1891 - Population trends

The population of Wilcot, Draycot and Oare is not so different now from what it was 200 years ago. That contrasts with a steeply rising population in the county as a whole, and indeed the country:

 

In the late 19th century there were agricultural depressions, and the population fell:

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the population has been relatively stable, albeit about 30% lower than in 1850.

Household size declined over the 19th century, but has declined far more steeply since 1911. An average of 5 people per household of course covers a variation: some houses will have had only 1 or 2 people in them, so others must have had 8 or 9. Many families would have had far more children than most families do now; but some teenagers (especially girls) would have left the village to work in domestic service. But there were often also other adults living with a married couple – an elderly relative, an impoverished relation or neighbour.

Now many of our houses have only one or two people in them, and not all of those live there all the time. (So the stable population in the 20th century must reflect new houses being built – up Alton Road, and in the Old Dairy, for instance).

The proportion of children shrank slowly over the 19th century (but since then has fallen much lower):

Over the 19th century, a diminishing proportion of Wilcot’s inhabitants were people who’d been born in the parish (the blue segment in this chart), or Pewsey (the red segment), or the Pewsey Vale (the green segment labelled ‘PV’):

Again, the trend has accelerated dramatically in the last 70 years, so that the purple segment would now include almost everyone.