When E.A. Wrigley and R.S. Schofield published their book The Population History of England (London, 1981; Cambridge, 1989) the underpinning aggregate analysis was based on a sample of 404 parishes which had been assembled by hand by an army of local population historians (whose names are included in the book itself).

The geographical spread of the original parishes was broad but not uniform (it is summarised in the map and table below, and you can also download a more detailed Excel summary here).

The authors made the underlying database, with an introduction by Roger Schofield (R.S. Schofield, Parish Register Aggregate Analyses: the Population History of England Database and Introductory Guide (Colchester, 1981) available to anyone through the Local Population Studies Society. Historically, it was distributed by CD-ROM in the post. More recently, the Editor of Local Population Studies has provided it by email. Now, we are pleased to be able to make the database available on the LPSS website.

You can find a fully updated and downloadable guide to the data below, including a description of all the data that’s included, and some advice on how to use it. The data itself can be downloaded (by county) from the downloads page.