Table 3.

Principal primary sources.

	Auckland, County Durham	Burnley, Lancashire	Bromley, Kent
School, church associational records	79 sets of elementary school logbooks 3 sets of church, Sunday school or charity records	46 sets of elementary schoollogbooks 10 sets of church, Sunday school, private school or charity records	33 sets of elementary school logbooks 14 sets of church, Sunday school, private school or charity records
Local state records	Poor Law and public health minutes 5 sets of school board minutes	Petty session court records from 1884 4 sets of school board minutes	Poor Law and public healthminutesPetty session court records from1890 5 sets of school board minutes
Personal sources	21 sets of personal papers	20 sets of personal papers	43 sets of personal papers 15 oral history testimonies
Local newspapers	Every edition of principal local newspapers was read for the three study localities 1859–61, 1869–71, 1879–81, 1889–91, 1899–1901, 1909–11. Additional editions of these newspapers were sampled around selected dates
National literature	The content of every edition of the 13 child-rearing manuals that were published in at least five editions or 10,000copies 1800–1914 was read and compared word-by-word A sample of national newspapers was also searched for specific themes and events
Census enumerators’ books 1861 and 1901	2.5% sample of all men and women resident in the same household as at least one individual aged less than 21years and described as son or daughter 1% sample of all children aged less than 21 years Further contextual details were accessed from all censuses 1841–1911 for named individuals