Migration To Sheffield From The West Bromwch Areas T

[popt]

During my researches on the Timmins Family who migrated from West Bromwich to Sheffield in the late 1800s I have noticed how many people moved up from that area. When I go through the Census returns there are whole groups at different addresses that were born in the West Midlands. I realise there were pits, Iron and Steel works as there was in the Midlands but can anyone explain why there was such a migration at that time leaving their home towns?

Thinking about it with their string accents it must have been akin to moving to a different country. We here so much about migration from orther countries but I think we forget about the migrations within our own country.

PopT

[johnm]

During my researches on the Timmins Family who migrated from West Bromwich to Sheffield in the late 1800s I have noticed how many people moved up from that area. When I go through the Census returns there are whole groups at different addresses that were born in the West Midlands. I realise there were pits, Iron and Steel works as there was in the Midlands but can anyone explain why there was such a migration at that time leaving their home towns?

Thinking about it with their string accents it must have been akin to moving to a different country. We here so much about migration from orther countries but I think we forget about the migrations within our own country.

PopT

My wife's Evans ancestors were born in Wednesbury but most of the male brothers moved to Sheffield in the late 1850's. My Moore ancestors moved from north east Lincs to Sheffield at the same time as did my Morris ancestors who moved from Bingham in Notts. It would appear Sheffield was the centre of the universe at that time !

I guess 2 things were the catalyst for this to happen. Firstly the newly laid railway network made travel much easier ; this would also mean that news of a booming jobs market in Sheffield would be passed farther than before. Secondly the boom in industrial jobs in Sheffield particularly following Henry Bessemers invention in 1856 of a converter making real bulk steel for the first time. So the vastly increased steel make necessitated expansion of steel mills & other downstream steel works activities.

It's worth also remembering that it was only in 1843 that Sheffield was incorporated as a Borough. A graph showing the major increase in Sheffield's population at teh time is attached.

Hope that at least gives some clues!

[popt]

My wife's Evans ancestors were born in Wednesbury but most of the male brothers moved to Sheffield in the late 1850's. My Moore ancestors moved from north east Lincs to Sheffield at the same time as did my Morris ancestors who moved from Bingham in Notts. It would appear Sheffield was the centre of the universe at that time !

I guess 2 things were the catalyst for this to happen. Firstly the newly laid railway network made travel much easier ; this would also mean that news of a booming jobs market in Sheffield would be passed farther than before. Secondly the boom in industrial jobs in Sheffield particularly following Henry Bessemers invention in 1856 of a converter making real bulk steel for the first time. So the vastly increased steel make necessitated expansion of steel mills & other downstream steel works activities.

It's worth also remembering that it was only in 1843 that Sheffield was incorporated as a Borough. A graph showing the major increase in Sheffield's population at teh time is attached.

Hope that at least gives some clues!

Thanks for the information JohnM.

I can see how Sheffield would have been attractive from a work point of view for anone working on the land where they were lucky to get work for 2 or 3 days a week but for miners & ironworkers there must have been some good reason for the families to move en masse.

I wonder why a large family like mine would pull their roots after the family had lived and worked through the generations for 350 years in the West Bromwich/Dudley area.

The question I ask myself is did the work run out in the West Bromwich area. It certainly wasn't for better housing as they moved to Buck Croft which had the worst housing conditions in England.

The other problem would be their speech, They spoke in a very heavy dialect which would have been a foreign language to Sheffielders, although living along other Staffies they would have networked for jobs and their needs.

PopT

[Simon Greenwood]

This matches my query about my ancestors moving from the iron industry in the Forest of Dean to Sheffield. The Bessemer process probably lead to the growth of the steel industry as opposed to iron smelting and created the need for a new workforce that had experience in iron processing. This is all supposition but despite the development of inter-city train transport, mass transport within the cities was probably still sparse and beyond the reach of the new workers, so it made sense for the workers to live within walking distance of their places of work, which created districts such as Neepsend. Would this migration also give rise to the adage that you could once tell the streets that many Sheffielders lived on by their accents? It would make sense that incomers would cluster together in their own communities as well as work in the same factories, but that over time they would both dissipate into the general community and their dialects would blend with the local dialect while remaining sufficiently distinctive over the years. Someone *must* have done that study.

[vox]

Would this migration also give rise to the adage that you could once tell the streets that many Sheffielders lived on by their accents? It would make sense that incomers would cluster together in their own communities as well as work in the same factories, but that over time they would both dissipate into the general community and their dialects would blend with the local dialect while remaining sufficiently distinctive over the years. Someone *must* have done that study.

If they have I'd like to see it.

As well as the period you're referring to, there were further melting pots when the various slum clearances put people from different areas together in new housing estates

I've been intrigued for years about our dialect, and I've been aware that there doesn't seem to have been a "standard" At least not when I was young.

(Now we come to the bits where it's almost impossible to convey in written words)

It was equally common to hear "givova" as "geeor" (or even the more posh "give over" )

Yours, yorn or thine. etc.

Unfortunately, because of the lack of extra symbols you'd need, I don't think it's a subject which can't be dealt with by the written word. The glottal stops, the particular vowel pronunciations, can only be explained audibly. (I think)

If you were to write the exclamation "now" (meaning the opposite of yes), only a local person would know that it shouldn't be pronounced as "now" (meaning at this moment)

A lot of the differences that I remember as being common were quite subtle and they definitely need to be heard in order to be conveyed.

[DaveH]

If they have I'd like to see it.

As well as the period you're referring to, there were further melting pots when the various slum clearances put people from different areas together in new housing estates

I've been intrigued for years about our dialect, and I've been aware that there doesn't seem to have been a "standard" At least not when I was young.

(Now we come to the bits where it's almost impossible to convey in written words)

It was equally common to hear "givova" as "geeor" (or even the more posh "give over" )

Yours, yorn or thine. etc.

Unfortunately, because of the lack of extra symbols you'd need, I don't think it's a subject which can't be dealt with by the written word. The glottal stops, the particular vowel pronunciations, can only be explained audibly. (I think)

If you were to write the exclamation "now" (meaning the opposite of yes), only a local person would know that it shouldn't be pronounced as "now" (meaning at this moment)

A lot of the differences that I remember as being common were quite subtle and they definitely need to be heard in order to be conveyed.

It would make a very interesting study.

As vox says many of our words would be very difficult to write down and we do appear to have several words for the same thing.

In my usage I actually use ALL of the words vox quotes.

"Give over" is used "posh" when talking professionally or to non Sheffielders.

"Givover" is used to mean "stop messing about" in the way that "Gerrawaywithi" means stop pulling my leg / leading me astray

"Geoer" (spelt differently to vox to emphasis the inadequacy of the written word) quite definately means "Stop it!"

Likewise

"Yours" is the "posh" version

"Yorn" is common in Derbyshire which is where I am most likely to use it. It seems to have implications of refering to a singular article in the present tense.

"Thine" is what I would be more likely to use or even "It belongs to thee" to draw it out a bit.

But they can't all mean the same can they?

You can sign a letter "Yours sincerely" but NOT "Yorn sincerely" or even "Thine sincerely"

Apart from looking and sounding wrong they don't seem to have the same meaning in this context.

"Now" I would quite definately pronounce "Naar", which can also mean a sort of well considered "No" to replace "Neaw"

Naar dat talkin' ;-)

[vox]

It would make a very interesting study.

As vox says many of our words would be very difficult to write down and we do appear to have several words for the same thing.

In my usage I actually use ALL of the words vox quotes.

"Give over" is used "posh" when talking professionally or to non Sheffielders.

"Givover" is used to mean "stop messing about" in the way that "Gerrawaywithi" means stop pulling my leg / leading me astray

"Geoer" (spelt differently to vox to emphasis the inadequacy of the written word) quite definately means "Stop it!"

Likewise

"Yours" is the "posh" version

"Yorn" is common in Derbyshire which is where I am most likely to use it. It seems to have implications of refering to a singular article in the present tense.

"Thine" is what I would be more likely to use or even "It belongs to thee" to draw it out a bit.

But they can't all mean the same can they?

You can sign a letter "Yours sincerely" but NOT "Yorn sincerely" or even "Thine sincerely"

Apart from looking and sounding wrong they don't seem to have the same meaning in this context.

"Now" I would quite definately pronounce "Naar", which can also mean a sort of well considered "No" to replace "Neaw"

Naar dat talkin'

All of which makes total sense to us doesn't it Dave, but is possibly lost on someone who doesn't know that a glottle stopped "t" sounds little or nothing like an actual "t"

Or that "aa" in "naar" or in "caa" (car) isn't the same as in the correct pronunciation of aardvark. (which funnily enough in Sheffield becomes Aardvaark)

The nearest I can get to explaining "aa" is that it is similar to an East Ender's pronunciation of "ou" in Southend (ie Saarfend) But then again, one has to be familiar with London accents to understand that.

Or perhaps another way of explaining "aa" is a shortened version of the exclamation heard when someone falls of a cliff. (Aaaaaaaaaaagh !)

Then how on earth do we explain our "over" ? Nearest I can get is "o" ~ "v" together, pronounced in the way that infants are first taught the ABC. Which looks like "ov" and so could be mistaken for being pronounced like "of"

We need our own version of the alphabet.

[DaveH]

All of which makes total sense to us doesn't it Dave, but is possibly lost on someone who doesn't know that a glottle stopped "t" sounds little or nothing like an actual "t"

Or that "aa" in "naar" or in "caa" (car) isn't the same as in the correct pronunciation of aardvark. (which funnily enough in Sheffield becomes Aardvaark)

The nearest I can get to explaining "aa" is that it is similar to an East Ender's pronunciation of "ou" in Southend (ie Saarfend) But then again, one has to be familiar with London accents to understand that.

Or perhaps another way of explaining "aa" is a shortened version of the exclamation heard when someone falls of a cliff. (Aaaaaaaaaaagh !)

Then how on earth do we explain our "over" ? Nearest I can get is "o" ~ "v" together, pronounced in the way that infants are first taught the ABC. Which looks like "ov" and so could be mistaken for being pronounced like "of"

We need our own version of the alphabet.

Then there is the "oo" sound, which is not pronounced like it looks in standard English, as in the words "door" and "floor"

Standard posh English has these pronounced as "dore" (to us that's a place! ) and "flore"

But to us it is "doower" and "floower"

As I am sure you will have often said in your job vox,-

"Al aft ter oppen't doower to get caarpit darn 'ont floower" lol

[vox]

As I am sure you will have often said in your job vox,-

"Al aft ter oppen't doower to get caarpit darn 'ont floower"

Can't say I have ---- but you can be sure I will be doing from now on. he he