Chain Migration from the Lead Mines of Yorkshire to the Coal Mines and Cotton Mills of Lancashire

Lead mining families migrated en masse out of Swaledale in North Yorkshire as the mines failed in the late nineteenth century. Many emigrated overseas, and many more left for other industrial areas of England to find work. One attractive destination was North East Lancashire, with particular focus on Burnley and nearby settlements. Analysing transcripts of all individuals listed in the censuses of the 1800s shows that 92 entire groups of people with the same surname (isonymic groups or ‘clans’) left the dale (or became extinct) over the course of the second half of the century. The clan with the greatest decline in the number of individuals in Swaledale over this time period was that with the surname Alderson. Family reconstitution from census data shows that 42 people called Alderson made the journey from Swaledale to Burnley between 1851 and 1911. Migrant men found employment as coal miners and their wives and daughters worked in the cotton mills. Arrivals concentrated in the vicinity of other migrants in the cotton town of Brierfield and the south-eastern part of Burnley. Family units tended to reside in their destinations close to other dalesmen in a pattern of chain migration.