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Contents |
These web pages are intended to introduce students to the Victorian censuses. If you are new to the Internet please read this introduction carefully. You should also read the Introductory Guide to the Internet in the Doing Sociology Module Handbook. At present there is comparatively little material available on the Internet of interest to historians, sociologists, geographers and demographers with an interest in nineteenth-century society. The amount of material available is, however, growing rapidly. The Association for History and Computing have an excellent web site which references most of the available materials and there are also web sites at both Queen Mary College and Queen's University Belfast. Other material not to be ignored has been put onto the Internet by family historians in both Britain and the United States.
Beginning in 1801, and excepting 1941, a census has been held in Britain every ten years. The first four censuses were little more than simple head counts of the population. In 1841 the first modern census was held. Each householder was required to complete a census schedule giving the address of the household, the names, ages, sexes, occupations and places of birth of each individual residing in his or her accommodation. In 1851 householders were asked to give more precise details of the places of birth of each resident, to state their relationships to him or her, marital statuses and the nature of any disabilities from which they may have suffered. Apart from a few minor changes the basic structure of the census schedule did not change until 1891. Householders were then asked how many rooms (if less then five) their family occupied. Additional occupational data was collected and, in Wales, people were asked to say if they spoke the Welsh language.
After the census schedules had been collected by enumerators they were copied into special Census Enumerators' Books, from which the printed census volumes were compiled.
The principal unit used for the presentation of census material in the mid-nineteenth century was that of the Poor Law Union or Registration District. Materials were also published at the level of the Registration County. For additional information click on the relevant options below.
Introduction to the Census Enumerators Books
In 1851 two additional censuses were undertaken: the
religious census (Command Paper, 1690 (1853)) and the
education census (Command Paper 1692 (1854)).
To undertake the education census, enumerators were
required to leave a separate census schedule with each house
or other place that called itself a school. This sought
information on the numbers of day and Sunday scholars both
belonging to and attending each school, the ages of
scholars, and the religious and secular affiliations of each
school. Additional information was also sought on the sizes
of classrooms and the salaries of teachers, and questions
were also asked about school governors (see Goldstrom, 1978).
It is not known how complete the census of schools was. It is
likely that most of the public schools (run, in the main, by
churches) were enumerated, but some small private schools may
have been missed. Some of these private schools, however,
were little more than 'child minding establishments' and 'in
708 cases, establishments were styled schools ... despite the
fact that the teachers signed the census form with a mark'
(Goldstrom, 1978: 227).
The religious census was undertaken in a similar way
to the education census: that is, enumerators were required
to leave a census form with every church, chapel, building or
room in their districts which was used regularly as a place
of worship. The information sought included details of the
amount of accommodation available and the number of persons
present at each service held on the 30th March 1851
(Thompson, 1978). The results of the census were published in
a separate census volume and include a series of tables
showing both the total accommodation available for members of
each religious denomination and the total attendance at the
morning, afternoon and evening services in each registration
district. The main problem with the religious census relates
to the incompleteness of the returns. Because enumerators
were asked to seek out every place of worship in their
district it seems likely that some smaller places of worship
(such as meeting rooms) would have been missed. Moreover,
many forms were only partially completed and thus out of
34,467 completed forms, 2,524 contained no information about
sittings and 1,394 contained no information about attendance.
However, in compiling the published tables the census
authorities attempted to overcome this problem by estimating
both the total attendance and the number of sittings
(Thompson, 1978: 247) .
1851 Religious Census for the Potteries
1851 Education Census for the Potteies
In the early nineteenth-century, the main source of
information available on the numbers of births, marriages and
deaths in England and Wales was that supplied to the census
authorities by the clergy who had been required, since 1538,
to keep registers recording of all chuch baptisms, marriages
and burials. By the mid-1830s, deficiencies in the nature of
this information was becoming apparent. Many people were
simply not baptized, and the burial registers gave no
indication as to the causes of people's deaths. This
situation led to demands for the establishment of a universal
system of registration, which was set up in England and Wales
in 1837 when two Acts of Parliament (the Registration
Act and the Marriage Act of 1836) stipulated that
all births, marriages and deaths be registered (see Nissel,
1987). Under the acts, certificates were issued for the
registration of vital events. Birth certificates recorded the
child's name, the date and place of birth, together with the
parents' name and the father's occupation. Marriage
certificates recorded the names of the bride and bridegroom,
the date and place of the marriage, their occupations,
together with their addresses, and fathers' names and
occupations. Brides and bridegrooms were also required
to sign the marriage register with their usual signatures or with 'marks',
if they were illiterate. Death certificates included
the name, age and sex of the deceased, together with the
place, date and cause of death.
Like the census, responsibility for the collection
and publication of vital events lay with the General Register
Office in London. Each registration district had a
superintendent registrar who was responsible for
administering the system of vital registration at the local
level. In turn, each registration district was sub-divided
into a number of sub-districts with a registrar who was
responsible for the actual registration of births and deaths.
Under the Marriage Act of 1836, marriages were treated
somewhat differently to births and deaths in that, in
addition to civil marriages, which were the responsibility of
registrars, Anglican churches and some other places of
religious worship were allowed to register marriages in their
own right.
Details of births, marriages and deaths were recorded
in special registers and every three months registrars, were
required to send details of each vital event to the
superintendent registrars who, in turn, forwarded copies to
the Registrar General in London, where statistical records of
vital events broken down by registration district were
compiled. These were published in a series of abstract tables
in the Registrar General's Annual Report. The abstract
tables of births, marriages and deaths showed the numbers of
legitimate births, illegitimate births, marriages and deaths
occurring in each registration district in the preceding
twelve months.
The abstract marriage table included details of the
religious denominations of marriages, the numbers of
marriages occurring in each quarter, the marital statuses of
brides and bridegrooms (that is whether they were single,
widowed or divorced), the numbers of brides and bridegrooms
who were aged under 21 and the numbers 'signing' the marriage
register with a mark. The latter was a crude measure of
literacy.
The Registrar General's Annual Report for 1861
also included abstract tables showing both the causes of
deaths and the ages at which people had died.
Finally, to coincide with the 1861 census, the
Registrar General published a Decennial
Supplement which included a series of tables showing the
numbers and causes of deaths occurring in each registration
district in the previous ten years.
Goldstrom, J.M. (1978) 'Education in England and
Wales in 1851: the Education Census of Great Britain, 1851',
in Lawton, op. cit..
Higgs, E. (1996) A Clearer
Sense of the Census. London: HMSO.
Lawton, R. (ed., 1978)
The Census and Social Structure. London: Frank
Cass
Thompson, D.M. (1978) 'The Religious Census of 1851',
in Lawton op. cit..
Nissel, M. (1987) People Count:
A History of the General Register Office. London: HMSO.
1851 Religious Census for the Potteries
1851 Education Census for the Potteies
Report of the the Children's Employment Commission
Staffordshire and the Potteries in the 1840s
Cheshire and South Lancashire Poor Law Unions
Stoke-on-Trent: The City that Fires the Imagination
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