Having found my ancestors from about 1704, I have looked at what conditions may have been like then and the events over the three centuries which followed. England and Wales had just been joined to Scotland to form the United Kingdom and many settlements in the young America were still colonies of Britain. In England food prices were low, people were eating well and grain was even being exported. General health was good, child mortality down and the Great Plague of the previous century long forgotten.At this time and for the 1700s the Stephan Clarkes were farming in pleasant fertile country around Diss in Norfolk and records suggest that at least one of them did so in prosperous circumstances.
The island kingdom of Britain has always had a great capacity to trade, initially across the English Channel but later on a world scale. Up to 1700 its largest and most profitable export had been wool fleeces and wool textiles but this soon thereafter changed to cotton. Over the 18th and 19th centuries small inventions, ways of finance, pieces of legislation, mining of iron and coal and development of transport together served to change Britain from a nation in which 85% of the population lived and worked off the land into the world’s first industrial nation.
The Industrial Revolution in which Britain led the world over these two centuries would have had its influence on the Stephan Clarkes but perhaps of greater significance to them as farmers was the system of land closures. Until then half of all the land in England and Wales was open farm land, Common land or wasteland. Thousands of separate acts were passed in Parliament over the period converting this land into private ownership enabling it to be enclosed by walls, hedges and fences. This had a dramatically beneficial effect on agricultural efficiency, improvement in crop yield and livestock quality.
It also displaced large numbers of peasant farmers. Fortuituously other events were taking place which required much new labour. The Industrial Revolution was well under way but the transport system was poor; the railroad was still being invented and a means to move heavy products such as coal was needed. Roads were grossly inadequate outside London itself. Two things changed this and eased transport into the coming of the railway. The one was the creation of canals and canal boats which transported heavy goods; these were dug by labourers referred to as navigators and the “navvy” thus came into existence. The other was the system of turnpiking, the building of better roadways paid for by a user toll; by 1830 twenty thousand miles of toll roads had been built. A whole new industry of stage coach travel between towns was growing and was at its height just before the coming of the railways from around the 1830s.
Electricity was not to come until towards the end of the 19th century and there were no motor cars until the beginning of the 20th.
In 1800 King George III was on the throne, Nelson was to achieve a great naval victory at Trafalgar in 1805 giving Britain command of the seas for the next 100 years and Wellington was to triumph over Napoleon at Waterloo. Steam power was expanding to propel industry.
The 1800s had times of great hardship as well as times of hitherto unknown progress and enlightenment. In 1815 the Napoleonic Wars came to an end making half a million unemployed ex-servicemen to add to the thousands of Irish immigrants and dispossessed peasant families from rural communities all seeking work in overpopulated towns ill equipped to provide healthy living conditions. By 1819 the country was experiencing its first serious recession and to add to the misery the abominable Corn Laws were introduced, artificially inflating food prices. Beer and gin were cheap and a lot safer to drink than the urban water. Fortunately things would change but it took time. In the 1840s most of the infamous Corn Laws were repealed and new laws were passed protecting children and women in industry; creating local health boards and hospitals and local sewerage systems to clean up the towns. Laws were also passed creating four and a half thousand miles of railway routes.In 1836 when Robert I (greatgrandfather) was born the Clarkes were living in Winfarthing. The following year, 1837, Dickens published his Pickwick Papers vividly describing the lives of Englishmen in those very times. In that year there were 100 000 power looms in operation so Britain would have been producing much in the way of textiles. By the time of the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 things had really begun to improve. Wages rose in real terms and the mid period of Queen Victoria’s reign became a new high water mark in English history.In the 1851 Census the Clarkes were living in Norwich itself with the head of the family a commercial traveller and the eldest son living in Martham as an apprentice draper; the Prouds were in Birmingham making spurs and great-grandmother Sarah Campbell was in Scotland .
The Robert Clarkes were in the drapery trade from about 1820, for the remainder of that centurty and into the next. They were described as "commercial travellers". What this entailed is speculation on my part but some things are known which give us perspective. In the mid 1700s two very significant inventions had improved the methods of producing materials - the Flying Shuttle had doubled the speed of hand weaving and the Spinning Jenny increased by many times the output of the spinning wheel. It was said that merchant clothiers would journey around the country collecting and paying for pieces of woven cloth to be sold through "Piece Halls" much of it destined for export. Perhaps they were called Commercial Travellers. As to their mode of transport, it would probably have changed over the period; for Robert I it may have been the horse and cart then the stage coaches on turnpike roads; for Robert II the coaches then the railway.
Robert II Clarke, moved to London in 1856 and appears with his family in Census records through to the last available Census in 1901. He is known to have retired in 1913 after 57 years “on the road”.
Thomas Fraser had a saddler/harness shop in Beauly in 1861. By 1881 both the Frasers and the Prouds were in Birmingham. The Prouds remained there at least until 1901.
At the end of the 19th century and up to the start of the First World War in 1914 people in Britain were experiencing record prosperity particularly the wealthy and middle classes; about 16% of the workforce was in domestic service. It became known as the Golden Age. This was to change from then on. The war with its horrendous loss of life was a catastrophe for Britain which after the war experienced its fastest economic collapse in its entire history; it would never regain the world trade dominance it had and its economic position would deteriorate right into the Second World War with the added problem of the world depression from 1929.
During that period before 1914 there had been record migration from Britain particularly to America but also to the Dominions including South Africa where there was great patriotism amongst the British after the Boer War.Thomas Fraser must have migrated to South Africa between 1881 and 1888 because by that latter year he had established in Cape Town a highly successful leather goods firm. The Prouds stayed in Birmingham but it is noticeable that as the Census dates progressed elder daughters had left home; it is probable that they had joined their grandparents in South Africa. The Prouds did go to South Africa after 1901 and both grandfather John Joseph and grandmother Georgina died there.
Grandfather Thomas Clarke (sixth generation) was in England in 1889 but in 1901 he was in South Africa because it is known that his youngest child, Aunt Eileen was born in Cape Town in April of that year. However he went back to the UK with the family (excluding father, Reginald) and they were there in 1919.
The seventh and eigth generations lived their lives in South Africa for most of the 20th century as detailed in Paternal Ancestors. The ninth generation (Patricia and Gavin) emigrated to Australia in the 1980s and were followed by their parents later.
Above - The mere (lake) with the village of Diss in the background
