1860s city-dwellers: did your ancestors move around as much as 'my lot'?

[CelticAnnie]

Now that I have started actually to write my family history (hurrah!) I am noticing many anomalies and quirks I never picked up on before.  One is that my 1860s Edinburgh-living ancestors seem to have moved around a great deal -- whilst still remaining firmly in the City, and living in properties that look to have been in comfortable walking distance one from another.  It seems doubtful, therefore, that these moves were work-related.  These folk were (I think, lower) middle class: father was a teacher; sons, as they grew up during this period, worked as 'mercantile clerk', 'druggist', 'clerk, newspaper office', 'ordinance service office clerk'. 

I imagine that moving from one rented property to another was a lot easier then than it is nowadays: not so much paperwork and red-tape, and fewer personal possessions to move.  But do other people see this phenomenon with their city-dwelling ancestors at this period?  Or is this just my lot?  Can anyone suggest why these folk might have been moving around so much?  I'd like to think it wasn't because they were always trying to stay one step ahead of the rent man and skip out on paying the rent now and then; but who knows?!

Many thanks.

CELTICANNIE

[mirl]

Yes, and not just back then either.

While my direct paternal great grandfather lived in the same house for almost fifty years from about 1900 to 1948, my grandfather moved the family around Islington every few years.  My father wrote about several moves where they moved their possessions by using several handcarts.

[CelticAnnie]

Do you know the reason(s) why they moved so often, Mirl?

[mirl]

Initially it was increase in the number of children, but after my grandfather died it was affordability for a widow with four children.

[a chesters]

My wifes grandfather moved 12 times between 1870's and 1950's. My wife remembers it  as a case of wanderlust, not being able to remain in one house for too long at a time.

[nanny jan]

Many of my London-based families moved several times; one line crossing over the Thames a few times.

[chris_49]

My father recalled moving between Birkenhead and Wallasey (close to each other) four times in the 1920s when he was a boy, and I know that later on in Colwyn Bay they moved a number of times. The family was quite small for the times - just 2 children. I do know that the last move was his widowed mother renting a bigger house so she could make a living letting rooms to boarders - many from the Ministry of Food which had been evacuated to the town during WW2. Perhaps for this reason my parents moved just once during their married life!
 
I too have relatives moving within a city between censuses but you can't tell whether that means just one move or many - and birth places of children don't help as they are all "Birmingham" or whatever. I do have families in more rural areas where it's clear from child birth places that they moved around a lot - probably due to work, though. 

[a-l]

Landlords increasing the rent was another reason to keep moving, often leading to a family living at various numbers in the same street. If the house two doors down was cheaper they moved.

[Old Bristolian]

My grandfather told me his family moved regularly in the 1890s/1900s mostly because of rent - they once moved next door because the rent was 1d cheaper per week. When they occupied a larger house there were always lodgers,

Steve