British Historical Statistics Project Overview

BHSP BRITISH HISTORICAL STATISTICS PROJECT BHSP: Introduction Roger Middleton (University of Bristol) BHSP Official Launch, Economic History Society Annual Conference, University of Durham, 27 March 2010 13/03/2025 Roger Middleton 1

Biggest, highest since records began Britain is today experiencing the longest period of sustained economic growth since records began in the year 1701. [Brown 2005] the biggest amount in any quarter in British economic history, according to the Office for National Statistics. [Daily Telegraph, 22 December 2009] The national debt has soared to 59.2% of GDP, the highest since records began in 1974-75, the Office for National Statistics said. [Guardian, 20 November 2009] the master-economist must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. [Keynes 1924, p. 322] 13/03/2025 Roger Middleton 2

British Historical Statistics (BHS) Publication history: Mitchell and Deane (1962) Abstract of British Historical Statistics Mitchell and Jones (1971), adds new series and (broadly) takes terminal date from c. 1938 to 1960s, but not a new edition per se Mitchell (1988) British Historical Statistics* 13/03/2025 Roger Middleton 3

Place of BHS in British economic historiography MD62 a companion to Deane and Cole (1962) British economic growth, 1688-1959 Feinstein (1972) Big red book , culmination of original DAE data project Matthews, Feinstein and Odling-Smee (1982), British economic growth, 1856-1973, locus classicus of long-term growth studies 13/03/2025 Roger Middleton 4

Developments since MD88 Table 1 shows significant developments in organisation, scale and scope between MD62 and M88 However: o From outset, BHS data basically raw and unprocessed o Transcription errors o As befits origins, coverage is economic history and less history in the round 13/03/2025 Roger Middleton 5

Table 1 Scale and scope of BHS: MD62-M88 Mitchell & Deane (1962): Mitchell (1988): Chapter no 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 No of EarliestLatest Pages/ tables date 21 1700 9 1811 11 1697 8 1655 11 1720 6 1199 28 1697 7 1787 5 1785 15 1617 16 1697 7 1700 7 1688 17 1688 12 1662 14 1316 194 1199 1956 No of EarliestLatest Pages/ tables date 27 1541 36 1688 21 1697 19 1655 15 1697 32 1280 9 1786 25 1684 23 1697 17 1572 19 1688 23 1662 4 1732 23 1316 14 1805 16 1688 323 1280 Chapter title Population & Vital Statistics Labour Force Agriculture Coal Iron & Steel Tin, Copper & Lead Textile Industries Transport Building Miscellaneous Production Statistics Overseas Trade Wages & the Standard of Living National Income & Expenditure Public Finance Banking & Insurance Prices TOTAL date 1951 1951 1939 1939 1938 1938 1939 1938 1956 1949 1947 1938 1956 1955 1956 1938 chapter Chapter title date chapter 54 Population & Vital Statistics 20 Labour Force 30 Agriculture 21 Fuel & Energy 25 Metals 23 Textiles 41 Building 19 Miscellaneous Industrial Statistics 9 External Trade 32 Transport & Communications 64 Public Finance 25 Financial Institutions 18 Consumption 53 Prices 31 Miscellaneous Statistics 36 National Accounts 501 1980 1980 1980 1980 1980 1980 1980 1980 1980 1980 1980 1980 1980 1980 1980 1980 1980 90 89 56 38 50 58 14 46 87 41 76 59 9 58 44 60 875 % growth 1962-88 66.5 74.7 Notes: Broad mapping in structure and series between editions. Less exact mapping of structure and series between editions. 13/03/2025 Roger Middleton 6

Developments since MD88 = Need for New Edition 1. The ongoing expansion of statistical knowledge of the past, this affecting the medieval through to the contemporary world, e.g. the huge amount of medieval data assembled and the deployed by Campbell (2008) in his Tawney lecture; the outputs of the contemporary CAMPOP group (for example, respectively Wrigley 2011 on the early English censuses and Shaw-Taylor s The occupational structure of Britain, 1379-1911 project); and, for the modern world, Broadberry in his two productivity studies (1997; 2006). 2. A concurrent expansion in the topics and fields researched by historians since the 1980s, not least such data-rich areas as climate and energy use; 3. The ICT revolution and all that this entails for the demand for, and supply of, historical data; and 4. More recently, and the spur to BHSP, the appearance of the Historical Statistics of the United States Millennial Edition (HSUSME), published by CUP in five volumes (Carter et al. 2006) and online. 13/03/2025 Roger Middleton 7

Contemporary history and contemporary policy debate Contemporary world: my particular focus in BHSP Some key statistical works have been updated: o Feinstein (1972): series ended in 1965, since updated to 1990 by Sefton and Weale (1996); o Halsey and Webb (2000): effectively an ONS style Social Trends for the whole of the twentieth century; Butler and Butler (2000) for political trends; o But none come into twenty first century. Key role played by ONS and StatBase, or perhaps not played: o ONS seem to have no commitment to historical series in their current mission statement; o their web site is to put it mildly disappointing; o At this distance ONS series do not easily map to M88 series. Growing private provision of statistical materials on the web, much of it potentially pursuing ideological agendas e.g. Figure 2, produced by ukpublicspending.co.uk* 13/03/2025 Roger Middleton 8

Would you trust these numbers? Figure 1 Total Public Expenditure as % of GDP 70 60 50 40 % of GDP 30 20 10 0 1690 1710 1730 1750 1770 1790 1810 1830 1850 1870 1890 1910 1930 1950 1970 1990 2010 Source: ukpublicspending.co.uk, 07.03.10 13/03/2025 Roger Middleton 9

Consequences of no new BHS Traditional lamentable quality of public debate in Britain compounded by the absence of easily accessible historical series presented in such a fashion that journalists might possibly take seriously comments about the quality of the evidence; That said, some responsible journalists clearly need a new online BHS (this from Michael Blastland of BBC):* All that I wanted was numbers You might think the spending numbers for education would be bread and butter to politics, the 1, 2, 3 of debate. But finding out how much the UK spent on education over the lifetime of the modern welfare state is far from simple. There is no single, easily- available source. The online trail, for example, often goes cold in the early 1980s. BHSP will be that natural first port of call for journalists as well as for the expert research community. 13/03/2025 Roger Middleton 10

Project History, Objectives & Organisation History o Begins in 2006 with early conversations with CUP just before the publication of HSUSME; o Brian Mitchell gives the green light; o One or two false starts 13/03/2025 Roger Middleton 11

Project History, Objectives & Organisation Organisation o Team assembles: three general editors Roger Middleton (Bristol): late nineteenth-twenty first century, macroeconomic history, public finance Nigel Goose (Hertfordshire): medieval-early modern Michael Turner (Hull): eighteenth-nineteenth century, agrarian and beyond o Commissioning volume editors 13/03/2025 Roger Middleton 12

Project History, Objectives & Organisation Objectives o Taking HSUSME as initial template to Produce 5 print volumes Online edition Data plus essay model Business model for production of chapters: commission > contributors > funding of underlying research o Recognising considerable differences between BHS and HSUSME, with respect to: Time (MD start at 1199; M88 at 1280): earliest series in USHSME is palaeolithic Territory: special issue of Ireland, but also British diaspora want to include significant material on British empire and beyond 13/03/2025 Roger Middleton 13

Project History, Objectives & Organisation The task ahead o HSUSME: 5 vols, 1,781 tables, 37,339 data series o Not possible yet to estimate what we will have Achievements so far 13/03/2025 Roger Middleton 14

Table 2 BHS volume planning to date Ch Eds/ contributors Goose/ Hinde Vol # Vol. title Vol. Eds Goose/ Hinde POPULATION Population characteristics; Vital Statistics; Internal Migration; International Migration; Family & Household Composition; Cohorts I Goose/ Gazeley Goose/ Gazeley/Mitch WORK & WELFARE Labour; Education; Health; Economic Inequality & Poverty; Social Insurance & Public Assistance; Non-profit, Voluntary & Religious Entities ECONOMIC STRUCTURE & PERFORMANCE National Income & Product; Business Fluctuations & Cycles; Prices; Consumer Expenditure; Savings, Capital & Wealth; Geography & the Environment; Science, Technology & Productivity; Business Organisation; Financial Markets and Institutions II III Broadberry Broadberry Burnett/ Pearson Burnett/ Pearson ECONOMIC SECTORS Agriculture; Natural Resource Industries; Construction, Housing & Mortgages; Manufacturing; Distribution; Transportation; Communication; Services & Utilities GOVERNANCE & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Government Finance & Employment; Elections & Politics; Crime, Law Enforcement & Justice; National Defence, Wars, Armed Forces & Veterans; International Trade & Exchange Rates; Outlying Areas; Colonial Statistics IV V Middleton Thompson, J 13/03/2025 Roger Middleton 15

Our thanks to Brian Mitchell who gives us his blessing but wishes no further direct involvement; Richard Fisher and Michael Watson for backing this project from the outset and persevering with the one or two false starts; A Bristol alumni for seedcorn funding; also EHS and CUP for financial support; Richard Sutch and Susan Carter for helpful advice so far on the daunting realities ahead and for coming to Durham to contribute to this session; and Everyone for attending today Which gets me to: 13/03/2025 Roger Middleton 16

What next? Come to Meet the Editors session which follows this launch; Discuss with the general editors; Visit our interim web site: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/history/bhsp Get involved, become a contributor suggest people who can be contributors 13/03/2025 Roger Middleton 17

References Brown, G. (2005) Budget speech , Hansard, 16 March. Butler, D.E. and Butler, G. (2000) Twentieth-century British political facts, 1900-2000, 8th edn. London: Macmillan. Carter, S.B. et al. (eds) (2006) Historical statistics of the United States: earliest times to the present, 5 vols. New York: Cambridge University Press. Broadberry, S.N. (1997) The productivity race: British manufacturing in international perspective, 1850-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ___ (2006) Market services and the productivity race, 1850-2000: British performance in international perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Deane, P.M. and Cole, W.A. (1962) British economic growth, 1688-1959: trends and structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Feinstein, C.H. (1972) National income, expenditure and output of the United Kingdom, 1855-1965. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Halsey, A.H. and Webb, J. (2000) Twentieth-century British social trends. London: Macmillan. Garner, A. (1993) British historical statistics: student investigations. London: Statistics for Education. Keynes, J.M. (1924) Alfred Marshall, 1842-1924 , Economic Journal, 34 (3), pp. 311-72. Matthews, R.C.O. et al. (1982) British economic growth, 1856-1973. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Middleton, R. and Wardley, P. (1994) Annual review of information technology developments for economic and social historians, 1993 , Economic History Review, 47 (2), pp. 374-407. Mitchell, B.R. (1988) British historical statistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ___ (2003a) International historical statistics: the Americas, 1750-2000. London: Palgrave. ___ (2003b) International historical statistics: Africa, Asia & Oceania, 1750-2000. London: Palgrave. ___ (2003c) International historical statistics: Europe, 1750-2000. London: Palgrave. ___ and Deane, P.M. (1962) Abstract of British historical statistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ___ and Jones, H.G. (1971) Second abstract of British historical statistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mokyr, J. (1989) Review of Mitchell (1988) , Journal of Economic History, 49 (4), pp. 1016 18. Sefton, J. and Weale, M.R. (1995) Reconciliation of national income and expenditure: balanced estimates of national income for the United Kingdom, 1920- 1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wrigley, E.A. (2011) The early English censuses. Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming. 13/03/2025 Roger Middleton 18