Population through time

[Note a separate page summarises the most recent 2021 census.]

A separate page summarises the most recent 2021 census.

Population of Marske:  early records

An very early estimate of Marske’s population going back to the early fourteenth century can be had by examining the “lay subsidy”, a tax levied on moveable goods. This shows 17 taxpayers in Marske at that time. After allowing for women, children, and servants estimated that the population was about 75¹.

Population of Marske:  censuses from 1801

The first census for Marske was carried out in 1801.  Censuses have been carried out every ten years thereafter.  From 1841 the census makes it possible to follow the occupants of almost all of the individual farms in the area.  The author has created a small database containing local census records, which is available on request.  A family history website also includes a very good history of Orgate Farm and its occupants over time².

During the first twenty years of the nineteenth century the population of Marske grew by about 20% (Chart 1).  This is in common with other parts of the North Riding.  Locally these years coincided with the investments made by John Hutton IV into farming, at a time when farming nationally was becoming more efficient(Wikipedia.  British Agricultural Revolution.  Accessed 2025.)).  The population of Marske parish averaged around 260, and then began to fall after about 1880.  During the nineteenth century some emigration took place from Marske to industrial parts of England. A register carried out in 1939, at the time of the Second World War, records a higher number of people in Marske; the population had been swelled to around 230 by the evcuation of children from Gateshead in 1939.

Where people lived in Marske, and what they did

The Hutton family, the owner of the Marske Estate, are only listed as living at Marske Hall in three of the censuses (and not after 1881) – in other years domestic servants, estate workers and caretakers were typically living there.  The 1891 census is the first which records an individual living in the village as the Estate Bailiff or Estate Agent.  It may be that the reduction in village population in the late nineteenth century was related to changes in the way the Estate was run.  The other big building in the village, the Rectory, was continuously occupied by church Minsters who typically had a large number of domestic helps. 

In Marske the Temperance Hotel appears in the records from 1861 onwards; prior to this there was a record of an innkeeper in 1841 – presumably at the Dormouse Public House which only appears on the 1854 map (see maps pages).  The census for Marske also includes two brick and tile-makers in 1861, and an address in Marske of the “Tile Sheds” appears as late as 1891. An area of working tile pits is marked on the 1854 map (see also glaciation and farming).

The 1841 census does not record the existence of Clints Hall, even though it was known to have still existed at that time – so it can only be presumed that it was vacant.  The Hall had been demolished around 1842.  Part-time Methodist ministers are recorded at Clints in 1881.  More information on Clints is to be found here. The only other buildings that were abandoned in the nineteenth century was “Hazelhaw”: a range of 3 homes on the Reeth road, just north of the prominent Marrick Smelting Mill.  Whilst the occupiers of Hazelhaw were described as farmers one can’t help thinking that the demise of Hazelhaw was linked to the demise of the Smelting Mill (see pages on lead mining).  Signs of these buildings can still be seen – even though they were abandoned shortly after 1861. 

For most of the period employment was dominated by farming (see also Chart 5 below), and to a lesser extent game-keeping.  For most of the nineteenth century non-farm related occupations included one or two blacksmiths, masons, carpenters/joiners, dressmakers and tailors (and in the middle of the century there was also miller and a shoemaker). In 1891 there was a grocer, but this occupation is not recorded again; and there two records of a butcher (in 1871 and 1911). By the beginning of the twentieth century several new occupations appear including carters, postmen, road contractors and teachers. By 1939 there was no longer a tailor or dressmaker, but in place of them a police constable and a lorry driver.

In the years 1851 to 1871 only 5 miners are recorded in the Marske censuses.  By contrast, taking 1861 as an example, nearly 60% (79 in number) of the working population of nearby Hurst were involved directly in lead mining. Curiously around half of the non-miners in Hurst described themselves as “stocking knitters” – an occupation never listed in the Marske census returns¹.

Comparisons between Marske and other parts of Swaledale

The webmaster has created a small database covering the populations of the parishes in Swaledale between 1801 and 1971^3,,4.  

The general trend in the Marske population has been one of gradual decline since the mid nineteenth century.  In contrast nearby Marrick (which at the time as a parish was dominated by the population of the lead mining settlement at Hurst) which saw a very rapid decline in population from the 1850s onwards (Chart 2). 

Population in lead mining parishes in Swaledale

The cause of these very different population trends between Marrick and Marske is also seen when comparing more generally those Swaledale parishes that had high levels of nineteenth century lead mining and those that did not (Chart 3).  Perhaps unsurprisingly it was the lead mining districts that suffered the greatest losses in population during the latter half of the nineteenth century (falling from a total of almost 8000 in 1821 to nearly 2000 in 1891 (only 70 years later).  The parishes which did not have substantial lead mining in the nineteenth century, and which were entirely dominated by farming, experienced a much more gradual decline in population over the century. 

Chart 4 compares the population of the lead mining parishes above with the amount of lead known to have been extracted from mines in Swaledale⁵.  There is a striking similarity between the lead mining volumes and the population trends in Upper Swaledale.  It is of interesting to consider why the population starts to fall from around 1831, whereas the lead volumes mined remained roughly constant until after 1871, after which population falls dramatically.  Perhaps during the final phases of lead mining in the mid-nineteenth century the industry had become more efficient and less labour was required to extract the same volumes of lead. 
 

Population of Marske and expansion of farming

The more steady decline of population in Marske, and the other non-lead mining parishes, is almost certainly due to changes in the level of population needed to sustain farming locally.  The principle agricultural output, then as now, was sheep.  The evidence available shows that the numbers of sheep in Marske and New Forest parishes expanded in the later years of the nineteenth century, at a time when the human population was falling (Chart 5).  It is suggested therefore that the cause in population decline in Marske (and in the other parts of Swaledale) reflected more efficient farming rather than a decline in farming outputs.  This may have been due to factors such as investment in draining land, planting of grasses more suitable for sheep rearing, improvements in the selective breeding of sheep, and some mechanisation of tasks such as ploughing and milling.  Some local examples of these innovations are to be found here.  This same trend of improving farming productivity, supporting a smaller and smaller population continued into the latter half of the twentieth century.

Comparison between population in Swaledale parishes, Richmond and North Riding

Its also interesting to compare the populations of the Swaledale parishes with those in the market town of Richmond (Chart 6).  It was only in 1891 that the population of Richmond surpassed that of the parishes “up the dale”.  Furthermore the level of loss of population in the Swaledale parishes in the nineteenth century was much greater than the increase of population in Richmond, which suggests that many of those who left Swaledale in search of work tended to “emigrate” further afield than nearby Richmond.  Indeed it is known that a large number of those with lead mining skills emigrated to the Mississippi Valley around Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois. The page on New Forest tells the story of emigration from Swaledale, including from Marske, to America.

However if we compare the population of Swaledale, Richmond and the rest of the North Riding it can be seen that overall the population in the North Riding had grown most of all (Chart 7).  This was almost all down to the rapid growth of industry in South Teesside around Middlebrough (which until 1971 was historically in the North Riding). 

A separate page summarises the most recent 2021 census.

Return to History pages

1. Fieldhouse, R and Jennings, B. 1978. A History of Richmond and Swaledale. p27.[↩]
2. Gins Genes. Orgate Farm in Swaledale Website. Accessed 2024[↩]
3. Historical Population Report (Histpop) website.  Censuses of England and Wales, 1801-1931.  Available at on Histpop website.  Accessed 2025.[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
4. University of Portsmouth Great Britain Historical GIS Project (2003-23).  Vision of Britain Through Time Website.  Accessed 2025 – mainly for data from 1931 to 1971.[↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩][↩]
5. Fieldhouse, R. and Jennings, B.  1978.  A History of Richmond and Swaledale.[↩][↩]
6. National Archives MAF 68/xxx.  Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and predecessors: Parish Summaries of Agricultural Returns 1870 to 1970.[↩]