The pursuit of growth preoccupied Haligonians through their first century. Population figures constitute a key indicator of growth and in the case of Halifax they reveal faulty performance. During the eighteenth century the population fluctuated between approximately 1,200 and 5,000, depending on whether peace or war prevailed. Through the first half of the nineteenth century, Halifax experienced a net expansion of population but the growth rate remained highly erratic: 1801 (8,552); 1817 (11,156); 1827 (14,439); 1838 (14,422); 1851 (20,749). These figures do not show the severe drop in population that occurred after 1817, during the mid 1830s and at the end of the 1840s.
The impression of instability and stagnation is reinforced if one examines the geographical limits of settlement in Halifax, comparing the years 1749, 1795 and 1855. Admittedly, the imperial authorities distorted development by prohibiting houses on the fields west of Citadel Hill. Nevertheless, as this map shows, growth could be largely accommodated within the boundaries of the original eighteenth-century townsite. Another hundred years would pass before the entire peninsula had been built up. It must be concluded, therefore, that both as a garrison and as a commercial entrepot, Halifax failed to achieve dynamic and sustained growth. The inset of this map locates Halifax on the narrows leading into Bedford Basin.
