Find out how directory data helps with historical research into occupations.
Directory data is particularly useful for compiling listings for particular towns or regions. Entries usually record the occupation of each individual or firm, and are often grouped under occupational headings making analysis easier. For example, most national and provincial directories include a classified trades section.
Additionally, directories have a number of advantages over other sources used to trace occupations, such as the census and town rate books:
Nevertheless, there are some drawbacks to using directory data in occupational analyses. These can, however, often be alleviated by using directories alongside other sources such as rate books, parish registers or census returns.
Despite these drawbacks, historians have used directories for a range of different socio-economic analyses. Some studies have sought to produce aggregate data at a regional level. Others have concentrated on the occupational structure of a particular town.
Below, we’ve listed three general areas of research that may interest you.
Most work in this area has looked at patterns of retailing. However, directory data can also be used to explore other sectors such as banking, wholesaling, services or the professions. Studies usually focus on a single town. They frequently use different directories to trace change over time.
Emerging from this area of research are two forms of analysis:
Basic studies
These use directory data to map out the distribution of occupations onto the street layout of a particular town. This is easiest to do where house numbers and street addresses are included in the directory data. Usually, the focus is on retailing. It examines changes in the location of shopping facilities over time.
Examples include Wild and Shaw’s 1974 study of retailing in nineteenth-century Hull.
More complex issues
Other analyses examine more complex issues, such as the structure of retailing or the nature of retail or service provision. This is done by comparing directory data with other sources.
A good example of this is Alexander’s work, which uses bankruptcy records and directories to build up a picture of shop development in early nineteenth-century England.
Studies of urban systems focus on the occupational structure of towns and villages across a wider region.
They explore settlement hierarchies or the distribution of particular industries. In many cases they use figures derived from the occupational listings as well as the town descriptions found in most directories.
Examples of this sort of study include Rowley’s 1973 analysis of the settlement hierarchy in nineteenth-century mid-Wales.
This looks at the range of occupations found in each town in order to establish their functional status and relative position in the hierarchy. In order to avoid problems with occupational classification, Rowley uses only directories produced by Pigot and Slater.
The project, Urban and Industrial Change in the Midlands 1700-1840, is based at the University of Leicester. It uses directory data to explore the spread of particular industries and identify localised concentrations.
For instance, in the early nineteenth century, the hosiery industry was concentrated in the East Midlands. Present in the larger cities of Leicester and Nottingham, it also made its mark in Derby, Mansfield, Loughborough and Hinckley.
Work in this area is relatively limited, but has considerable potential. Directory data can help reconstruct industrial links. It can also show changes in the size and structure of local business communities.
Rimmer, for example, has looked at the changing industrial profile of Leeds. He uses directories to show the growth of different occupational sectors:
More recently, researchers have analysed the size and evolution of individual businesses. Such work often combines directory evidence with other sources like factory returns, rate books and business biographies.
Raven, for example, looks at business size in the small towns of north Essex in 1851. He cross-references directory entries with census data to record the number of employees working for a particular firm.