In this study Mr Baines has devised a method of estimating the county of birth of all permanent emigrants from England and Wales in the last four decades of the nineteenth century - some 2.3 million people. He has related the rate and timing of migration to the social and economic characteristics of the counties, which has provided answers to many of the outstanding questions in the history of English emigration, including, for example, the idea of an 'Atlantic Economy' and the extent to which Welsh migration was distinct from or integrated into the English pattern. Briefly, the book concludes that the emigrants did not, in the main, come from 'peripheral' parts of the country. Probably one half of the emigrants had known no environment other than a large town. It is likely that English and Welsh emigrants were more likely to return than emigrants from any European country. Most of the emigrants seem to have been well-informed about the costs and benefits of moving - most probably from the experience of previous emigrants. English emigration could not therefore have been a simple flight from poverty, but was rather based on a well considered decision to leave home, although not necessarily for ever.

List of tables; List of figures; Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction: the scope of the study; 2. Issues in the history of European emigration, 1840¿1914; 3. The characteristics of British emigrants before 1914; 4. The estimation of migration by county of birth; 5. Return migration to Britain, 1860¿1914; 6. The birthplace of English and Welsh emigrants, 1861¿1900; 7. English and Welsh emigrants in the 1880s and 1890s; 8. Emigration and urban growth; 9. Rural-urban stage emigration, 1861¿1900; 10. Wales and the Atlantic economy, 1861¿1914; A summary of conclusions; Appendices; Bibliography; Index.