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Category Archives: statistics

‘You’ve never had it so good’

23 Tuesday Aug 2022

Posted by Anne Young in demography

≈ 4 Comments

As part of its 5-year Productivity Inquiry, the Australian Productivity Commission recently released an interim report into Australia’s productivity performance, entitled 5-year Productivity Inquiry: The Key to Prosperity.  The report states that:

At the turn of the twentieth century, life was materially worse for the average Australian than it is today, in many dimensions:
. For every 10 000 newborn babies, more than 1000 died before they reached their first birthday, compared to just 3 in 10 000 today.
. For infants who survived childbirth, life expectancy was about 60 years, compared to more than 80 years today. The invention of antibiotics, which largely eradicated infectious diseases such as cholera, diphtheria, pneumonia, typhoid fever, plague, tuberculosis, typhus, and syphilis, was decades away, and only became part of mainstream medicine from the 1950s.
. During their 60 years of life, the average Australian worked much longer hours than today (the 48 hour week was made law in 1916). There was little access to paid leave (paid annual leave was first introduced into industry awards beginning in 1935). And the workplace was more dangerous workplace.
. The average Australian died before accessing the age pension, which was introduced in 1909 for men aged 65 years and over. The average person could afford far fewer goods and services with wages he earned.
. Home life was more crowded (about 5 people per household in 1910 compared to less than 3 today in much larger houses) and much dirtier: automatic dishwashers and washing machines did not become commonplace in Australian households until at least the 1970s, and until the 1950s toilets were often located outside the house.

I thought it would be interesting to look at how some of this applied to those of our family who lived in the two decades either side of 1901, the year the Australian states federated to become a single nation.

This chart, produced using the application DNAPainter, shows my children’s direct ancestors who were alive in this period.

Generation from children:

  • Great grandparents: 7 were born in these decades
  • Great great grandparents: all 16 lived in these decades and 1 died
  • 3*great grandparents: 24 of the 32 lived in these decades and 10 died in the period
  • 4*great grandparents: 9 of the 64 are known to have lived in these decades and 6 died in the period

Altogether 56 of my children’s ancestors lived in the period 1891 – 1911, 7 were born in the period and 17 died in the period.

My children’s great grandparents who were born between 1891 and 1912 lived between 49 and 105 years. They died at average age of just under 77 years.

The age at first marriage for this generation ranged from 19 to 26 years, with an average age of 22. Families were usually small: two women had one child each, one had two and the fourth had six. No child died younger than one year old; one child died aged 17 months; the rest lived to adulthood.

All my children’s 16 great great grandparents were alive in the decades either side of 1901. They were born between 1856 and 1889. They died between 1898 and 1966 aged between 35 and 85, with the average age just over 70; Sarah Jane Young nee Way died at the age of 35 giving birth. This generation was first married between the ages of 18 and 38 at an average age of 25. The women had between one and ten children. The average was 5. Three families each lost a child aged less than one year. This was 7% of the 41 children born to this generation of women.

Twenty-four of my children’s 32 third great grandparents were alive in the decades either side of 1901. They were born between 1822 and 1862. All members of that generation died between 1872 and 1942. The average age at death was just over 65; the range was 26 to 85. (Annie Frances Champion Crespigny nee Chauncy died aged 26 as a consequence of childbirth.) The men and women of this generation were first married between the ages of 17 and 42 with the average age being 24. The women had between two and thirteen children, on average they had 7 children. Eight families lost between one and three children aged less than one year: 14 of the 112, or 12.5%, of the children born to this generation of women.

Nine of my children’s 64 fourth great grandparents were alive in the decades either side of 1901. Of the 47 fourth great grandparents whose year of birth I know, all were born between the years 1766 and 1835. I have the death dates for only 40 people of this generation. They died between 1832 and 1915. They were aged 36 to 92 with an average age at death of 63. For the 43 people whose age at marriage I know, their age at first marriage ranges from 17 to 49 with the average age being 25. The women had between at least 3 and 11 children, with the average being 7 children. 9 women lost at least one child and up to 4 children in infancy; 16 children out of 164, or one in ten died in the first year of life.

I have found it hard to gather the information for people living seven generations earlier—over 200 years ago— and thus am less confident in the figures but I think they give an indication of the experiences of those who lived in the era.

Clearly, however, the generation that was born around the time of Australian Federation in 1901 lived longer than previous generations and had smaller families.

Generation from childrenAverage LifespanAverage age when first marriedAverage number of children born to womenRate of babies died before they reached their first birthday
Great grandparents772220
Great great grandparents702557%
3*great grandparents6524712%
4*great grandparents6325710%

Based on the experience of Greg’s and my ancestors, I agree with the Productivity Commission that

  • Babies born to the generation born around 1900 were more likely to survive past one year than in previous generations.
  • The generation born in 1900 had longer lifespans than their forebears and their families were smaller.
  • The generation born around 1900 would seem to have been more likely to have been able to collect a pension and they lived in smaller households than their forebears.

The Productivity Commission asserts that

“at the turn of the twentieth century, life was materially worse for the average Australian than it is today on many dimensions”. The Commission states there has been a “dramatic rise in living standards over the past two centuries. This is despite the global population increasing almost 7-fold over that period. Just 200 years ago, 90 per cent of the world’s population lived in a state of extreme poverty, compared to less than 10 per cent today . In Australia, economic output per person — a general measure of prosperity — is around 7 times higher than at Federation (121 years ago).  This transformation is ultimately a function of human ingenuity: of being more productive — working smarter not harder.” …
“It means that people alive today have the opportunity to access an array of goods and services that were unimaginable in the past. And access to these goods and services can transform people’s quality of life.”

Ross Gittens wrote in ‘’The Age’’ of 10 August:

“When you think about it, this is amazing. Objectively, there’s no doubt we’re hugely more prosperous than our forebears. Our lives are longer and healthier, with less pain, less physical exertion, less work per week, bigger and better homes, more education, more comfort, more convenience, more entertainment, more holidays and travel, more ready contact with family and friends, and greater access to the rest of the world."

Gittens questions whether we feel better off: “We’re undoubtedly better off in 100 ways, but do we feel much better about it?”

I think the improvements in health and longevity mean we are indeed better off than previous generations.

The generation born around 1900 were fated to live through two world wars with all their dreadful consequences.  My maternal grandfather was a firm believer in education. His own made a huge difference in his ability to recover from the second World War 2. In its aftermath he was recruited to work in Australia, where he built a new life.

I do not think our ancestors would have hankered after, or even imagined, the blessings we take for granted, such as our many possessions and our ability to travel in comfort at great speed but they would have envied our health, our education, and the luxury we enjoy of freedom from worry about food and housing.

References

  • Productivity Commission, 5-year Productivity Inquiry: The Key to Prosperity, Interim Report, Canberra, July 2022 https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/productivity/interim1-key-to-prosperity/productivity-interim1-key-to-prosperity.pdf 
  • Gittins, Ross. “We’ve Got More Than We’ve Ever Had, but Are We Better Off?” The Age, 10 Aug. 2022, https://www.theage.com.au/business/the-economy/we-ve-got-more-than-we-ve-ever-had-but-are-we-better-off-20220809-p5b8e4.html?btis.

The expression ‘You’ve never had it so good’ was made popular by the British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. In 1957, Macmillan made a speech in Bedford, UK to his fellow Conservatives, in which he offered the opinion that: “Let us be frank about it: most of our people have never had it so good”. In the speech he celebrated the success of Britain’s post-war economy while at the same time urging wage restraint and warning against inflation. He was mimicking the line of the US Democratic Party which used ‘You never had it so good’ as a slogan in the 1952 US election campaign. From https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/youve-never-had-it-so-good.html

lifespans of 2nd great grandparents

01 Sunday May 2016

Posted by Anne Young in ahnentafel, demography, geneameme

≈ 1 Comment

This week genealogy blogger Randy Seaver has invited followers to look at the lifespans of their second great grandparents.

The mission:

1)  We each have 16 great-great grandparents.  How did their birth and death years vary?  How long were their lifespans?  

2)  For this week, please list your 16 great-great grandparents, their birth year, their death year, and their lifespan in years.  

I maintain an ancestor table spreadsheet using the Ahnentafel numbering system of my own and my husband’s forebears.  Sometimes it is very easy to get distracted by the breadth of the family tree. It is useful to look back at the main trunk.

Mine and my husband’s great great grandparents are the 3*great grandparents of my children.  They are numbered 32 to 63 on the table

Name Ahnentafel number age at death lived
George Edward Young 32 64 1826-1890
Caroline Clarke 33 44 1835-1879
John Way 34 76 1835-1911
Sarah Daw 35 58 1837-1895
James Cross 36 54 1828-1882
Ellen Murray 37 64 1837-1901
John Plowright 38 79 1831-1910
Margaret Smyth 39 63 1834-1897
Sullivan 40 I do not know anything about the parents of Henry Sullivan
? 41
John Morley 42 65 1823-1888
Eliza Sinden 43 85 1823-1908
Isaac Dawson 44 42 1831-1872
Eliza Skerrit 45 65 1834-1899
Francis Gilbart Edwards 46 65 1848-1913
Caroline Ralph 47 46 1850-1896
Philip Champion de Crespigny 48 77 1850-1927
Annie Frances Chauncy 49 25 1857-1883
Edward Walter Hughes 50 68 1854-1922
Jeanie Hawkins 51 79 1862-1941
James Francis Cudmore 52 75 1837-1912
Margaret Budge 53 67 1845-1912
Wentworth Cavenagh 54 72 1822-1895
Ellen Jane Mainwaring 55 75 1845-1920
August Bolz 56 76 1840-1916
Wilhelmine Bamberg 57 82 1844-1926
Karl Bertz 58 78 1854-1932
Henrietta Ritter 59 80 1862-1942
Mathias Manogg 60 74 1851-1925
Agathe Maria Lang 61 74 1852-1926
Gustav [Alfons] Waldemar Karl Peters 62 44 1860-1904
Agnes Helene Louise Stern 63 57 1861-1918

The average lifespan is 65.8. The median, middle of the range,  is 67 to 68. The average lifespan for men was 67.3 (median 68)  and for women was 64.3 (median 64).

My great great grandmother Annie Frances Champion de Crespigny née Chauncy (1857-1883) died at the age of 25 of pelvic cellulitis after a 3week illness.

Greg’s great great grandmother Eliza Morley née Sinden (1823-1908) was 85 when she died of asthenia (weakness) and cancer of the pharynx after an illness of 10 week.

This generation was born between 1822 and 1862. The most recent death of this generation of our family was 1942: my great great grandmother Henrietta Bertz née  Ritter (1862-1942).

My mother with her great grandmother Henrietta Bertz née  Ritter Easter 1941

X, her mark

27 Sunday Apr 2014

Posted by Anne Young in A to Z 2014, ahnentafel, demography, genealogical records, statistics

≈ 2 Comments

In 2012 at http://www.lonetester.com/2012/10/family-history-through-the-alphabet-challenge-x-is-for-signatures/ Alona Tester blogged about ‘X is for signatures’. She included examples of certificates where ‘X his mark’ showed that someone could not sign his name.

I looked though my collection of birth, death and marriage certificates for examples of people who could not sign their name.
On the birth certificate of Alice Young, born in 1859, the informant, her mother Caroline née Clark, could not sign her name and made an X. On the birth certificate of Caroline Young in 1867, the informant was her father George Young. He signed his name. In 1878 the birth of James Ernest Young was registered and the informant was Caroline. This time she appears to have signed her name. The informant’s name is in a different handwriting to the details on the rest of the certificate. Perhaps Caroline had learned how to sign her name in the twenty years between the births of Alice and James.

Informant’s details from the birth certificate of Alice Young. Birth registered in Victoria number 4807 of 1859. Caroline was also the informant on John Young’s birth in 1856. She signed with her mark on that certificate too.

 

Informant’s details from the birth certificate of James Ernest Young. Birth registered in Victoria number 20382 of 1878. Other details from the certificate and from the preceding certificate have been left to show the difference in handwriting, which suggests that this might be the signature of Caroline.
Sarah Way née Daw was the informant on the 1868 birth certificate of her daughter Emily Way. She could not sign her name and made a mark. However, in 1896 Sarah’s husband John Way signed his name as the informant for the registration of the death of his son John.

When she registered the birth in 1864 of Henry Dawson at Corby, Lincolnshire, Eliza Dawson née Skerritt, his mother, could not sign her name. Her husband Isaac was able to sign his name when they married in 1855. She signed the marriage register with her mark.

These are the only examples I could find in my family documents of people who could not write their own name. All three women were great great great grandmothers of my husband. Eleven of his other great great great grandparents could sign their name.

These women were all born in the first half of the nineteenth century. All their husbands could sign their own names. In the next generation, their children, both girls and boys, could write their own name.

Some demographers have argued that illiteracy is linked to the size of families, in particular that education diminishes fertility. For example, a study of demographic changes in Britain from the 1850s to the early twentieth century found that “the extension of basic literacy is related to increases in female labour market participation, which is in turn related to fertility reduction”. (Newell and Gazeley) The data from my family does not support this hypothesis. None of the women in the table below were ever in paid employment. I cannot see any link between the literacy of my own and my husband’s great great great grandparents and the size of their families.

 

Age at marriage, children and dates of birth for our great great great grandmothers

 

Name Ahnentafel number literacy number of children age at marriage age when first child born age when last child born age at death lived Notes
Caroline Clarke 33 no 13 18 18 43 44 1835-1879 Includes one set of twins.
Sarah Daw 35 no 10 17 18 37 58 1837-1895  
Ellen Murray 37 passenger list stated she could read and write 11 19 20 41 64 1837-1901  
Margaret Smyth 39 passenger list stated she could read and write 7 21 19 38 63 1834-1897 had a child before she married
Eliza Sinden 43 signature appears on birth and death certificates 8 25 26 41 85 1823-1908  
Eliza Skerrit 45 no 10 21 24 38 65 1834-1899 Includes one set of triplets. This is the only English family. The last child was born at the time Eliza’s husband, Isaac Dawson, died.
Caroline Ralph 47 signature appears on marriage certificate 10 20 21 43 46 1850-1896  
Annie Frances Chauncy 49 yes 2 20 21 24 25 1857-1883 died young
Jeanie Hawkins 51 yes 4 21 22 31 79 1862-1941  
Margaret Budge 53 yes 13 21 22 44 67 1845-1912  
Ellen Jane Mainwaring 55 yes 10 20 20 37 75 1845-1920  

The women in this table were Australian, with the exception of that of Eliza Skerrit, wife of Isaac Dawson, who was from Lincolnshire, England. I have not included my German great great great grandparents as I do not have the relevant data.

A graphical representation of the above data for our great great great grandmothers

click to enlarge

Reference:

  • Newell, A. and Gazeley, I. (2012) The declines in infant mortality and fertility: Evidence from British cities in demographic transition, Economics Department Working Paper Series, University of Sussex, No. 48-2012 retrieved from http://ftp.iza.org/dp6855.pdf 27 April 2014

N is for Naval husbands

15 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by Anne Young in A to Z 2014, Cavenagh-Mainwaring, navy, statistics, Wedding, World War 1

≈ 6 Comments

In 1895 my great-great-grandmother, Ellen Jane Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1845-1920), wife of Wentworth Cavenagh-Mainwaring (1822-1895), was widowed at the age of 49.  Of their ten children, six were daughters and five of these were unmarried. She saw all of them married before she died, even the youngest, Kiddie.

  • James Gordon (1865 – 1938) 
  • Eva Mainwaring (1867 – 1941) 
  • Mabel Alice (1868 – 1944) known as May
  • Wentworth Rowland (1869 – 1933) 
  • Orfeur Charles (1872 – 1890) 
  • Kathleen Mary (1874 – 1951) known as Kate
  • Hugh (1875 – 1953) 
  • Helen Maud (1877 – 1918) known as Nellie
  • Alice Mainwaring (1879 – 1952) known as Queenie
  • Gertrude Lucy (1882 – 1968) known as Kiddie

Ellen and her daughters were all born in Australia. In 1891 the family moved to England and lived at Southsea near Portsmouth when Ellen inherited the Whitmore estate in Staffordshire after the death of her brother Frederick (1859-1891). The estate was leased, hence The Cavenagh-Mainwaring family could not live there until the lease expired.

Christine Cavenagh-Mainwaring, writing in 2013, suggests that Ellen Jane, following her inheritance of the Whitmore Estate in 1891,

didn’t feel that Staffordshire offered sufficient suitable young men as potential husbands for her daughters, so being a very sensible and pragmatic woman, promptly took a house in Southsea, near to the naval base of Portsmouth where there were a considerable number of young naval officers and installed her bevy of girls there. (One can almost feel the approval of this strategy of Jane Austen’s Mrs Bennet. ) The girls duly obliged and in due course five of them married naval officers. (Cavenagh-Mainwaring, Christine and Britton, Heather, (editor.) Whitmore Hall : from 1066 to Waltzing Matilda. Adelaide Peacock Publications, 2013. pages 117-118)

This Jane Austen view of a bevy of girls needing husbands, on the marriage market, provides a misleading image of the Cavenagh-Mainwaring daughters. When the Cavenagh-Mainwaring women married they were not young. Eva married at the age 25 to a 41-year-old lieutenant, not a successful career officer. My great grandmother Kathleen was 27 when she married.  Helen was 25 when she married, Mabel was 37, Alice was 33 and Gertrude was 37. Perhaps their colonial Australian background hindered their marriage prospects, perhaps they were not interested marrying as quickly as possible, perhaps not all Victorian women married young and our assumptions are wrong about this aspect of Victorian  life.

My grandmother wrote on the back of the photograph that it was taken in 1908 and the names: Back row, left to right: Queenie Magee; Kate Cudmore; Nellie Millet Middle row, L to R: Eva Gedge; May Gillett Front centre: Kiddie Bennett

In 1892, the oldest daughter Eva married a naval officer, Herbert James Gedge (1851-1913). There were reports of the wedding in English and Australian newspapers. (For example A LADY’S LETTER. (1892, November 26). South Australian Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1889 – 1895), p. 18. Retrieved April 14, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92300620 .)

Launch of HMS Agammemnon at Chatham Dockyard from the Illustrated London News of September 27 1879

In September 1892 Herbert J. Gedge was appointed lieutenant and joined the Agamemnon. (“Naval & Military Intelligence.” Times [London, England] 24 Sept. 1892: 6. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.) He retired from the Navy as captain on 3 May 1904. (1912 Navy List page 645) He became an adviser in Egypt with the title of Pasha, a title denoting high rank or office. In 1913 Herbert Gedge died in Alexandria, Egypt. 

Eva and Herbert had two children: Norah (1894-1971 and Edward 1895-1991).

Kathleen, my great grandmother, married Arthur Murray Cudmore (1870-1951) in Melbourne, Australia in 1901. He was the only husband of these six daughters who was not in the navy. He was a doctor, a colleague of Kathleen’s brother Wentworth. Arthur would have known the Mainwarings in Adelaide, South Australia. He went to England to study. The Cudmores had two daughters, Rosemary (1904-1987) and Kathleen (1908-1913).

In 1902 Helen, known as Nellie, married Thompson Horatio Millett (1870-1920) in Hampshire.

Thompson Millet was appointed Fleet Paymaster in September 1909. (Navy List 1918 page 130) In the 1919 King’s Birthday Honours he was made Commander of the Bath (civil division). He then held the rank of Paymaster Commander (acting Paymaster Captain). (“Birthday Honours.” Times [London, England] 3 June 1919: 18+. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.) In recommending him for the post-war award Admiral Commanding 3rd battle Squadron,  Sir E. Bradford wrote

Paymaster Captain Thompson H. Millet, was my Secretary throughout the period of my command of the 3rd Battle Squadron, from June 1914, to July, 1916. Being almost always detached from the C-in-C’s Flag except at sea, and generally having addition battleship and cruiser squadron and a flotilla under my orders was a source of increased Secretarial work, and Paymaster Captain Millet performed his duties with untiring zeal and an admirable punctuality. ( from http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=28039)

Helen died in 1918 and Thompson in 1920. They had had three children, Hugh (1903-1968) and Guy (1907-1978), and a third child, who died in infancy.

“Deaths.” Times [London, England] 14 Apr. 1920: 1. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.

Mabel married Owen Francis Gillett (1863-1938) on 16 April 1906 at St Paul’s Church, Valletta, Malta.

“Marriages.” Times [London, England] 23 Apr. 1906: 1. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.

Elevation drawing of St Paul’s Valletta by the architect William Scamp in 1842. Retrieved from http://www.oneweekholiday.com/malta/valletta-floriana/st-pauls-anglican-cathedral-valletta-2/

In 1924 Owen Gillett retired as Vice-Admiral, and was promoted to Admiral on the retired list. His obituary in the Times mentioned his World War 1 service at the Cape, where he was senior naval officer at Simonstown for over three years. (“Admiral Gillett.” Times [London, England] 23 Mar. 1938: 16. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.)

Mabel and Owen had two children, Michael (1907-1971) and Anne (1911-?).

Alice, known as Queenie, married William Edward Blackwood Magee (1886-1981) on 14 August 1913 at St Simons, Southsea.

In December 1910, W.E.B. Magee gave his future mother-in-law a book of the first two operas of the Ring Cycle.  I wrote about the book at http://ayfamilyhistory.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/a-christmas-gift.html

In 1917 and again in 1918, as Lieutenant Commander, William Magee was mentioned in despatches as part of the honours for the Destroyers of the Harwich Force. ( London Gazette 22 June 1917 and Edinburgh Gazette 25 February 1919) In 1920, for services in the Baltic in 1919, Lieut.-Cdr. William Edward Blackwood Magee, R.N. was made Companion of the Distinguished Service Order, for distinguished services in command of H.M.S. “Watchman.”. (Edinburgh Gazette 10 March 1920) In 1945 Captain (Commodore second class, R.N.R.) William Edward Blackwood Magee, D.S.O., R.N. (Ret.), was appointed Commander of the Military Division of the Order of the British Empire for Distinguished Service in the War in Europe. (London Gazette 7 December 1945) William Edward Blackwood Magee became a Captain in 1929. (1939 Navy List).

Alice and William had two children, Richard (1915-1937) and Jean (1917-1996).

The Harwich Force Leaving for Sea by Philip Connard 1918. A view from the stern deck of a Royal Navy warship looking back at a convoy of warships arranged in two parallel lines. Four sailors stand on the deck. The foremost ships visible include light cruisers and a destroyer. The coastline is visible in the left background. © IWM (Art.IWM ART 1318)retrieved from http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/5431

Gertrude, known as Kiddie, married Edward Morden Bennett (1878-1941) on 30 April 1919 at St Thomas’s Church, Portsmouth.

In January 1919 Commander Edward Morden Bennett, R.N. was made Officer of the Military Division of the Order of the British Empire. (London Gazette 1 January 1919) At the time of his death he held the rank of Captain. 
 

“Deaths.” Times [London, England] 28 Apr. 1941: 1. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.

Kiddie and Edward had one daughter, Jean (1921-2009).

The six daughters of Ellen Jane Cavenagh-Mainwaring had a very different experience of marriage and motherhood to that of their mother. Ellen Jane married aged 19 and had ten children. Her daughters were aged between 25 and 37 when they married and had none of them had more than three children.

In the middle of the nineteenth century the mean age of women marrying in the United Kingdom was 25. (Woods, Robert (2000). The demography of Victorian England and Wales. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge ; New York page 82) Recent figures have age at first marriage in the United Kingdom as 28.5 for women in 2005 and in Australia at 27.7 as at 2009. (Age at first marriage. (2014, April 6). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 01:56, April 16, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Age_at_first_marriage&oldid=603021351) Historic figures for the United States show that the median age at first marriage for women was about 22 between 1890 and 1910, declining in 1920 and lowest in the 1950s and has climbed higher over the last decades to over 26 years old today. (US Census Bureau graph of Median age at first marriage by sex: 1890 to 2013  https://www.census.gov/hhes/families/files/graphics/MS-2.pdf ) The earliest figure I have for Australia is that the median marriage age for spinsters in 1921 was 25.2. This figure is not useful to compare to the Cavenagh-Mainwaring women as it is after World War I. (Vamplew, Wray (1987). Australians, historical statistics. Fairfax, Syme & Weldon Associates, Broadway, N.S.W., Australia page 46)

In composing this blog post I have realised how little I know about young women 100 years ago and my great grandmother and her sisters. I am unable to assess whether they were eager to be married or content to wait until the right person was there. I suspect they were financially able not to marry. Perhaps there was pressure on the youngest daughter not to marry and keep her mother company.

A related post  five of the girls attend a children’s ball in 1887: http://ayfamilyhistory.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/trove-tuesday-kathleen-cavenagh-dressed.html

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Pages

  • About
  • Ahentafel index
  • Books
    • Champions from Normandy
    • C F C Crespigny nee Dana
    • Pink Hats on Gentle Ladies: second edition by Vida and Daniel Clift
  • Index
    • A to Z challenges
    • DNA research
    • UK trip 2019
    • World War 1
    • Boltz and Manock family index
    • Budge and Gunn family index
    • Cavenagh family index
    • Chauncy family index
    • Cross and Plowright family index
    • Cudmore family index
    • Dana family index
    • Dawson family index
    • de Crespigny family index
    • de Crespigny family index 2 – my English forebears
    • de Crespigny family index 3 – the baronets and their descendants
    • Edwards, Ralph and Gilbart family index
    • Hughes family index
    • Mainwaring family index
      • Back to 1066 via the Mainwaring family
    • Sullivan family index
    • Young family index

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