WHY THE CENSUS? 

The Census was started in England in 1801 solely to discover the size of the population of the country. It was unpopular as people thought it was for taxation purposes and no one likes to pay taxes.

It takes place every ten years when on a particular date the head of every household has to register, on pain of a fine, the number of residents in the abode that night.

As during the early years so many were illiterate, an enumerator was given a definite area in which to visit every house to record the information. In 1841 this was simply the house name or number followed by the surname and forename of the head, his marital status and the country of his birth and the same for each of his family. As education improved the enumerator now just delivers the form for the household to complete.

The completed form is returned to the enumerator who summarises all the information on to the forms, before sending them to London to be stored for posterity. This information is not released for one hundred years.

The 1891 Census form contained 16 columns. The first two were the house number or name and the street name. Then on to show if the house was occupied, followed by one showing whether it was under construction and next the number of rooms occupied. This tells us if there was overcrowding. Then for historians the important part of the form: the full name of each person in the house beginning with the Head, followed by the relationship of each member to the Head, their marital condition and age. Then comes a column for occupations which can be most revealing, particularly in the case of young children going out to work at an early age. We can also tell the status of the adult, whether they were employed, employers or out of work. Next came another interesting column - the place of birth - which shows who were born locally and who came into the area for some reason. The final column records the disabled i.e. the blind, deaf and dumb or mentally deficient.

Thus you can see the amount of information which can be obtained from the Census.