The geographical focus of this study into the relationship between social change and the family is the town of Tilburg, situated in the southern Dutch province of Noord-Brabant. In the course of the nineteenth century the town developed, at times rapidly, from a rural community of several dispersed hamlets engaged in farming and the domestic production of woollen cloth to a medium-sized town with an industrial character of a very typical blend. This chapter outlines the major features of the town's social, economic and demographic development in that period. It will be clear that a comprehensive survey is not offered here; rather, I intend to touch upon those aspects which are most relevant to the purposes pursued in this study and which most clearly highlight the town's specific characteristics.

Population

When Tilburg was awarded formal city status in 1809 this was not on account of impressive size or the density of its population. At that moment the town counted only 9400 inhabitants scattered over twelve little hamlets. These hamlets, at a mutual distance of a fifteen minute walk, were connected to each other by sandy tracks along which in the course of the period ribbon building took place. In the middle of the century the result of this very particular ‘urban’ development occasioned surprise among visitors. The town was still described in 1851 as being ‘a collection of dispersed hamlets, of unconnected groups of buildings which were thrown onto the earth crosswise and at oblique angles’.