Statement & Investigation  of  the  Township  of  Smalley 
Having been applied to for a statement of the births & burials in the township of Smalley for the use of the board of Agriculture,
I was led on to a further investigation of the whole (sic) of the township of which the following is a result.

A statement of baptisms & burials in the township of Smalley in the Co. of Derby during a period of ten years (Viz)
From the first of January 1788 to the thirty first day of December 1797.
Baptisms       Male 66
Female       48
Totals 114    
Burials Male 45
Female 41
Totals 86


The inhabitants occupying 102 Separate Houses are 567 persons under the following descriptions (Viz)

Masters & Mistresses of families       186
Their children of all ages 263   
Their grandchildren 24
Inmates chiefly aged parents 25
Servants 40
Apprentices not their children 29
Total 567   
   
One gentlemans family 11
Nineteen farmers 123
Twenty five labourers 108
Twelve FWK 97
Seven coal miners 27
Seven Widows & One Spinster 21
Three Cordwainers 18
Two wheelwrights 15
Two taylors 21
Two Paupers 2
One Potter 3
One Roper 5
One Bricklayer 4
One Woolcomber 4
Three victuallers 17
Two brickmakers 11
Two millers 15
Two Blacksmiths 17
Two Needlemakers 9
One Grocer 4
One Weaver 5
One Baker 7
One Butcher 5
Total 567


In the year 1785 I had an account of the Parish which then stood 98 Houses – 507 Inhabitants. I am at a loss to account with certainty for the increase of 60 inhabitants but I rather think it is chiefly amongst the Frame work knitters who from the trade being remarkably good a few years since took large numbers of apprentices as well as kept their children in the (trade).

With regard to the baptisms & burials I can only ascertain those of the Established Church, but from having taken two Periods of ten years each, before the dissenters were so numerous, upon a comparison of them with the last period, I am inclined to believe that about one third of the children born are not baptized.

For this circumstance I believe we are indebted to the Works of the infamous Paine which have eradicated the principles of of religion from the minds of the lower orders of the people who not having leisure to study what they read, are caught by the Sound of words and not by their reasoning.
Many however of the inhabitants are become dissenters from the Established Church under the denomination of General Baptists from whom I have no (matter) of obtaining any account of Births & Burials.

Tho’ no Schoolmaster is mentioned there is one a Batchelor at the Free School – and one of the Widows likewise teaches school.



1801 - 1811 returns

Smalley OPS

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