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Family Care of the Elderly in a Nineteenth-Century Devonshire Parish

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2008

Jean Robin
Jean Robin
Affiliation:
Sometime Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge, England.
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Abstract

The focus of this paper is on the part played by children and relatives in the care of the elderly in a Devonshire parish in the mid-nineteenth century. The cohort of men and women aged 50–59 years recorded in the 1851 census was divided into two groups, according to whether or not the parish registers or censuses showed members to have had offspring who survived childhood. Cohort members and their families were then traced through the 1861 and 1871 censuses in order to establish their residence patterns at different stages in the life cycle. It was found that children, whether married or single, played a considerable part in providing care for their elderly parents. By contrast, relatives living in the same household as the elderly were more likely to be receiving than providing care. The possibility that a proportion of the cohort members who left the parish during the period did so to join children elsewhere was investigated through an examination of those of comparable age coming into the parish.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ageing & Society , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , December 1984 , pp. 505 - 516
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

NOTES

1 Laslett, P.Family Life and Illicit Love in Earlier Generations, Cambridge University Press, 1977, chapter 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Information derived from the census schedules has been supplemented by the family reconstitution to 1851 from the parish registers for marriages, baptisms and burials carried out by E. A. Wrigley and R. Wall, and held at the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure.

3 The following conventions have been followed when considering this cohort. First, persons aged 50–59 in 1851 who were described as ‘visitors’ have been excluded from the cohort on the grounds that they were not permanent residents of Colyton, unless evidence to the contrary is available; similarly, ‘visitors’ of any age have been excluded when household composition is being considered. Second, cohort members shown in the censuses to be married, but living without their spouse, have been classed as married, ifit is known that their spouses’ absence was temporary only; but as widowed, where the absence appeared to be permanent. Third, a monthly nurse and an invalid nurse who were sleeping in their patients’ homes on census night in 1851 have been classified, not as servants but as if they were living with their own families, who were present in Colyton.

4 One-third of these 33 cohort members were single. A further third had been married in Colyton, were living in the parish without children in 1841 as well as 1851 and had had no baptisms, burials or marriages of children recorded in the parish registers. It has been assumed that these people were childless. It is impossible to state categorically that the remaining third had never had offspring, as their marriages were not registered in Colyton and the majority had immigrated between 1841 and 1851 when they would have been between 40 and 49 years of age; but no trace of any offspring has been found either in the censuses, or in the parish registers. It should be borne in mind, however, that married daughters could have been present in Colyton, the link remaining undiscovered because of the change of surname on marriage.

5 Throughout this note, the term ‘kin’ includes relatives of the cohort member or of his or her spouse, other than family members accompanying ever-married children. For example, a grandchild whose parents are not present is included under kin but a grandchild accompanied by a parent is not.

6 There may well have been more instances, but such occurrences can only be traced when a census year intervened between the initial departure from home and the subsequent return.