401565 100 99.7 101.2 107.9 113.5 C Montgomeryshire 257 356265 100 85.8 113.2 122.9 128.2 SE Glamorganshire 167 285267 100 90.6 107.0 120.3 112.0 C Radnorshire 314 279986 100 80.0 100.4 102.2 100.5 NE Denbighshire 215 261061 100 93.4 124.0 132.1 149.1 NW Caernarvonshire 157 218881 100 90.8 114.4 122.8 128.2 SW Carmarthenshire 160 212236 100 84.7 117.2 131.8 128.9 SW Cardiganshire 206 203619 100 94.6 111.9 132.8 129.2 SE Monmouthshire 142 184487 100 73.1 127.4 126.4 124.0 SW Pembrokeshire 81 103818 100 83.2 130.1 134.6 143.6 NE Flintshire 142 62077 100 81.3 129.1 135.9 151.3 NW Anglesey 46 52132 100 71.4 143.1 144.7 181.4

Table 3. Sheep in Welsh Counties, 1872-1912. Rank order by number of sheep. Source: Welsh Historical

Statistics, ibid.

Milk Cows Percent Change in Milk Cows (1872=100) Mean 1872 Region Elevation 1872 1882 1892 1902 1912 Number County (meters) SW Carmarthenshire 160 47016 100 103.3 112.3 107.8 112.2 SW Pembrokeshire 81 28826 100 112.0 117.8 111.1 115.1 SW Cardiganshire 206 24735 100 102.1 110.1 103.6 104.5 C Montgomeryshire 257 23266 100 94.2 103.3 95.9 100.4 NE Denbighshire 215 23113 100 99.0 120.1 110.4 117.3 NW Caernarvonshire 157 19966 100 105.9 121.6 112.2 114.7 SE Glamorganshire 167 19247 100 114.2 137.0 131.4 133.2 SE Monmouthshire 142 14939 100 110.4 135.9 117.6 124.1 C Merionethshire 301 14742 100 97.0 99.8 88.6 88.6 NW Anglesey 46 13610 100 110.7 123.7 120.7 118.5 NE Flintshire 142 13578 100 95.7 121.9 122.7 139.6 SE Breconshire 313 13521 100 102.6 116.4 113.9 117.6 C Radnorshire 314 9043 100 105.7 119.2 115.8 120.4

Table 4. Milk Cows in Welsh Counties, 1872-1912. Rank order by number of Milk Cows. Source: Welsh

Historical Statistics, ibid.

Cases to fit (N) 13

Adjusted r-square 0.88

Significance of the p=.0000 regression

Parameters Regression coefficient Beta value of coefficient probability

Intercept 26.09932 0.000000

Station Density -1.25148 -0.376862 0.004813

Mean elevation (in -0.06554 -0.966715 0.000003 meters)

Table 5. The Effect of Rail Station Density and Terrain Elevation on Dairy Farming in 13 Welsh

Counties, 1882. Proportion of milk cows among livestock = number of rail stations per 100

square kilometers of county area in the 1880s + terrain elevation (mean)

Cases to fit (N) 13

Adjusted r-square 0.88

Significance of the p=.0000 regression

Parameters Regression coefficient Beta value of coefficient probability

Intercept 41.0196 0.000

Station Density -21.0573 -0.402904 0.001

Mean elevation (in -0.1044 -0.978729 0.000 meters)

Table 6. The Effect of Rail Station Density and Terrain Elevation on Cattle Raising in 13 Welsh Counties,

1882. Proportion of cattle among livestock = number of rail stations per 100 square kilometers

of country area in the 1880s + terrain elevation (mean).

Cases to fit (N) 13

Adjusted r-square 0.94

Significance of the p=.0000 regression

Parameters Regression coefficient Beta value of coefficient probability

Intercept 32.88107 0.0000

Station Density 33.57209 0.400458 0.0002

Mean Elevation (in 0.16997 0.993086 0.0000 meters)

Table 7. The Effect of Rail Station Density and Terrain Elevation on Sheep Raising in 13 Welsh

Counties, 1882. Proportion of sheep among livestock = number of rail stations per 100 square

kilometers of county area + terrain elevation (mean)

Cases to fit (N) 13

Adjusted r-square 0.80

Significance of the p=.0000 regression

Parameters Regression coefficient Beta value of coefficient probability

Intercept 19.91690 0.000001

Station Density -0.84131 -0.337691 0.029594

Mean Elevation (in -0.04757 -0.935263 0.000036 meters)

Table 8. The Effect of Rail Station Density and Terrain Elevation on Dairy Farming in 13 Welsh

Counties, 1892. Proportion of milk cows among livestock = number of rail stations per 100 square

kilometers of county area + terrain elevation (mean).

Cases to fit (N) 13

Adjusted r-square 0.95

Significance of the p=.0000 regression

Parameters Regression coefficient Beta value of coefficient probability

Intercept 35.11819 0.000000

Station Density) -1.97285 -0.472454 0.004813

Mean Elevation (in -0.08384 -0.983472 0.000003 meters)

Table 9. The Effect of Rail Station Density and Terrain Elevation on Cattle Raising in 13 Welsh Counties,

1892. Proportion of cattle among livestock = number of rail stations per 100 square kilometers of

county area in the 1880s + terrain elevation (mean).

Cases to fit (N) 13

Adjusted r-square 0.94

Significance of the p=.0000 regression

Parameters Regression coefficient Beta value of coefficient probability

Intercept 44.96491 0.0000

Station Density) 2.81416 0.432925 0.0000

Mean Elevation (in 0.13141 0.990227 0.0000 meters)

Table 10. The Effect of Rail Station Density and Terrain Elevation on Sheep Raising in 13 Welsh

Counties, 1892. Proportion of sheep among livestock = number of rail stations per 100 square

kilometers of county area in the 1880s + terrain elevation (mean).

Inter-censal Percent Change County 1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s Sum Median Percent inter-censal change Change 1860s- 1860s-1900s 1900s Anglesey 0.7 -3.1 -3.9 -2.4 -1.2 -1.3 -0.5 -9.3 -1.3 Brecknockshire -0.3 1.1 -1.0 -3.8 -3.2 -4.1 0.0 -12.1 -3.2 Cardiganshire 0.1 0.2 -1.2 -1.1 -5.0 -4.3 -1.7 -13.4 -1.7 Carmarthenshire 0.5 -1.1 -3.2 -0.6 -2.6 -2.7 -0.5 -9.6 -2.6 Carnarvonshire 1.9 -2.6 -2.6 -1.1 0.2 -0.4 -0.4 -4.4 -0.4 Denbighshire 0.4 -1.1 -2.1 -2.3 -2.4 0.5 0.5 -5.7 -2.1 Flintshire 0.4 -4.5 8.3 -0.2 3.9 1.7 1.7 15.4 1.7 Glamorganshire 2.4 2.8 1.0 2.7 3.3 8.1 8.1 23.2 3.3 Merionethshire -0.8 -2.6 1.6 -3.8 -0.9 -2.5 -2.5 -8.1 -2.5 Monmouthshire 2.5 0.0 0.6 -0.8 -2.0 1.8 1.8 1.3 0.6 Montgomeryshire -1.9 -7.2 0.3 -5.4 -2.1 -4.0 -4.0 -15.3 -4.0 Pembrokeshire 1.3 -3.5 -2.5 -2.4 -2.6 -1.9 -1.9 -11.3 -2.4 Radnorshire -0.4 6.3 1.0 -5.0 -1.4 -3.2 -3.2 -11.8 -3.2

Table 11. Rural Population Change in Welsh Counties, 1840s to 1900s. In each country rural population

is defined as the sum of the population living parishes with fewer than 2,500 inhabitants.

Dependent Variance variable: explained Rural in Sign and coefficient of independent variables population dependent change variable

Station Milk Tillage Beta Cattle Beta Beta Beta Period R2 density Cows density coef. raising coef. coef. coef. coef. coef. coef.

-1.32 Not Cattle Not +4.63 1860s .69 -1.3 Tillage in 1.8 significant density in significant 1867 1867

+.69 density in -0.446 1877 1.4 Cattle - Not 1870s .72 + 0.77 +.50 density in 1.07 + .29 significant 1877 % chg. in .49 1877 (1872=100)

- 0.23 + 0.16 % chg. in Not 1880 .82 + .726 .51 -.67 Tillage in .79 1887 significant 1887 (1872=100)

+ 0.90 Not Not 1890s .93 + 1.60 1.01 Tillage in .77 significant significant 1897

+ 0.10 Not Not 1900 .86 + 0.13 .68 .38 significant % chg. in significant 1907

Table 12. Regression analysis showing the effects of rail station density, cattle raising, dairy farming,

and tillage on rural population change in Welsh counties, 1860s to 1900s. (Except where noted,

all the coefficients of the independent variables are significant at p <=.05.)

1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s Anglesey 0.21 1.04 1.45 1.24 Carnarvonshire 0.41 7.82 5.94 1.54 Denbighshire 0.71 1.74 0.76 -1.40 Flintshire 22.07 8.03 3.38 2.68 Merionethshire -1.55 3.02 1.04 Montgomeryshire 0.07 -0.14 0.82 Radnorshire -7.50 8.37 1.94 Cardiganshire 1.27 3.47 7.58 Brecknockshire 0.93 1.04 4.91 Pembrokeshire 1.55 4.20 0.71 Carmarthenshire 0.96 14.03 4.24 6.51 Glamorganshire 8.50 2.21 3.06 3.40 Monmouthshire -5.78 2.54 1.40 5.37

Table 13: The median population growth of parishes within 2kms of a station compared to the median

for the county as a whole.

i Gregory (2002) and Knowles (2005b) provide general reviews of some of these systems. ii See http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk. Viewed 18th August 2009.