The Martello Tower c.1841 (taken from “Martello Towers” by Sheila Sutcliff, 1972)

 Migration Pattern of HM Coastguard in to Sussex  from the 1851 Census Enumerators Returns.

This is a paper submitted by myself to the Open University as part of the DA 301 Course in Family and Community History.

Question

Drawing on appropriate primary sources, report on an investigation you have carried out on either (a) a specific example of migration, or (b) a specific community, relating your work to some debate, theory, hypothesis, question or generalization discussed in Study Block 2. - Up to 1,500 words

Answer - (a) A specific example of In-Migration : i.e. movement of people within a nation state arriving in a new community - (Pryce, 1994, p5)

Introduction

Over a century ago in 1885, and updated again in 1889, E.G Ravenstein published his 11 Laws of Migration (Pryce, 1994, p11) in which he stated that; “The majority of migrants go only a short distance” (Law No 1);  “Migration proceeds step by step” (Law No 2); and “Most migrants are adults; families rarely migrate out of their county of birth” (Law No 7) - all of his data coming from the ‘place of birth’ tables published in the 1871 and 1881 Census Enumerators Books.

Griggs rightly points out that the ‘place of birth tables’ do have their limitations, and give no indication of when the migrant moved from place of birth to place of enumeration; (Drake, 1994, p149) but it is possible to trace some movements of the ‘family’ by noting the place of birth of the children as demonstrated by Lawton in his study of migration into Liverpool. (Drake, 1994, p152)

Although there are many push and pull factors associated with migration, (Pryce, 1994, p13) the push factors from ‘loss of employment’ and the pull factors of ‘Higher standard of living’ and ‘Personal dependency’ - (i.e. movement of dependants linked to those of the principal wage earner) must be high on the list for reasons of in-migration and some consideration must also be given to in-voluntary migration among certain occupations.

This essay will question 3 of Ravensteins Laws of Migration by focusing on the migratory patterns of a particular occupation - ‘His Majesties Coastguard’; that is namely Laws 1, 2 and 7 as listed above; and to then compare the findings against the work of other researchers such as Anderson’s study of migration into Preston (Drake, 1994, p150) based largely on the 1851 CEB’s; Turners study into the patterns of migration of the textile workers into Accrington  (Offprint book 3, 1994, pp2-4) again using the 1851 CEB`s and Biggs (Biggs, 1994, OU Paper) who used both the 1881 and 1891 CEB`s to study the migration patterns of His Majesties Coastguard  on the Isle of Wight.

Evidence

The 74 Martello Towers that were built between 1803 and 1812 along the Southern and Eastern Coasts of Britain (Sutcliffe, Martello Towers, 1972) as a defence against an anticipated Napoleonic invasion, were, by 1815, being used by the Preventative Services as signalling and lookout towers against the smuggling trade. These men were replaced by the Coastguard in 1831 and the towers continued to provide good accommodation for the Coastguard Servicemen and their families until the mid 1850’s when the duty on many imported goods was lowered and smuggling almost ceased.

The towers were normally built approx. 600 yards apart and the Hastings Section according to ‘Historic Hastings’ (Manwaring Baines, 1986, p221) were No 39 at Bo-Peep to No 43 at Bulverhythe, but the CEB’s  for Hastings in 1851 list Towers No 31 at Pett through to Tower 42 at Bulverhythe as in the Hastings Registration District, and it is these 12 towers covering just over 3½ miles of coastline, plus the various coastal and inland Government Houses, Coastguard Stations and Cottages “In the Liberty” that provide the evidence for this research; a total of 91 properties with 443  inhabitants. (Personnel in Towers 116, Stations 209, Others 118) 

Information extracted  from this source includes :

·        the place of birth of all members of a household.

·        the age of all household members

·        the ‘relationship to head of household’ of all members of that household

·        a detailed description of all occupants

Looking at Ravensteins first law that ‘The majority of migrants go only a short distance” the importance of which had been questioned by some (Drake, 1994, p149) is borne out by comparing the movement of the 91 Head of Household from their listed birth place with 76 (84%) coming from English counties; 12 (13%) from Ireland and 3 (3%) from Scotland - of those 84% from England, 45 (59%) came from Southern Coastal Towns, 26 (34%) from Southern inland counties and the remaining 5 (7%) from the North.   

Andersons model for the study of migration into Preston in 1851 (Drake, 1994, p150) found that 48% of those enumerated had been born there whereas the same procedures applied to the Hastings Coastguards and their families gave a slightly less figure of 41%, but his figure of 14% for the out-migration of Irish born coastguards  corresponds well with the 12% in Hastings, but both are significantly lower than Biggs 21% of Irish born coastguards on the IOW . 

Ravensteins second law that “Migration proceeds step by step” is again put to the test as of the 71 head of Household with co-resident children, only 19 (27%) showed that the eldest child’s birthplace was the same as the fathers, but 24 (34%) head of household had children who were born at an intermediate location - significantly higher than either Andersons 28% in Preston and Biggs 23% on the Isle of Wight, but more interestingly 27 (38%) of the eldest co-residing children were listed as born in the same place as their mother - a good indication that a large proportion of newly married women either still lived at home or went home to mum to have that first child.

Grigg writes that “At present, it is difficult to confirm the step hypothesis, (Drake, 1994, p153)  nor has modern research been able to examine the idea” but by analyzing the birthplace of all the listed children born within the above 71 households, we find that 46 (65%) families moved only once; 18 (25%) moved twice; 4 (6%) moved three times; 2 (3%) moved 4 times and 1 (1%) moved 5 times - interestingly all but one of the head of household of the 3, 4 and 5 times movers was originally born in Hastings.   The great fall back on using this type of data is, 1) The high infant mortality rate of the younger children, very often indicated by a large age gap between surviving children, and 2) that the more mature families possibly had elder children who had left home for pastures new.   Checking the various Parish Registers for Baptisms, Marriages and Deaths would give a much clearer picture, but could in turn prove to be very frustrating and time consuming.

One of the rules of the Coastguard service was  ‘Regular re-location to avoid over fraternization with the local community’ (Biggs, 1994, p4) but this does not appear to hold up in Hastings as 99% of the 166 Sussex born children aged up to 14 years, i.e. all but 2, (1%) were listed as born at one of the 3 main Coastguard stations within the 3 mile coastline of this study - 62 (38%) born at Fairlight, 33 (20%) at Pett, 31 (19%)  in Hastings, and 38 (23%) coming from within the Hastings Registration district. The odd 2 came from more than 5 miles away namely Eastbourne and Littlehampton, which is in stark contrast to the 53% of local born children on the IOW (Biggs, 1994, p9).                   

Ravensteins seventh law that “Most migrants are adults; families rarely migrate out of their county of birth”  does again not appear to hold up within a specific occupational group as only 6 (7%) of the 91 Head of Household were actually shown as born in Hastings, virtually identical to Biggs research (6%) on the IOW, and a clear indication that it was not company policy to give postings to locally born personnel ; but 166 (65%) of the 255 children listed were born in the Hastings area as against Biggs 53% on the IOW and Andersons 60% in Preston, - even the authors of the General Report into the 1851 census had noted the much greater proportion of adults rather than young children who had migrated, (Drake, 1994, 155) and nearly all modern studies have confirmed that migrants are predominantly adolescents and young adults, both in Britain and elsewhere in the world. (Drake, 1994, p155)

Biggs Isle of Wight research showed that ‘there was very little evidence of extended families within the service” as there were only 3 co-residing adults who were not coastguards wives; a similar pattern emerged in Hastings with only 2 co-residing adults, a sister and a father     

Conclusion

It is clear that the migratory patterns within a specific occupational group such as the Coastguard do not always conform to the trend as identified in Ravensteins Laws of Migration, especially Law 7, mainly because their migration more often than not was involuntary and not a family decision as found by Pryce in his work on the two rural parishes in Essex (Pryce, 1994, p32), and, whilst Laws 1 and 2 do virtually  conform to the normal trend, Law 2 seems in direct contrast to their counterparts on the Isle of Wight.   It would also seem that once the Coastguards had established roots in Hastings and built a family they appeared to stay put, seemingly contradicting the Coastguards own rules on fraternization with the local community.

1452 Words of Text 

Postscript

According to the Sussex Agricultural Express of March 5th 1842, “Tower 41 had been almost washed away by a heavy storm, and it had then lately been purchased by a Hastings builder for building materials”; whilst the Sussex County Magazine, No 27, pages 48-50 states that Tower 41 and 42 were demolished in 1845 when making the railway; but according to the 1851 Census, Tower 42 contained a family of 5 - maybe the Census Enumerator got it wrong and it should have read “Tower 42 Cottages” as there were 11 cottages adjacent to Tower 42 which served as a Hospital. 

Primary Sources.

1851 Census Enumerators Books, East Sussex - Crown Copyright, Public Records Office .

HO107-1634 Folio 233-476, Hastings - St Clement, St Mary-in-the-Castle

HO107-1635 Folio 1 - 232, Pett, Guestling, Fairlight, Ore, Hastings All Saints

HO107-1635 Folio 477-653, Hastings St Michael, St Andrew, Holy Trinity, St Mary-in-the-Castle outbounds, St Mary Magdalen, St Leonards on Sea, St Mary Bulverhythe.

References

Biggs J.V ‘Migration patterns of HM Coastguards and their families stationed on the Isle of Wight, 1881’ Project report submitted for Open University course DA301 (Studying Family and Community History: 19th and 20th Centuries) 1994 

Douch, John, 1985, Smuggling, Flogging Joey`s Warriors, Crabwell Publications/Buckland Publications, Blackland Press, Dover

Drake, M.(ed) (1994) Time, family and community; perspectives on family and community history, Oxford, Blackwell in association with the Open University

Manwaring Baines, John, 1986, Historic Hastings - A Tapestry of Life, Cinque Ports Press, St Leonards on Sea

Pryce, W.T.R, (ed) (1994) From family history to community history, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press in association with the Open University

Sutcliffe, Sheila, 1972, Martell Towers, Unknown

Turner, William, (1983) ‘Patterns of migration of textile workers into Accrington in the early nineteenth century’, DA301 Offprints Booklet 3, Stevenage Printing in association with the Open University.

Table 1 - Migration from Place of Birth of Coastguard Families

                 in the Hastings Registration District