Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The Great Britain Historical Database has been assembled as part of the ongoing Great Britain Historical GIS Project. The project aims to trace the emergence of the north-south divide in Britain and to provide a synoptic view of the human geography of Britain at sub-county scales. Further information about the project is available on A Vision of Britain webpages, where users can browse the database's documentation system online.This study assembles historical data from the National Insurance system, plus some data from trade union welfare systems gathered and published by the Board of Trade Labour Department. The data were computerised by the Great Britain Historical GIS Project. They form part of the Great Britain Historical Database, which contains a wide range of geographically-located statistics, selected to trace the emergence of the north-south divide in Britain and to provide a synoptic view of the human geography of Britain, generally at sub-county scales. Most of the data here was originally published by the Ministry of Labour, either in the Labour Gazette, later the Employment Gazette, or in the specialised Local Unemployment Index (LUI), published between 1927 and 1939. The largest dataset here is a complete transcription of the LUI data for each January, April, July and October from January 1927 to July 1939 inclusive, the most detailed information that exists on the geography of the inter-war depression, other than the 1931 census. Unlike census data, these data concern a wide range of regions, "divisions", "districts", towns and sometimes areas within towns, seldom defined (the LUI data do list counties). The study therefore also includes two specially constructed gazetteers which attempt to provide towns and areas within towns with point coordinates. Another limitation is that these data generally provide counts of the unemployed, but not counts of the insured, or numbers in...