Spatial patterns in the small town in the nineteenth century

: A case study of Wrexham

Abstract

Previous studies of residential differentiationin the nineteenth-century town have concentrated onlarger, industrial towns of the period. As acounter-response to such work, this study examines thespatial patterns found in the small, Welsh town ofWrexham, during the middle decades of thenineteenth-century. Using data derived from thecensus enumerators' books for four dates (1841,1851,1861 and 1871), the total population of the town isexamined at each date. Both Principal ComponentsAnalysis and Cluster Analysis are undertaken on thedata set with the scale of the analyses being at thelevel of the street, although some attempt is alsomade to disaggregate the enquiry to the level of thehousehold for the year of 1851. The results for eachdate are compared to reveal the changing sociospatialpatterns of the town over a thirty year period.The results suggest that small towns of themid-nineteenth century were undergoing similarprocesses to those larger towns and cities previouslystudied by researchers, although the pace of changewas slower and the resulting spatial patterns lessdramatic in the small town. Even by 1871, modernlevels of differentiation had not developed in Wrexhamand were unlikely to do so in such a town. Most ofthe town still retained a mixed sociospatial structurewith limited, localised segregation. Only the socialelite and, to a lesser extent, the very poor were residentially segregrated at the end of the period

Date of Award	1987
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Aberystwyth University
Supervisor	Roy C. Lewis (Supervisor)