History of Campop

The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure (Campop) was founded in 1964 by Peter Laslett and Tony Wrigley to undertake quantitative research in family history and demographic history. Over the last 60 years the group has revolutionized the study of historical demography and social structure in Britain.

Early work at Campop concentrated on the use of parish registers and population listings, and breakthroughs included Laslett's discovery of the predominance of nuclear households in pre-industrial England, and Wrigley's work on fertility decline in Colyton. In 1966, Roger Schofield joined the Group. He quickly became involved with the Group's growing army of local data-gathering volunteers, and especially promoted the application of computer-aided analysis of the data they were accumulating.

The magazine and newsletter Local Population Studies was launched in 1968 as a means of communication with the volunteers, a forum which would enable common problems and new ideas to be discussed. The journal still thrives today.

The 1970s and 1980s saw Campop's reputation and impact grow. In 1981 Wrigley and Schofield's Population History of England 1541-1871 appeared, with a significant input from Jim Oeppen enabling an estimation of population size, age structure, life expectancy and total fertility. This landmark publication overturned conventional wisdom on the drivers of population growth. Generations of undergraduates are familiar with Laslett's and Richard Wall's Household and Family in Past Time (1972), and Wall, Laslett, and Robin's Family Forms in Historic Europe (1982). In 1997 Wrigley and Schofield, together with Ros Davies and Jim Oeppen, published a second magnum opus using parish register data, English Population History from Family Reconstitution 1580-1837, this time providing an unprecedented level of information about fertility, mortality and marriage in the pre-industrial era. Another major project on an anonymised sample of census records culminated in 2001 with the publication of Changing Family Size in England and Wales: Place, Class and Demography, 1891-1911 (Garrett, Reid, Schürer and Szreter).

Laslett, Wrigley, and Schofield remained integral members of Campop until their deaths in 2001, 2022 and 2019 respectively. In 1994 Richard Smith (who had been a member between 1974 and 1983) returned as Director, and in 2001 a move to the University of Cambridge's Geography Department brought new opportunities and collaborations. The group is now based in both the Geography Department and the History Faculty, and our current website holds details of projects since 2001, including (but by no means limited to) long-running projects on occupational structure; long-term mortality patterns; the demographic transition across the British Isles; and the harmonisation and use of micro-census data.

Campop's unique interdisciplinary approach, combining historical, geographical, and demographic expertise, continues to foster a vibrant research environment. International collaborations and a steady stream of graduate students, many of whom have gone on to distinguished careers, have further enriched the group's work. The collaborative ethos, sharing of technical knowledge, and commitment to the creation of high-quality datasets and their appropriate statistical analysis, have enabled Campop to remain a centre of research excellence for the last six decades.

Read the full text of Richard Smith's 60th anniversary keynote.

View the slides: Part 1 and Part 2.