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Rh origin), e.g. Bridport; -sted, -stead (O. E. stede, a place), e.g. Stansted, Wanstead; -stone, -ston, e.g. Beverstone, Sherston; -staple (O.E. stapol, foundation), e.g. Barnstaple; -stow (O.E. stow, place), e.g. Stow, Chepstow, Bristol (earlier Bristow); -tree, -try, e.g. Coventry, Elstree, Seasalter; -ton (O.E. tŭn, enclosure), e.g. Milton; -wark (O.E. geweorc, fortification), e.g. Southwark; -well, e.g. Bakewell; -wich, -wick (O.E. wic, a dwelling), e.g. Norwich, Swanage (O.E. Swanawic), Warwick; -worth, -worthy (O.E. weorth, weorthig, an enclosure), e.g. Polesworth, Holsworthy.

Of river names the Blackwater, Witham, Ashburne, Swift, Washburn, Loxly, Wythburn, Eamont are perhaps English and so also may be the Waveney in Suffolk.

Scandinavian.—The following suffixes are Scandinavian in origin, some of them being also used independently: -beck (O.N. bekkr, stream), e.g. Starbeck, Troutbeck; -by (O.N. byr, town), e.g. Whitby; -dale (O.N. dalr), e.g. Swaledale; -car(r), -ker (O.N. kiörr, marshy ground), e.g. Redcar, The Carrs, Muker; -fell (O.N. fjäll, mountain), e.g. Scafell; -force, -foss (O.N. fors, waterfall). High Force, Wilberfoss; -garth (O.N. garðr, enclosure), e.g. Hoggarths; -gill (O.N. gil, a deep narrow glen), e.g. Skelgill, Dungeon Ghyll; -holm(e) (O.N. hólmr, island), e.g. Axholme, Durham (earlier Dunholm); keld (O.N. kelda, well, spring), e.g. Threlkeld, Keld; -lund (O.N. lundr, grove), e.g. Snelland, Timberland, Lound; -how (O.N. haugr, hill), e.g. Greenhow; -scale (O.N. skále, hut, shed), e.g. Seascale; -skew (O.N. skógr, forest), e.g. Litherskew; -thorpe (O.N. þorp, village), e.g. Thorpe, Osgathorp; -thwaite (O.N. þveit, a piece of land), e.g. Rosthwaite; -toft (O.N. topt, a green knoll), e.g. Toft, Langtoft; -with (O.N. viðr, a wood), e.g. Blawith, Stowiths.

Tarn (a mountain pool), grain and sike (mountain streams) are also Scandinavian terms.

Norman.—Norman influence has not been very great in English place-nomenclature. The number of places with pure French names is extremely limited; a few such are Beaulieu, Belvoir, Beauchief, Beaudesert, Beaufort, Beaumont, also Theydon Bois, War-boys. Norman influence is marked more strongly in certain compound place-names, where one of the elements often represents the name of the original Norman tenant or holder, e.g. Thorpe Mandeville, Helion Bumstead, Higham Ferrers, Swaffham Bulbeck, Stoke Gifford, Shepton Mallet; similarly names like Lyme Regis, King’s Sutton, Monks’ Kirby, Zeal Monachorum, Milton Abbas, Bishop’s Waltham, Prior’s Dean, Huish Episcopi date from feudal times. Gallicized forms are also to be found in a few forms like Kirkby-le-Soken, Chapel-en-le-Frith, Alsop-en-le-Dale, Barnoldby-le-Beck. Ecclesiastical influence is to be found in such names as Aldwinkle St Peter, Barford St Martin, Belchamp St Paul, the name of the saint being the name either of the saint to whom the church at that place was dedicated or the patron-saint of the monastery or abbey to whom lands in that district belonged.

Until the beginning of the 19th century there existed no other knowledge of the actual area and population of the country but what was given in the vaguest estimates. But there can be little doubt that the population of England and Wales increased very slowly for centuries, owing largely to want of intercommunication, which led to famines, more or less severe—it being a common occurrence that, while one county, with a good harvest, was enjoying abundance, the people of the adjoining one were starving. The interpretation of certain figures given in the Domesday Survey (which do not cover certain parts of modern England nor take account of the ecclesiastical population) is a matter of widely divergent opinion; but a total population of one million and a half has been accepted by many for the close of the 11th century. In 1377 the levying of a poll-tax provides partial figures from which a total of two to two-and-a-half millions has been deduced, but again divergent views have been expressed as to how far the number was still affected by the Black Death of 1348–1349. It is calculated, on the basis of registers of births and deaths, that the population of England and Wales numbered 5,475,000 in 1700, and 6,467,000 in 1750. From the later part of the 18th century a stronger tendency to increase set in, and at the taking of the first census, in 1801, it was ascertained that the population numbered 8,892,536, being—if the former estimates were approximately correct—an increase of very nearly 2 millions in little over fifty years. This rate of increase was not only continued, but came to be greatly exceeded.

Since the first census of 1801, regular enumerations of the people of England and Wales have been taken every ten years. The results of these enumerations are published in separate volumes for each county, in a volume of summary tables, and in a general report. In the summaries England and Wales are treated as one, and this treatment is followed here. The following table gives the total numbers of the population of England and Wales at each census, together with the absolute increase, and growth per cent, during each decennial period:—

Allowing for a rate of increase equivalent to that which obtained between 1891 and 1901, the estimated population was 34,152,977 in 1905, and 36,169,150 in 1910.

Distribution.—A detailed map of the distribution of population in England and Wales shows certain well-defined areas of very dense population. First for consideration, though not in geographical extent, stands the area round London, in Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, Essex and Hertfordshire. A great proportion of this population is purely residential, that is to say, its working members do not practise their professions at home or close to home, but in the metropolis, travelling a considerable distance between their residences and their offices. Just as London, in spite of its manifold industrial interests, is hardly to be termed a manufacturing centre, so the populous district surrounding it is not to be termed an industrial district in the sense in which that term is applied to the remaining regions of dense population which fall for consideration here. London gained its paramount importance from its favourable geographical position in respect of the rest of England on the one hand and the Continent on the other, and the populous district of the “home counties” owes its existence to that importance; whereas other populous districts have generally grown up at the point where some source of natural wealth, as coal or iron, lay to hand. The great populous area which covers south Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire, and extends beyond them into Cheshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Nottinghamshire, is not in reality a unit. The whole of the lowland in the south of Lancashire has almost the appearance of one vast town, whereas among the hills of the Pennine Chain the population crowds the valleys on either flank and leaves in the high-lying centre some of the largest tracts of practically uninhabited country in England. Moreover, the industries in different parts of this area (for it is strictly an industrial area) differ completely, as will be observed later, though coal-mining is common to all. The other most extensive centres of dense population are the coal-mining or manufacturing districts of Northumberland and Durham, of the midlands (parts of Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Leicestershire), and of South Wales and Monmouthshire; and it is in these districts, and others smaller, but of similar character, that the greatest increase of population has been recorded, since the extensive development of