1 Law, C. M., ‘The growth of urban population in England and Wales 1801–1911’, Trans. Inst. British Geographers, XLI (1967), 125–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robson, B. T., Urban Growth: an Approach (1973) and ‘The growth of cities in England and Wales in the nineteenth century’Google Scholar, in Bourne, L. S. and Simmons, J. W., Systems of Cities: Readings on Structure Growth and Policy (New York, 1978) 126–47.Google Scholar

2 For example, Ashbourne Local History Group, Early Victorian County Town: a Portrait of Ashbourne in the Mid Nineteenth Century (1978);Google Scholar Spufford, P. and Eccleshall, M., The Story of a Staffordshire Market Town and its Dependent Villages (1974);Google Scholar Macmahon, K. A., Beverley (Dalesman, 1973).Google Scholar

3 Caroe, L., ‘Urban change in East Anglia in the nineteenth century’ (unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Cambridge, 1965);Google Scholar Caroe, L., ‘A multivariate grouping scheme: association analysis of East Anglian towns’, in Bowen, E. G., Geography at Aberystwyth (1968), 253–69;Google Scholar Royle, S. A., ‘Aspects of social geography of Leicestershire towns 1837–1871’ (unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Leicester, 1976);Google Scholar Lewis, C. R., ‘The central place pattern of Mid-Wales and the Middle Welsh borderland’, in Carter, H. and Davies, W. K. D. (eds), Urban Essays: Studies in the Geography of Wales (1970), 228–68;Google Scholar Lewis, C. R., ‘The analysis of changes in urban status: a case study in Mid-Wales and the Middle Welsh borderland’, Trans. Inst. British Geographers, LXIV (1975), 49–66;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Constable, D., Household Structure in Three English Market Towns 1851–1871 (University of Reading, Dept of Geography, Geographical Papers No. 55, 1977).Google Scholar

4 Carter, H., The Growth of the Welsh City System (inaugural lecture, University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, 1968)Google Scholar and ‘The growth and decline of Welsh towns’ in Moore, D. (ed.), Wales in the Eighteenth Century (1976), 47–62.Google Scholar

5 Muller, E. K., ‘Selective urban growth in the Middle Ohio Valley, 1800–1860’, Geog. Rev., LXVI (1976), 178–99;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Russwurm, L. H. and Thakhurd, D., ‘Hierarchical and functional stability in a strongly urbanizing area of Southern Ontario 1871–1971’, Canadian Geographer, XXV (1981), 149–66;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Randy-Smith, W., Aspects of Growth in a Regional Urban System: Southern Ontario 1851–1921 (Downsview, Ontario, Geography Department, Atkinson College, York University, 1982);Google Scholar O'Mara, J., An Historical Geography of Urban System Development: Tidewater, Virginia in the Eighteenth Century (Downsview Ontario, York University, Geographical Monographs No. 13, 1983).Google Scholar

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8 For a detailed account of this work see Noble, M., ‘Growth and development of country towns: the case of eastern Yorkshire 1700–1850’ (unpublished Ph.D thesis, University of Hull, 1982).Google Scholar

9 Carter, ‘Growth and decline’, op. cit., 48.

10 Wapentakes were used as a basis for denning the study area. It includes all of the administrative county of the East Riding, the wapentakes of Bulmer, Pickering, Ryedale, Birdforth and Whitby Strand (parishes of Scarborough, Fargrave and Hackness) in the North Riding, and the wapentakes of Osgoldcross lower, Barkstone Ashlower and Strafforth and Tickhill south (parishes of Thome, Hatfield, Stainforth, Fishlake and Sykehouse) in the West Riding.

11 For example, Mayer, H., ‘Definitions of city’, in Bourne, L. S., The Internal Structure of the City (New York, 1970), 28–31;Google Scholar J. W. Simmons and L. S. Bourne, ‘Defining urban places: differing concepts of the urban system’, in Bourne and Simmons, op. cit., 28–41.

12 For a further discussion of this problem see Noble, op. cit, 26–9; Carter, H., The Study of Urban Geography, 3rd edn (1981), 17–19;Google Scholar Everitt, ‘The market town’, op. cit.; Patten, op. cit.; Carter, ‘Growth and decline’, op. cit.

13 Everitt, ‘The food market’, op. cit.; Chalklin, C. W., The Provincial Towns of Georgian England: a Study of the Building Process 1740–1840 (1974);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Clark, P. and Slack, P., English Towns in Transition 1500–1700 (1976);Google Scholar Corfield, ‘Urban Development’, op. cit.; Patten, op. cit.

14 A considerable amount of academic debate has centred on the problems and use of the hearth tax as a source, e.g. Patten, J., ‘The hearth taxes’, Local Population Studies, VII (1971), 111–30;Google Scholar Alldridge, N. (ed.), The Hearth Tax: Problems and Possibilities (papers submitted to the CORAL conference March 1983, published by School of Humanities and Community Education, Humberside College of Higher Education, 1983).Google Scholar Although some 25 years elapse between the compilation of the Hearth Tax and the turn of the seventeenth century, aggregative analysis undertaken for six of the study towns in the period 1675–1700 indicated a baptism/burial ratio of approximately one, and thus no discernible population growth or decline in the last quarter of the century.

15 Noble, op. cit., chs 5–7.

16 Robson, ‘Urban growth’, op. cit., ch. 3. The region's towns were divided into seven size classes, the class limits were <500; 500–999; 1, 000–1, 999; 2, 000–3, 999; 4, 000–7, 999; 8, 000–15, 999; 16, 000>. Standardized growth rates were calculated using the formula

where Gin is the growth rate of the ith town whose population places it in the nth size group of towns, and Gn and on are the mean and standard deviation of the nth size group. Growth scores were grouped into three broad divisions: high rates — scores greater than one standard deviation above the mean value; medium — scores in the range of plus one or minus one standard deviations about the mean; low — scores greater than one standard deviation below the mean. For detailed results of this analysis see Noble, op. cit., 98–119.

17 Robson, B. T., ‘The impact of functional differentiation within systems of industrialized cities’, in Schmal, H. (ed.), Patterns of European Urbanisation since 1500 (1981), 111–30.Google Scholar

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19 A further problem relates to differential fertility among occupational groups and the possibility of double counting individuals within any study period. This means that only the relative, rather than the absolute, strength of individual occupational sectors can be measured. Parish register analysis was not conducted after 1815 for a number of reasons, viz. the availability of directory and census data and the widely acknowledged reduction in the comprehensiveness of parish registers with the growth of nonconformity.

20 Carter, ‘Urban geography’, op. cit., 113.

21 W. K. D. Davies, ‘Towards an integrated study of central places: a South Wales case study’, in Carter and Davies, op. cit., 193–227; Lewis ‘The central place’, op. cit; Lewis, Analysis of changes', op. cit.

22 See note 19.

23 See note 21 and Davies, W. K. D., ‘Centrality and the central place hierarchy’, Urban Studies, IV (1967), 61–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 Lewis, ‘Analysis of changes’, op. cit, 56.

25 The directories used were Barfoot, P. and Wilkes, J., The Universal British Directory of Trade and Commerce, 6 vols (1791);Google Scholar Baines, E., History, Directory and Gazetteer of the County of York, 2 vols (1823);Google Scholar also reprinted as Baine's Yorkshire (1969);Google Scholar Slater, W., Yorkshire Directory (1849).Google Scholar

26 Davies, ‘Centrality’, op. cit.

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28 Noble, op. cit, 230–45.

29 Slater, op. cit., 408.

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31 Slater, op. cit, 502.

32 Baines, op. cit, II, 454.

33 Barfoot and Wilkes, op. cit, in, 485.

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35 These are discussed in depth in Noble, ‘Growth and development, op. cit, 5–7.

36 Muller, E. K., ‘Regional urbanization and the selective growth of towns in North American regions’, J. Hist. Geog. III (1977), 21–39, 23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 Landowners investing in the Driffield Canal were keen to encourage industrial development in the district by offering concessionary rates to industrialists. As a result several factories were established in the area. See Humberside County Record Office DDX 17/15.