This is, once again, the year of the Census. It is a decadal event. From it the Government learns the national population, regional movements of population, units of housing - and much more.
The censuses of England and Wales from 1801 to 1831 concerned themselves with numbers. In 1841 names were recorded for the first time. There were obvious deficiencies however, e.g. adults1 ages were rounded up to the nearest '0' or '5'; relationships were omitted and precise places of birth were not given. From 185l, these defects were remedied.
Personal information in the censuses is regarded as secret and not available to the public until 100 years have passed. In 1991, therefore, there will be made available to the public the details of the 1891 census. The originals for each parish are housed at the Land Registry in the London Public Record Office but, in recent years, individual county record offices have obtained microfilm copies and thus saved researchers the cost of travelling to London.
The recent increase of interest in genealogy among the general public soon resulted in the 19th century census returns becoming very popular as sources of family history. A good proportion of people on any given day in any county record office is sure to be examining the micro-filmed census returns. This explains the rapid increase in reading machines in these places.
Census returns are a primary source of information but it does not mean that they are free from error. The enumerators who visited peoples? Houses varied in education and aptitude and sometimes got the family surname or christian names wrong In a large family it was not difficult to make mistakes with relationships, ages and places of birth. The respondents too might on occasion give deliberate misinformation: - a shop assistant might call himself a 'bookseller', or an agricu1tural labourer a 'farmer'.
The 20th century censuses when they come to be read will be easier to follow the 19th century ones. Taking Alcester as an example, houses and shops in the last century were not numbered: one has to suppose that the enumerator went straight down one side of a street and did not, for some reason criss-cross the road. There is no means of knowing, if someone was out, whether the official went back later and tacked it on the end of the list. In the countryside it is easier, for individual farms are usually named. Worming on a 19th century census return is like doing a jig-saw, except that rarely do all the pieces fit; only by comparing the entries with other materia1, such as photographs, house deeds and directories, can sense often be made.
However, whatever difficulties in prising out the information which one wants, one thing is certain: the queues at record offices this year will be longer than ever as soon as the counties put on display the census of 1891
Spring 1991 Index
© Alcester & District Local History Society 1991