This paper uses parish burial records to examine the impact of the 1727–1731 mortality crisis in Bedfordshire. This was a significant local event resulting in almost 4,000 excess deaths relating to multiple overlapping events starting in the autumn of 1727 and ending in the spring of 1731. It is argued that the temporal and geographic spread of burials is indicative of epidemic disease, most likely typhus and influenza-like infections, with famine playing, at best, a minor and localised role. The spread and impact of the disease was socially selective though with an element of differentiation. The elderly, the labouring poor and those living in urban areas found themselves at greatest risk, due to age-related susceptibility and their cramped living conditions, which created the conditions that allowed disease to spread effectively. Death rates among the traditional poor reduced during the crisis, possibly representing the triumph of effective local parish arrangements under the Old Poor Law.

The case of the Ukrainian community in the Italian town of Cagliari is analysed in order to investigate how the dividing political and geopolitical events which have affected the independent Ukraine since 1991 have produced significant evolution in the sense of identity of this community, particularly through heterolocalism and transnational projections of ongoing conflicts and ethnic redefinition. Diasporas tend to develop their own peculiar relation and sense of belonging to the homeland, either tightening their ties with the place of origin, and closely reproducing the related representations, or producing new interpretations and visions. The aim of the research was to focus on some of the numerous aspects of ethnic identity redefinition in their transnational dimension, adding to these themes the further challenging consequences of geopolitical conflicts.

This interdisciplinary study focuses on tenement (house) size, as recorded in the census in 1901, to explore demographic and social contrasts in Chepstow, an historic market town and river port in south-east Monmouthshire. For three contrasting enumeration districts, it contextualises this measure of housing status against the characteristics of the built environment, and applies the technique of house repopulation to derive spatial patterns of social difference and inequality from residents' age, household formation, net lifetime migration, and employment circumstances in the stagnating local economy. The study re-scales the investigative methods used by urban historians in city-wide studies of urban ecology and demonstrates how tenement size, a crude but under-utilised measure of housing stock, can support micro-scale studies of social differentiation in small but regionally significant towns. Equally as important, it provides an insight into the case-specific processes and particular outcomes of urbanisation during the nineteenth century in rural Monmouthshire.

The census manuscripts of 1841 and 1851 show that Cornwall was just a way-station for the Irish-born. They came from southern Ireland, put down few local roots and moved on, with only 30 per cent remaining in the county and 15 per cent in the same parish. Few found jobs in agriculture or mining, Cornwall's leading industries. Many were unmarried and, of those who were married, most had English spouses. In 1841 60 per cent of Irish husbands with Irish wives had military or government connections. Perhaps 20 per cent of the Irish-born were not migrants in the usual sense, being visitors, students or the children of English-born parents.

The boards of guardians were an essential part of the machinery of administering the New Poor Law, yet little has been written about who they were or how they operated. This article examines the men who made up the boards of guardians in four Hertfordshire unions during the early years of the New Poor Law, and presents an analysis of their occupational and social status, age, length of service and attendance at board meetings. It concludes that these Hertfordshire boards were regionally and locally diverse in their composition and were not—as is often claimed—constituted of farmers and shopkeepers. However, when the active participation of individual guardians is taken into consideration, this research finds that a small cohort of middle-aged elite men was managing each union.

This article examines the living arrangements of older people through digitised transcripts of the 1851 and 1891 census enumerators' books for eight Hertfordshire communities. The percentages of older people living with their offspring were higher than expected, especially in rural parishes. However, relationships between older people and their offspring were recorded in urban society through family business and strong ties to local industry. By 1891, co-residence between older people and their offspring generally declined when the older people migrated inwards to suburban and urban parishes and the offspring left parishes suffering from agricultural depression. The argument that familial support was more directed towards older women in the nineteenth century is not confirmed. The proportions of older men and women co-residing with offspring were found in 1851 and 1891 to be roughly in equal measure, and the proportions of older men co-residing with offspring increased by 1891. Even when adjustments were made to exclude almshouse residence and incorporate those living with extended kin only, a bias of familial support towards women was not universally reflected across each parish. The differences in living arrangements by geography and by gender can be explained by occupational structure, almshouse accommodation, social welfare changes, widowhood, and migratory habits, which reinforce the importance of familial support for older people in nineteenth century society.