Sam Taylor uses the 1901 Census to illustrate the impact of the Railway on the village of Riccall in his book “Riccall: a Village History”
Chapter 26: ‘Edwardian Riccall’, page 160:
‘Farming remained un-mechanized, heavily dependent on the horse for most operations, though the steam driven threshing machine that moved from farm to farm was now a familiar feature in the landscape harvest time. (Note that the list of village occupations the next page includes that of horse breaking.) A motorcar was a rare sight, the privilege of the rich, as photographs of the village streets attest, innocent of all traffic apart from the occasional pony and trap. After farming, domestic service was still an important employer; so, increasingly, was the railway. In 1901, 17 men in Riccall were railway employees, from the stationmaster to plate-layers, signalmen, gatekeepers (Riccall had two level crossings), clerks and porters. Most of them lived in tied houses, like the terrace of five (originally three) at Mount Pleasant, which survives, as do the stationmaster’s house and the two gatekeepers houses (now one) at the junction of York Road with the A19. The village end of Common Lane was re-christened Station Road.
Farmers were increasingly dependent on the railway for obtaining foodstuffs and fertiliser and for transporting their produce to market in York and Selby. Frank Outhwaite of Turnhead Farm, interviewed in 2014 at the age of 97, recalled how important the railway had become to farmers: there was “shoddy from Bradford to put on the land… seed potatoes… Irish cattle which were walked home along the A19.” Heavy commodities like coal and building materials – bricks, cement, sand – would now use the railway rather than the rivers. Railway sidings, sheds and the goods yard took up a sizable area of what had been part of Riccall’s East Field the first Riccall commuters were born – the handful of inhabitants like the bank clerk the insurance agent listed in the 1901 Census whose work took them to York or Selby.
Nevertheless, the village remained very largely self-sufficient, as it had been for centuries. The 1901 Census is a reminder of the remarkable range of occupations still practised in the village barely over a hundred years ago. Here is what you would find (note that there were several practitioners of some trades like blacksmith, shoemaker, gardener; The single largest occupation was, unsurprisingly, agricultural labourer).
agricultural labourer baker bank clerk basket maker
blacksmith bricklayer brick-maker butcher
charwoman clergyman drainer dressmaker
estate office clerk farmer gardener gamekeeper
grocer horse breaker innkeeper insurance agent
joiner newsagent nurse pig and cattle dealer
police constable postmaster potato merchant railway worker
road mender school master/mistress shoemaker
shopkeeper tailor timber merchant wheelwright
woodman
The river was no longer important to the economy of the village – the railway had usurped its major functions, so the warfingers had disappeared from the census, as well as the fisherman.