"We started off by reading the census for 1901. We got a group of names from the people who used to live here back in 1901 and went to see the streets where they lived. We transcribed the census data into a database, and then we made graphs using spreadsheet software.

I looked in particular at two streets, Weir Street and Milford Road. The graphs show that many of the people in Milford Road were not from Newtown. For example, two came from Staffordshire and one came from Somerset. The results for Weir Street were similar but a lot of the people were poor and there were no professionals, e.g there were four solicitors in Milford Road but none in Weir Street.

Another member of the team looked at The Bank. The houses were posh and there were lots of servants. And a few people were so rich they didn't need any jobs.

Another student investigated a part of Market Street and found that there were more locals than incomers. There were lot of people who worked selling things as well as domestic servants and a few working in the flannel trade and clothing manufacture.

Most of the people who came to Newton came from nearby but a few came from Jamaica and America.

The group has started looking at 1861. We can see that there were many more people living in the town at that time and the data we have studied so far shows the influence of the flannel trade for which Newtown was famous."

Article written by Josh Jones.