A misconception exists that people were not mobile in days gone by, that they were fixed in the village of their birth. Even then social mobility was recognised as a dynamic feature of the society of the time.
Common sense and the Parish registers, tell us that mobility of population was a natural part of the social order. Society was not static and villages were not socially isolated, with populations surprisingly mobile.
The Parish records show us that mobility. A family could appear in the parish, remain for a few years and then vanish. Some of this was through deaths but much of it was through necessity of employment.
The roads might have been dangerous and appaulingly difficult to navigate but people travelled around, albeit slowly.
Gentlemen and landowning nobles would travel around their properties, from the Manors in Devon and Kent to the House in London. The clergymen might move from one living to another, merchants by the nature of their business would travel too. A wealthy merchant would have a house in town, his place of business and a house in the country. And would move between the two. Every week they would go to the local market town or if they were wool merchants to the nearest Staple town where they met men from many places. Foreign merchants came to the Staple towns, such as Exeter and Barnstaple in Devon, because the wool and cloth from Devon was highly regarded abroad. They might also go to the port where their goods were being shipped, in Devon it was Plymouth, Dartmouth and Exeter. He might also make a trip to London once or twice a year to meet contacts from abroad or on a buying trip. Burgesses and citizens were more likely to stay put their businesses required their constant attention.
Agricultural labourers and their families had to find work wherever it was available. Young people their early teens in agricultural communities, went as servants to farmers. Human nature hasn�t changed so much that the restlessness of youth was not a factor. Young people did want to �see the world� or just �get away from mother and father�. Some managed to find work within their own community but most went off to nearby villages or in adjacent parishes. After a few years they would move on, taking an annual contract and moving on as work was available. They would eventually find permanent employment, settle, marry and stay put and the cycle would begin again. This round might be in an orbit around the village of their birth or they might go further afield, to the city.
The 18th century brought massive mobility when Enclosure brought the fencing and cultivation of the common lands, on which families depended to support their subsistence existence, forcing them to seek work anywhere they could find it.
ROADS
The roads of britain were dreadful for many centuries. Pot holed, filled with mud ,rife with highwaymen they were dangerous to travel alone. When coaches and carriages began to be the transport method of ordinary folk and the Royal Mail began to deliver post the roads were in desperate need of upgrading.
In 1750 the roads of Britain were probably in a worse state than in Roman times.
In response to the advances of the Industrial Revolution , with the increasing need for rapid transportation of goods, came men of imagination.
One was the blind man called Jack Metcalf who had an extraordinary ability to visulise the landscape. He gave Yorkshire the best roads in Britain by 1770.
The other was John McCadam who in 1816, at the age of 60, became Britain's foremost road builder. His name became synonymous with smooth, firm, well drained, well made roads.
population movement
(mainly in Devon)