Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
1.1. a
(
above
) and
b
(
facing
). Average accessibility of rail transport in (
a
) England
and Wales, 1850-1920, and (
b
) France, 1860-1920.
a.
Average accessibility in the registration districts of England and Wales.
Sources:
Parish boundaries and associated population data from Ian Gregory;
rail lines and stations taken from M. H. Cobb,
The Railways of Great Britain, a
Historical Atlas,
2 vols. (Shepperton: Ian A llan, 2003), as digitized under the
direction of Jordi Martì Henneberg, University of Lleida, Spain.
Railways and Rural Transport
By 1890 railway expansion in England and Wales had developed more
than Jefferies was willing to admit. At the end of the 1880s there were
few rural registration districts - a market town and surrounding par-
ishes - that lacked a station and some connection, however indirect, with
the national system. Indeed, rail service began to reach the countryside
in the late 1850s and 1860s, twenty years before Jefferies wrote “Steam
on Country Roads.” Using the HGIS data on British railways and popu-
lation yields a more precise description in graphical and cartographical
displays. After calculating the distance in kilometers from the center of
each parish to the nearest railway station at a given date, a mean of the
