The present ageing of the population in western countries, and the related problems this development poses for contemporary social policy, provide especially compelling reasons for historians to think about old age in the past. A fundamental question is whether solitariness, or residential isolation, in this phase of the life-cycle is an inherent product of industrialization and urbanization or whether past societies confronted similar problems.

Despite the growth in studies of the history of the family over recent years – studies which have considered family structure, family demography, household strategies, kinship networks, and the like – a great gap in the literature remains regarding the role and status of family members in different phases of the life-cycle in Spain, particularly with respect to age and sex. Therefore, it is not surprising that there is an absence of information on old age and our elders' life-styles in the past, or on the extent to which the aged led lives of poverty and marginalization.

This article attempts to tackle some of the issues relating to the elderly in a particular place, Bilbao, and in a historical period, the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.